Did Netflix give us reality TV's biggest villains of all time? Or just great game play?
Dear newsletter friends,
The talk of the reality TV competition world this week has been Netflix's newest show, Outlast.
It's basically a combination of Alone and Lord of the Flies, Survivor without any rules.
Perhaps, as I write in my spoiler-filled review, I'm just desensitized, or a broken human being. But I was not all that horrified. 😆
What happened seemed like clever, creative game play, within the rules—or, you know, lack thereof.
The robust discussion on my review even includes one of the players—join in once you've watched!
💃 Drag Race
Drag performers and trans people have been under sustained attack—and only recently did we hear from Drag Race’s RuPaul, Paramount, and World of Wonder.
They've been using queens' stories and trauma to create TV, and yet only now did they speak up, suggesting only a donation to the ACLU.
I found their response and advice to be inadequate—but what have I been doing besides feeling hopeless?
So I wrote this:
😃 Recaps!
Top Chef 20:
Survivor 44:
Episode 3: Will Survivor’s hidden immunity idols soon be worthless?
Jeff Probst explains why there will never be a back-to-basics season
The Traitors UK:
Episodes 1 to 12, including those amazing final two episodes
Big Brother Canada 11
Hamsterwatch continues her excellent coverage of BBCAN11:
Digital Dailies: Monday's slop, Friday's microwave mishaps
Episode 3: The ‘hot mess express’: screaming, handcuffs, and sponcon
Episode 4: CEO Bro’s arrogance, showmances, and shifting alliances take center stage
Episode 5: Who was BBCAN11’s first evictee? What’s the ‘unseen game’? Sweatergate? Savage Sisters?
📺 This week on reality TV
The week's reality show premieres included:
A Naked and Afraid spin-off
Queens Court, a new dating show on which Tamar Braxton, Evelyn Lozada, and Nivea date 21 men
New seasons of Pawn Stars, Return to Amish, and Put A Ring On It
Among specials and docs premiering this week are:
Netflix's Pornhub doc
Frontline's look at the Age of Easy Money
Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman
🗞️ Reality TV news
Fboy Island, and a spin-off Fgirl Island, appear to be heading to The CW
Charity Lawson will be the star of ABC's The Bachelorette season 20 this summer
Joy Gordo won the Casting Society of America's Unscripted Casting Producer Spotlight Award, while and Goloka Bolte and Ethan Petersen won for casting RuPaul's Drag Race.
What's it like at Schwartz & Sandy's during "Scandoval"? Emily Yahr went there to find out: "A night out at ground zero of the ‘Scandoval’ reality TV earthquake."
💬 Comments of the week
"I can not thank you enough for being an intelligent human being! How can the world really not see that this is not “reality”! It was a game!!! Alpha team in the name itself was a suggestion of game play! Of course we were Alpha females- you cast us to be! We didn’t pick our team name or the location we were placed in!"
—Jill Ashlock, on this review
It’s one thing to play a cutthroat game. It’s another thing to have a double standard about it.
—NOYB, also on this review
🤩 I recommend
This show, if only to join the conversation
Still this show, which I look forward to every week
These resources, to help many of our favorite reality stars—and just our fellow human beings
Jeff Probst's podcast, which has great insight into his thinking
Watching this season before it leaves Netflix tomorrow!
That's all I have for this week. Thanks for reading reality blurred, and I'll see you in your inbox next Friday.
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 239 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent 17 March 2023, and it would not survive in the Alaska cold, with or without a sleeping bag
📸 Photo of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland by Henrique Craveiro