Don't miss this Survivor • Big Brother cover-up • Biggest Loser reaction
Australian Survivor is on fire, Big Brother is covering up another white guy's toxic behavior, people reacted to The Biggest Loser producer's comments, and more!
Dear newsletter friends,
Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Survivor: Borneo’s finale. I’ll be sending a special issue of this newsletter to you then to celebrate, with some looks back.
Also if someone can please let me know where those 25 years went, I’d appreciate it!
This week, I flew to Australia—I’ve found great travel deals on YouTube—to watch my first season of Australian Survivor, and it has not disappointed.
As I wrote in my recap of the first episode, it reminded me of going back in time, watching one of the golden years of US Survivor.
I hope you can make the trip, too! 😉 There are three episodes each week for the next three weeks or so, every Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and if you’re missing this, you’re missing some of the best Survivor in years!
🏝️ My recaps so far:
Episode 2: A stunningly great Survivor episode—and just Australia v The World’s second!
Episode 3: Trust, lies, and a hilarious Winners at War callback
💉 Reviews: True crime edition
Death Sentence: The True Story of Velma Barfield, the First Woman to Be Executed in the United State by Lethal Injection
⚽️ Recaps
Project Runway
Below Deck
Episode 12: The boat breaks, temporarily fixing this season
Big Brother:
With Rylie’s BB27 edit, Big Brother is again covering up toxic behavior
Rylie isn’t doing interviews today because of “scheduling conflicts”. LOL sure
What BB27’s horrible players did during Rachel’s reign as HOH
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
This week’s reality premieres include Lego Masters Jr, with new host Kelly Osbourne; a new season of 007: Road To A Million, which I’m stunned is back considering how weird the first season was; and new seasons of Deb’s House, Expedition X, and Ghost Adventures: House Calls.
Also this week, some real heartwarming documentaries and specials 😆: The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror, and The Truth About Jussie Smollett?.
💬 Comments of the week: Biggest Loser edition
On my review of The Biggest Loser doc, there was an extended conversation, and several people responded to the show’s creator, Dave Broome.
Dave....my brother in Christ...front to back the show was about torturing the fatties. I worked several seasons on the Australian franchise, field producing in the trenches. It was absolutely accepted knowledge at the time that contestants were lazy, sneaky less-thans and should be treated as such. I remember them sitting in the sauna for HOURS before weigh-ins trying to drop water weight. It was the early days of reality tv, before we adjusted the tone to be more touchy feely (although maybe poor old Tyra never got that memo) and you need to assuage your guilt as to the lit-er-al abuse dealt to all those vulnerable people.
But Dave, we tortured the fatties.
And Sarah wrote:
My college roommates did a Biggest Loser Challenge, Dave! We were 18-19 and none of us were even remotely overweight (even according to BMI!), but one was recovering from a high school eating disorder and two more actively had/were developing eating disorders that would fully bloom within a year or two. A fourth had a lifetime of living with an anorexic mom, trying to deal with those messages; a fifth was dealing with a recurrence of her cancer and had gained weight from steroids . The sixth was me, who feels incredibly blessed to have had the wherewithal and good-messages-from-my-family to say "No thank you" to this deeply, deeply unhelpful groupthink ("But it's healthy!" they--incredibly smart, accomplished, and conventionally- and actually-beautiful teenagers--called to me, doing crunches in our common room) back in the fall of 2005. Your show indeed provided inspiration.
And Mariah wrote:
David – your closing comment on withdrawing the prize money if you did again because you “saved lives” was probably when I gagged a few times. Perhaps your next show should be about those who profit wildly off other’s backs. I bet a lot of people would watch that.
🗞️ Reality TV news
Show news:
Lifetime fired most of its reality TV executives, including the VP responsible for The Chrisleys: Back to Reality, which Lifetime is premiering next month. They're getting out of the reality TV business but still subjecting us to that shit first, I guess.
CBS announced Survivor 49’s cast. Perhaps its most-notable cast member is former Marvel creative executive Nate Moore, who developed and produced many films, including Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy.CBS also said that two of them—two!—will appear on Survivor 50, something we've known for months.
Below Deck is filming a season with Captain Sandy near Dubrovnik, Croatia, as this video shows.
The BBC delayed Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home; it was scheduled to premiere Monday. Of the reality series-turned-special, the BBC said, "We are respecting the family's wishes to wait a bit longer before airing this very special film”
Spike Lee's documentary series about Colin Kaepernick won't air on ESPN any more. ESPN told Reuters "ESPN, Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences."
While this news comes days after the announcement that NFL is buying 10 percent of ESPN, Spike Lee said the cancellation came last year, and he won't shop it around elsewhere.
People news:
“Drunk Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick Torches Her Own 'Survivor' Legacy". This headline covers it all, but read the story for the awful details.
Two players on Finland's version of Survivor, Selviytyjät Suomi, Eveliina "Eve" Uosukainen and Joni Rintala, are pregnant, and conceived their baby during production of Survivor. A translated version of this news story said Joni wondered if this was the world's first in-game Survivor baby.
The so-called Ketamine Queen, Jasvine Sengha, agreed to plead guilty earlier this week to charges in the death of Matthew Perry in October 2023. —SDB
Interesting interview with disgraced former governor of New York Eliot Spitzer at Vanity Fair. I always...well, "liked" isn't quite right, but I did feel the state might have been better off if he'd stayed. Anyway, he has some diplomatically bitchy comments about Andrew Cuomo (and some predictably boomerish ones about Mamdani). Read our UN-diplomatically bitchy comments about history's most criminal governors in the archives. —SDB
🤩 I recommend
Flying to Australia to watch Australian Survivor. IT’S SO GOOD!!
This clip from Project Runway 4, of Heidi Klum scolding 21-year-old Christian Siriano
This piece about MSNBC’s absurd new name, Ms. Now; Nina Metz writes about how “the television industry has abandoned the advantages of branding”
Watching the 2025 TCA Award acceptance speeches, starring Kathy Bates, Alan Cumming, Noah Wyle, Elmo (!), and others!
That’s everything for today. See you tomorrow for the special Survivor edition!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 432 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 22 August 2025, and it can’t believe that dipshit Sean from The Real World Boston is now in charge of the FAA and is focusing instead on erasing rainbow crosswalks