Top Chef! Traitors UK! Survivor! Big Brother Canada! So many recaps and reviews for you
Dear newsletter friends,
My favorite new show of the year, The Traitors, is already a global show, and two of those international series are now on Peacock.
Last weekend, we watched The Traitors UK, which was filmed after US (but aired first), using the same location and most of the same challenges.
It's a fascinating opportunity to see how changes in casting and editing affect a show—and also just one hell of a great game!
For my review, I asked, Is The Traitors UK better than Traitors US?, but really, I'm just so grateful to have not just one but two incredible seasons of such a terrific competition!
😃 Recaps galore!
Top Chef 20:
Survivor 44:
Big Brother Canada 11:
Episode 1: How was Big Brother Canada 11’s premiere? Chaos—with more to come week one
Episode 2: A surprise early exit on BBCAN 11; what the first Digital Dailies revealed
The Traitors UK:
📺 This week on reality TV
This week's reality TV show premieres included:
Top Chef: World All Stars and The Challenge: World Championship with these players
SWV and XSCAPE coming together for a concert—and Bravo show
Spring Baking Championship, and an Easter version of the show
Documentaries and specials this week are focusing on subjects like:
Lizzy Borden
Jared from Subway
flight MH370
One of the shows I didn't have time/energy to care about was Fox's reboot of Farmer Wants A Wife.
So I'm grateful for Tara Ariano's interview with its producer and her review, which point out some of its surprising differentiators, like the casting process which had prospective women watch videos with the farmers and apply to date one of them.
🗞️ Reality TV news
Vanderpump Rules’ Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix broke up after he cheated with Raquel Leviss
Celebrity Big Brother UK winner and Ex on the Beach UK cast member Stephen Bear is going to prison for 23 months for taking secret "CCTV footage of himself and Love Island star Georgia Harrison" having sex and uploading it to OnlyFans without her consent.
Anthony Anderson and Cedric The Entertainer are going on a "culinary adventure to discover the best [barbecue] techniques, flavors, and traditions" for an A&E series.
Netflix has renewed both its golf and tennis reality shows Full Swing and Break Point for seasons that are filming now
The first episode of the podcast The Big Break is HUSSLUP founder and CEO H Schuster's interview with Fenton Bailey, co-founder of World of Wonder, producers of RuPaul's Drag Race and Million Dollar Listing, among other shows. If you don't know the company's history, or how they met RuPaul, it's a fun listen.
💬 Comments of the week
"It’s amazing how Jeff still takes time out of his very busy schedule to sit down and do this podcast so we can get an inside look into the show and some very valuable information, and it continually amazes me how he continues to have such passion for what he does: despite ungrateful misers like you tearing him down at every opportunity."
—James, on this story"I should not read your recaps during my morning work team meetings, as I laughed out loud at your comment about the snake and the big long rod"
—Melissa, on this story
🤩 I recommend
This show, which is on MTV tonight
This season, which starts a little slow—but then 🤯
Watching this season before it leaves Netflix March 18
🗓️ Coming soon:
A review of Netflix's Outlast
Updates to my Jeff Probst podcast recap
Hope you've enjoyed some of these shows as much as I have. Join us in the comments to discuss!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 238 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent 10 March 2023, and it only barely knows who Tom Sandoval is
📸 Photo of a bird by Nicolas Verlhiac