Top Chef says goodbye 🥲 to Padma • Two new 😫 competitions • Three 🔥 interviews • and more reality TV stuff!
Dear newsletter friends,
Good morning! For those of you in Canada or in the half the states affected by wildfires and/or their smoke, I hope relief comes soon. The photos are surreal and scary.
Also surreal, but in a completely different, much more trivial way: Last night was Padma Lakshmi's final Top Chef episode.
She's so synonymous with the show now that I can't quite imagine it without her.
It was also the conclusion of the show's 20th season and first all-star season.
Here's my recap, and thoughts about Padma's tenure as host:
On Padma Lakshmi’s final Top Chef, a World All Star winner was named. Did Buddha keep his streak going?
😍 Two reviews and three interviews
Reviews:
Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge (NBC): an empty, Frankensteined mess
Stars on Mars (Fox): celebrity Big Brother in space is thinner than Mars’ atmosphere
Interviews:
Alone’s producers: How History’s Alone survived 10 seasons, evolving without changing
Mo Ryan, author of Burn It Down: ‘It’s not inevitable that the powerful have to abuse their power’
Arthur Smith, Hell's Kitchen and American Ninja Warrior producer, on his clash with Gordon Ramsay during the very first Hell's Kitchen dinner service
🗓️ This week's reality TV
The reality TV shows premiering this week include new seasons of American Ninja Warrior, Crime Scene Kitchen, Storage Wars, and The Real Housewives of Orange County, plus new documentary-style series about America’s National Parks and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This week's documentaries and specials included the final Vanderpump Rules reunion, plus The Playing Card Killer on Netflix and Burden of Proof on Max and HBO.
🗞️ Reality TV news
Here's what was revealed on the final Scandoval/Vanderpump Rules reunion, recapped brilliantly by Brian Moylan
Lisa Vanderpump's next show is Vanderpump Villa, and it'll be on Hulu (!). Its cast: "the hand-picked staff of Lisa Vanderpump’s luxury French villa as they live and work together." So it's Vanderpump Rules plus The Real World?! [6.8.23]
Big Brother Canada was, surprisingly, renewed for 12th season.
Bling Empire star Anna Shay died after a stroke. She was 62.
⛱️☀️ Summer reality TV premiere dates
ICYMI last week:
💬 Comments of the week
The point of the show is to make life-size Hot Wheels cars. I get you want contestants to just drive off into the sunset with their vintage cars, but that isn’t what it’s about. It’s about the contestant finally coming to terms with their pasts and moving on into the future by living out their childhood fantasies. It’s about childhood nostalgia.
—Matt, on this review
Why the heck is a vegetarian writing a review of a BBQ show? Good lord. 🙄
—Kelli, on this review
🤩 I recommend
This show, now in its 10th season
This expose that goes behind the scenes of some of our favorite TV shows
I hope you have a great weekend, and that clear skies and air are in everyone's immediate future.
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 340 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent 9 June 2023, and it has ideas for reality stars we could send to Mars for real, but won't mention any names Tom Sandoval
📸 Photo of Muir Woods by Josh Hild