A must-watch Netflix competition • villains, mocked • Survivor costumes • and more!
Dear newsletter friends,
First, my thoughts are with everyone affected by the violence this week in the Middle East. It's just awful.
In related news, I fully left Twitter this week. An automated feed of my stories will still post there, but I've stopped checking in.
Twitter has been deeply broken for a while, and though I'll miss parts of it, an owner that does this was the final straw—of so many straws.
Meanwhile, I'm loving Bluesky (@andydehnart.bsky.social), though it's still invite-only, alas.
I'm also trying Threads (@andydehnart), though I'm deeply suspicious of Facebook/Meta, which loves to create things and abandon them and/or change the rules.
Fun fact: about 7,600 people chose to follow reality blurred on Facebook, yet Facebook typically only shows my posts there to anywhere between 300 and 3,000 of those people.
But 100 percent of the time, it shows me something like this:
Boost this post to reach up to 351 more people if you spend $14.
Anyway, that's one reason I love this newsletter: It's just us, and no massive corporation's desperate need for even more money getting in the way.
So, thanks for being here! 💜
🦹 Reviews
I reviewed:
Coming later Friday:
A review of Raid the Cage, which premieres on CBS tonight
🍌 Recaps
Survivor 45:
Episode 3: Survivor wanders off into the Forest of Enchanted Advantages as a tribe melts down
A reminder that Survivor players wear costumes chosen by the producers, who have required women to wear the same panties for weeks and weeks, sometimes leading to infections. 😫😠
The Challenge USA 2:
Episode 12: Josh cries, Cassidy is pissed, and Bananas does 🍌 cannibalism
Episode 13: Coming soon!
🗓️ This week's premieres
Besides the shows I reviewed above, reality TV premieres this week include the return of The Circus, Secrets of the Dead, 90 Day Fiance, and Drag Race Italia, plus Netflix's Stranded with my Mother-in-Law and Oxygen's spin-off of Ready to Love
Subjects of this week's documentaries include Elon Musk's incompetent and childish destruction of Twitter, Juul, Matthew Shepard's death, and the haunted house where people pay to get tortured.
💬 Comments of the week
Completely disagree with all off the rants in this post. This show is fun, vibrant and entertaining. They are not shit talking there throwing light shade and the competitors most of the time know the titans and are friends.
—Mohammad Yasin Alvi, on this review
No surprise that after 44 seasons, Jeff still fails to see how the game is rigged in the favor of men. Such a shame he chooses not to even consider listening to people who actually understand what goes into making a good show. Jeff has no formal training as a producer. And it shows.
—Geri Barrath, on this story
🗞️ Reality TV news
Top Chef Masters runner-up, Next Iron Chef contestant, and chef Michael Chiarello died after an allergic reaction
The contestant who became paraplegic as a result of an America's Got Talent: Extreme stunt has sued producers and NBC.
The New York Times covered how climate change affects Survivor and The Amazing Race, yet somehow didn't once mention that Survivor is in Fiji permanently because of the tax breaks
Lighter news:
Love is Blind’s reunion Sunday will not be live, which is too bad considering how entertaining this was.
Katie Thurston filmed both Bachelor in Paradise and Fboy Island this summer, and talked to Rob Owen about how that was possible
This TikTok is a hilarious takedown of the Cake Boss’s cake vending machines in Las Vegas
The incredible tenant from hell story—it's a must-read!—has a wild twist: she used to work on PBS documentaries and even The Osbournes
🤩 I recommend
This show, for the editing
Thanks for reading to the end, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 357 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 13 October 2023, and it's excited for tomorrow's solar eclipse
📸 Photo of a pumpkin patch in Michigan by Maddy Baker