Survivor is 24 🥳🏝️ • Top Chef • Netflix renewals • Moviepass • Balls
Dear newsletter friends,
I hope you had a great Memorial Day and (short?) week.
In my ongoing quest to horrify you about life in Florida, these crawled under our front door and died.
If you’re still with me, today’s the 24th anniversary of Survivor’s premiere, so happy birthday, Survivor! 🥳🏝️
I rewatched and recapped that whole first season in recent years, if you’d like to relive it again—maybe to compare it to the hilarious disaster of a season we just watched.
Here are other pieces that’ve published on this date to mark the occasion:
Survivor rules: the contract that details pay, tie-breakers, prohibited behavior, and more
Survivor contestant contract: the waivers, agreements that cast members, families sign
And another fun look back:
What a Survivor fan discovered on Pulau Tiga, 15 years after Survivor Borneo
🔥 Recaps and a review
A new competition:
The Quiz with Balls takes way too long to drop (and yes, I am very proud of myself for that headline)
Top Chef Wisconsin:
Episode 10: Top Chef torches another challenge and ends Last Chance Kitchen
Episode 11: Chefs sniff Tom’s plate and plate on a table
Survivor:
🔪 True crime
🎧 Listen to The Docket:
It’s graduation season, so we’re talking about the fabulists and ID grifters who REFUSE to graduate. Is your most fascinating case on our lists?
True-crime news from Sarah D. Bunting:
Gypsy Rose Blanchard talked to People about her split from husband Ryan Anderson. Based on her recent-relationships timeline as outlined by Rolling Stone, and on, you know, her personal history, maybe...just choose you for a year or two? Probably not realistic given the other timeline in play here, her upcoming docuseries, but still.
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
The week’s reality TV premieres include the arrival of the first of the big summer shows, starting with America’s Got Talent and MasterChef: Generations; new seasons of Password, Beat Shazam, and Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted; and new seasons of Homicide Hunter, 60 Days In, Inmate to Roommate, Teen Mom, and Gold Rush: Parker's Trail
New documentaries include ID’s expose Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter; HBO’s look at Moviepass (oh, the glory days of Moviepass!); Netflix’s doc about a TikTok cult; and Disney+’s Jim Henson doc 🐸
💬 Comments of the week
So much great discussion on so many stories. Here are a few of those comments, ones that made laugh, think, or both:
On this Survivor story, AK wrote:
Ridiculous season, but also maybe the funniest season ever. Once we got through the Bhanu mess, I couldn’t help but be won over by this cast. If I come to “Survivor” for entertainment, then I guess I’ll take this over boring and predictable. (Though, please, we desperately need to shake up the format!)
On this review, Melissa wrote,
I think I’d rather watch MXC reruns. Don’t get eliminated!
🗞️ Reality TV news
A jury found a former reality star guilty of committing these 34 crimes
From The Digest, reality blurred’s front page mini-blog:
Netflix announced several renewals and new competition shows today for what they're now calling "The Netflix Reality Universe." 🌌
Renewed are The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, returning in December, and The Ultimatum: Queer Love.
New shows include Battle Camp, which just sounds like Netflix is ripping off The Challenge: "the greatest stars from across Netflix’s broad slate of reality and doc-series return to face the ultimate physical and mental competition"
Also: Building the Band, which sounds like Netflix combining a 24-year-old series with Love is Blind, as singers "form their very own bands without ever seeing each other"
And finally, Million Dollar Secret, on which one of 12 players wins $1 million and then the 11 try to "eliminate the millionaire and the money moves to someone new." Sounds like a more dramatic version of this Netflix show?
The Apprentice producer Bill Pruitt has written an almost 6,000-word piece for Slate about working on the NBC reality TV show, now that his 20-year NDA has expired.
There are a handful of truly awful details, though they're also written in scenes that read awkwardly—maybe because they're 20-year-old memories and not transcripts?
I just don't know who this is for. Like, we've already known all this: We heard about what happened behind the scenes in 2016, and then again, and again. We had four years of Trump saying awful things on camera. This is going to change no minds and adds nothing to the conversation.
🤩 I recommend
This 24-year-old iconic season of television
This piece on the new season of We’re Here—and also the new season of We’re Here!
Coming next week: the summer reality TV guide! 😎 Plus, a big Top Chef story. 😲 Have a great weekend.
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 384 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 31 May 2024, and mentioning Making the Band led it to re-visit this disaster