Summer reality TV ☀️ new Traitors cast • Top Chef secrets • Below Deck Med
Dear newsletter friends,
I hope you’re staying cool if you’re under this U.S. heat dome. We’re baking here in Florida, and I know it’s much worse elsewhere.
This week, I stayed in the a/c and published the results of my request for public records—specifically, records that show how much money Wisconsin paid Top Chef’s producers, and what they got in exchange.
Here it is: Top Chef doesn’t want you to see this ‘sensitive information’
The headline is a little sensational, sure, but also accurate: When I requested the same records for Top Chef: Houston (taxpayer money helped pay for that season, too) Top Chef’s producers, Magical Elves, objected via an attorney.
The letters they sent me bragged about how they successful they were with brand integrations, but then said the contents of contracts are “sensitive information” that should not be disclosed. Texas’s attorney general allowed them to stay secret.
As I wrote in my piece, I understand the need for TV productions to cover their budgets with sponsorships, and also for local governments to promote themselves. Makes sense!
But if you’re a for-profit company making TV for NBCUniversal, and you want your contracts to be private, don’t take $1.3 million of public money, which is what Magical Elves got from Wisconsin.
Anyway, I’m glad Wisconsin’s public records laws mean this information is public, so now you can read the contracts here.
🏳️🌈 Two reviews
The 1% Club: lets host Patton Oswalt be the star—and it works
Queer Planet: a nature doc that has a gay old anthropomorphizing time
👉 Recaps
Below Deck Med:
I’m recapping Below Deck this season! And the first episode did not disappoint:
Top Chef Wisconsin:
Episode 11: Chefs sniff Tom’s plate and plate on a table
Episode 12: Top Chef celebrates Wisconsin with raw fish, muddled ideas, and a tricky taste test
🔪 True crime reviews
How To Rob A Bank IS an instruction manual – but not for heists
Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult might be the busiest true crime title ever
True-crime news from Sarah D. Bunting:
Early RHONJ-er Dina Manzo's ex-husband has been convicted "on charges he hired a reputed mobster to assault the woman’s boyfriend in exchange for a free, lavish wedding reception. … The NY Post has more on Dina's reaction.
Between this, the "we can't have an RHONJ reunion because we can't insure that mayhem" (I'm paraphrasing), and the "Bob Menendez eats nothing but steak" revelations...not a great week for Jersey notables.
Former NYC prosecutor Linda Fairstein has settled her defamation suit against Netflix, says NBC News.
Netflix has confirmed a second season and a premiere date (ish) for Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal. If you too wonder what there is still to say about these cases, Netflix wants you to know S02 will "include interviews with Murdaugh’s housekeeper Blanca Turrubiate Simpson, former caretaker Mushelle Smith, Curtis Eddie Smith, and one of the jurors in the double murder trial." ...Okay; still not sure you need a whole season around those THes -- a single follow-up ep probably does it -- but we'll all find out on September 20.
🌞 Summer reality TV
Here are my brand-new quarterly premiere guides. 🥳
So far, it’s definitely a quieter summer than usual; perhaps the slowdown in reality TV production this past year is finally showing. Or perhaps more announcements are to come.
I’ll update both over the next three months, so bookmark them—or just click the link at the top of every page:
💬 Comments of the week
I love the discussion readers bring to reality blurred. Here are a few comments—ones that made laugh, think, or both:
On this recap, Elizabeth wrote:
I love Kristen as the host. There seems to be a more relaxed atmosphere. She has such gusto in eating and enjoying food like making a puffin sandwich and drawing the heart in the sauce border. Padma would never do anything like that!
On this Top Chef story, Lauren wrote:
Thanks for another great article and for doggedly pursuing the release of the documents. I hope Magical Elves doesn’t think government spending should be kept a secret – those are not the optics they should be going for.
On this review, Jeff wrote:
I like that Fox has another game that’s not traditional trivia, and I enjoyed the “brainteaser” questions. (Playing along, I passed on the 25% question and got knocked out at 5%.)
… The only thing I found tedious is the obsession with the size of the prize pool. Isn’t it always going to be $100,000 minus however many people take the $1000 quit offer?
🗞️ Reality TV news
Here is The Traitors US 3 cast, including three Survivor winners
From The Digest, reality blurred’s front page mini-blog:
(May 31 was) 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:
There will be no Real Housewives of New Jersey season 14 reunion. A "network source" told Deadline, "There’s no way we can do a traditional reunion show. It will be a different format, and the production team is now looking at original concepts.” Mmm hmm.
According to TV Line, Andy Cohen said on his podcast that "the finale is kind of the finale and the reunion all in one." Sure, Jan. That's why.
Trinity the Tuck told Monét that on RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars 4, producers manufactured the conflict with Gia Gunn over their Snatch Game character. Trinty said, "that whole bit ... that was all set-up."
Amazon MGM Studios has announced that it's rebooting American Gladiators, since Amazon's acquisition of MGM means it owns the format.
There has already been a reboot, of course. In 2008, NBC brought back the 1990s-era show. Their version had an overly scripted presentation, and lasted two seasons, losing more than half of its audience.
Reality TV is facing the same downturn as scripted TV, as entertainment companies cut budgets and try to save money.
"2024 has been brutal," The Hollywood Reporter’s Katie Kilkenny and Lesley Goldberg report, noting that:
Jobs are scarce, budgets are crunched, workers are considering jumping ship and executives seem terrified to take creative risks on untested concepts.
... More than ever, unscripted insiders say, buyers are risk-averse and relying on bets that are considered to be safe.
... Game shows, too, are prospering amid the overall nonfiction slowdown.
🤩 I recommend
This new game show, whose host makes it work
This Wheel of Fortune answer, which still makes me laugh
This newsletter will take next Friday off, but check reality blurred for Below Deck Med and Top Chef recaps, a Food Network star interview, Best Evidence’s true-crime coverage, and much more.
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 385 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 7 June 2024, and it can’t wait for this new Traitors cast.