Top Chef & me • Kristen Kish • recs & recaps • Tell Them You Love Me
Dear newsletter friends,
This week were two major reality TV anniversaries in my life.
First, The Real World Hawaii premiered 25 years ago Saturday—remember all of them?
Sunday was the 25th anniversary of my first reality TV recap, published on Student.com, which no longer exists.
Thanks to archive.org, you can read that first recap—and all my Hawaii recaps—if you’d like to see how far I’ve come, or not. 😆
A quarter century! Wow.
🛳️ Top Chef Wisconsin
This week, I wrote about why Kristen Kish is the best part of Top Chef Wisconsin.
Alas, the season itself was lackluster—but I perked up for the last two episodes, despite their disappointing editing.
That’s because I had a very weird connection to those two episodes, which were filmed aboard a cruise ship that I was on just a few weeks later.
Even weirder: the finalists’ final dishes were served at the very table I ate at.
I wrote about this as part of my final recaps:
Episode 13: Top Chef’s finalists sink onboard a cruise ship
Episode 14: Muddled judging plagues Top Chef’s finale—and fails its record-setting winner
🇮🇹 An interview and answers
My conversation with Ciao House judge…
My answers to two of your questions:
🔔 Two reviews and two recaps
Reviews of two new shows:
Hulu’s I Kissed a Boy: is a fabulously gay Love Island
The CW’s The Big Bakeover: a sweet makeover show led by a Bake-Off winner
Below Deck Med recaps:
Episode 2: guests service themselves while chef sleeps and captain texts
Episode 3: Sandy makes a tough call and chef serves ‘poop on a platter’
🔪 True crime
Reviews:
Netflix’s Tell Them You Love Me: tells a complicated and painful story with grace
Does Cult Massacre: One Day In Jonestown have anything else to say?
The true story behind a Netflix movie:
More true crime:
🎧 Listen to The Docket:
Fresh eyes, small-town tales, and the “cold center” of the Coens
A discussion of How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish and more
True-crime news from Sarah D. Bunting:
Attributing its ranking of the 30 best true-crime podcasts to "Staff Author" is pretty bogus of Entertainment Weekly -- but Ms. Author came up with a solid list nevertheless: a couple of surprises, a top choice I agree with, and some new listens for the "someday" section of my review list.
Ariana Grande went on Penn Badgley's podcast, Podcrushed, and talked about Quiet on Set and her own experience in the Nick-verse.
According to Variety, a tearful Kevin Spacey told Piers Morgan he owes "millions" in legal fees, and is facing foreclosure on his Baltimore house. He also got passive-aggressive about Netflix and/or his House Of Cards co-stars supporting him: "It does seem with Dave Chappelle that Ted Sarandos has learned to be supportive of controversial individuals…I do wish he’d done that with me." Wow, what a shame that Spacey himself (allegedly) couldn't have avoided this nadir by treating others with respect in the first place!
Pamela Smart, whose story became To Die For as well as an HBO doc and more than one Law & Order episode, has finally admitted responsibility in an attempt to get her sentence reduced.
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
Shows coming to TV and streaming this week include Drag Race México, Love Is Blind: Brazil, and Alone Australia; new seasons of PBS’s The Great American Recipe and A&E’s Biography; Andrew Zimmern’s new show Hope in the Water; Disco: Soundtrack of A Revolution; and the new Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders show, now on Netflix.
Documentaries premiering focus on subjects including Black Barbie, LGBTQ+ comedians, Jonestown, players in the WNBA, climber Sasha DiGiulian, and Jesse Owens.
💬 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 review, Nancy wrote, in part:
Andy, you are dead wrong on your critique of 24 in 24. This was the most exciting food competition ever.
… I think it will go on for years and be very popular. You can tune out, but really, what qualifies you to review this show anyhow? Looks like your only qualification is that you watch a lot of reality shows. Sorry.
..and Chelsea wrote,
Nancy, I agree with you. This article is terrible. I think it’s obvious he doesn’t watch very many cooking shows.
On this review, Chuck wrote,
So, I just finished the first episode and I actually liked it. I was worried that all the “boys” were going to be cookie cutter stand and model boys. And they’re not. Abercrombie and Fitch didn’t give all of it’s models to the show. The guys seem real.
On this interview, Cookie wrote,
He’s soulful and paints a beautiful picture of what he looks for and it’s the ‘story’ behind the dish. And that is why I favored blind tasting once I saw it work in Tournament of Champions. The chefs are interested in who they are cooking for and the judges are interesting in whose food they are eating and you can hear/see the guessing that goes on.
🗞️ Reality TV news
From The Digest, reality blurred’s front page mini-blog:
Chopped’s June 11 episode featured its first all-out, all-queer judging panel in the Food Network show's history: Tiffany Faison, Ginger Minj, and Gabe Bertaccini, plus, of course, out host Ted Allen.
Tiffany Faison posted on Instagram and said "I am so so grateful to have been a part of this day. Y’all this is special, it has NEVER happened before."
She also thanked Chopped producers Linda Lea and Amy Stanford "for pushing for so long to make this happen."
Chopped has been on TV since 2009 and has aired almost 800 episodes.
Top Chef alum and guest judge Gregory Gourdet won the James Beard Award for best chef, northwest and Pacific. This is his third James Beard Award in a row, having won previously for his cookbook and then his restaurant, kann. Watch his acceptance speech,
🤩 I recommend
This new dating show, which is Love Island but also much more
This business makeover show, starring a Great British Bake-Off winner
Bonus recommendations, reading edition:
Kathryn VanArendonk's behind-the-scenes of Love Is Blind report. I laughed out loud at this sentence: Creator Chris "Coelen insists it is closer to a documentary than a reality series..." LOL no.
Sheridan Singleton's exploration of Bravo's History of Canceling Black-Led Shows, prompted by the "pausing" of Summer House: Martha's Vineyard
Jessica Pressler's "Andy Cohen vs. the Housewives," which includes both how he's so far managed to be unscathed by accusations from cast members
Nico Lang’s exploration of how LGBTQ+ contestants say American Idol failed them
That’s everything for this week—and last. Have a wonderful weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 386 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 21 June 2024, and it can’t wait to see Sandy’s harshly worded text to the chef