Surprises from Emmys & Mole players • Big Brother's house & finale • much more
Dear newsletter friends,
I’ve spent the past couple weeks in L.A. at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour, which involved everything from interviewing reality TV producers to presenting an award to Shōgun.
Press tour ended with a visit to Paramount Studios Wednesday, which renewed my fascination with soundstages.
We went to a Frasier table read in Stage 18, a massive building constructed in 1941.
Where Frasier now lives, Sunset Boulevard was filmed. The soundstage also held all of Rear Window’s massive courtyard, and decades later, the bridge for Star Trek: Enterprise. Wow!
Coincidentally, it’s Stage 18 at another lot, CBS’s Radford Studio Center, where Big Brother films. That soundstage previously hosted the sitcoms Yes, Dear and the revival of WKRP in Cincinnati.
Years ago, we did a set visit to Big Brother’s home, and it was so fascinating I wrote two pieces about it:
🏆 Awards and other news
Stars:
There are delightful surprises in the reality TV Emmy nominations
Schedules:
BB26 will end in October, one month after Survivor 47 premieres
Sexism:
Reality show creators and top producers? They’re overwhelmingly men
🔔 Recaps and interviews
The Mole:
House of Heat:
How House of Heat—OnlyFans meets The Real World—was produced: a review and interview with Amber Mazzola, who previously executive produced The Profit
Claim to Fame:
Below Deck Med:
Episode 7: Captain Sandy looks to Jaws for help
🔪 True crime
🎧 Listen to The Docket
Wellness-scam content recs: Eve digs into the eternal-life industrial complex with recommended pods, books, and docs on wellness scams
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
New reality TV shows and seasons include Big Brother 26 and its dumb theme and Too Hot to Handle and its horny dummies; new seasons of Five Star Chef and Alex vs. America; and Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs The World, which I’m looking forward to.
Documentaries and specials focus on subjects including baseball player Julio Rodríguez, junior tennis players, and a “daredevil couple” who climb skyscrapers; and the race to fill space with corporate satellites.
💬 Comments of the week
On this story, Patricia wrote:
I am so happy for both Alan Cumming And Kristen Kish. I enjoy The Traitors but I love watching Alan. He is the perfect person for that show. After watching every season of Top Chef, I hoped Kristen would be terrific. She did NOT disappoint. Her vulnerability with the chefs and her knowledge of what it was like to compete, just added to the way she hosted. I’d be happy with either of them winning.
On this review, Hal wrote,
Randomly happened upon the show this week and loved it. I thought that it’d be something you’d enjoy (based on the mole love) and what do you know I was right haha. I [wish] more shows would trust the game design and let tensions between players happen naturally.
🤩 I recommend
House of Heat on Tubi, for a modern throwback to original Real World
These TCA award-winning shows, selected by my fellow critics
The behind-the-scenes insight from The Mole’s final five
That’s everything from me. I hope these updates are useful, entertaining, or both, and that you have a wonderful rest of your week!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 389 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 19 July 2024, and it still remembers how the Big Brother house smelled.