Ellie vs. Bri • Simone Biles • broken Survivor rules • Worst Roommate Ever
Dear newsletter friends,
Happy August! How is it August? Did anyone see July?
Speaking of time passing fast: When I started reality blurred 24 years ago (!), my goal was to share what I’d found online with other reality TV fans.
What has surprised and delighted me since then is the sharing back. 🥰
Last night, I published this piece: Why is Food Network music so loud? Is The Apprentice still streaming?
My answer to the second question was a confident “no”; 20 years after its premiere, it’s currently not on any commercial streaming service.
Minutes after that went out on social media, one of our community members, Eric, commented that it is indeed watchable. (That’s thanks to The Internet Archive—which isn’t indexed by my beloved JustWatch.)
I love being proven wrong immediately!
Even more, I love when fellow reality TV fans can help each other, discuss together, and connect over our love for this amazing and absurd genre.
So, thanks for being part of that, just by having me in your inbox, but also for the comments you leave, the discussions you join, the e-mail you send, and everything else! 😃
🇫🇷 Recaps and reviews
Two Olympics docs, one piece:
Claim to Fame
Below Deck Med
Episode 9: Ellie’s gaslight is so bright even Iain can see it on Below Deck Med
- This is my favorite headline I’ve written all year 😂
🔪 True crime
- Unraveling the Worst Roommate Ever true crime universe
- Should you bet on Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose?
- Wrapping up our summer Edgars flashback with a look back at Final Justice
🎧 Listen to The Docket:
- Our recommendations for crime stories featuring the Olympics and Olympians — steroids, marathon madness, and much more.
True-crime news from Sarah D. Bunting:
NYC Mayor Eric Adams's colleague Timothy Pearson is facing yet another lawsuit/accusation of harassment and misconduct (more at this NYT gift link). Hell Gate's analysis calls the allegations in the latest action "f*cking nuts"; unsurprisingly, Adams is doubling down in his defense of Pearson.
The Best Evidence July bonus review is actually THREE reviews of recent(-ish) podcasts: an Errol Morris interview on TCM's pod; Flashpoint, a new limited series on the bombing at the 1996 Olympics; and the long-awaited third season of In The Dark.
🗂️ Grab a paid sub and read those — and our whole archive!
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
New reality TV shows and seasons premiering include a new season of Unsolved Mysteries (why?!), the new spin-off Love is Blind: Mexico, History’s Prison Chronicles, and Hulu’s Betrayal: A Father’s Secret.
Documentary premieres include subjects such as Elizabeth Taylor, YouTubers Dude Perfect, the young tennis champion Michael Chang, and a Nepali woman’s attempt to climb Everest for the 10th time.
💬 Comments of the week: Claim to Fame Edition
On this recap, Adam P. wrote:
[…] I appreciated that, for the first time this season, someone is going home because they had their clues deciphered. Because the viewing audience is guessing along with the cast, it’s much more satisfying to see someone go home when we’ve had a chance to decipher their clues. Also, I’ve generally thought the correct strategy on this game is, if you can’t win immunity, you should want to be in the bottom two and guessing, because those are the only two ways to ensure that you aren’t targeted
and Jeff wrote:
I have mixed feelings about whether the guesser should be allowed to have notes, given that the show requires them to be precise with the name they’re guessing and maybe it’s unfair to eliminate someone because they have a brain fart in a stressful situation. However, what Adam did feels enough like cheating to me that I’m leaning towards there should be a rule against it next season. (And the players are already clearly not allowed to bring their notebooks to the guess-off.)
🗞️ Reality TV news
- Chef Shirley Chung is being treated for stage 4 tongue cancer
- Charity Lawson says being on Dancing with the Stars was “was so much worse than Bachelor and Bachelorette“ because of all the racist comments “death threats for existing”.
From The Digest, reality blurred’s front page mini-blog:
- Slate has a delightful Q&A with the husbands who were on Supermarket Sweep in 1991, identified on-screen as “business partners.” A winking social media post led to Tim and Mark responding and confirming they were also a couple, and have now been together 41 years.
- Carrie Underwood will replace Katy Perry on American Idol season 23's judging panel, joining Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie.
The season will air 20 years after American Idol season four, which Carrie won. But because of ABC's ridiculous insistence on counting its seasons from zero, we've ended up with this sentence in the press release:
"Television’s most widely recognized music competition series, American Idol, welcomes season four winner and eight-time GRAMMY Award winner Carrie Underwood to the judging panel for season eight on ABC and Hulu."
Yeah, four seasons and 20 years later.
3. Here are two fun Survivor-related videos:
- "Survivors Who Broke the Rules," in which Henry Hickman uses the Survivor rule book to find examples of players who broke obvious rules and/or examples of producers not enforcing their own rules.
- Eric Brown's illustration of Jeff Probst's telling a story about Mark Burnett. I saw this on TikTok recently, but tracked down the original, because it'd been copied without attribution. (These reality TV-related social media accounts that just rip off other people's creative work and reporting are obnoxious. How hard is it to give a link or credit?)
- Netflix's Famous Last Words will feature "longform interviews with notable personalities who have spent their lives making significant contributions to humanity and culture."
But we won't know who those people are until after they're dead, which is when they're episodes will start streaming. That "creates an intimate and safe space for the guest, knowing that their interview is confidential and will not air until after their death," according to Netflix.
5. A contestant was disqualified from Race to Survive: New Zealand after eating a threatened bird, a weka, while racing to survive, but won't face consequences in New Zealand.
Spencer "Corry" Jones and production company Original Productions were given a warning by New Zealand authorities. RNZ reports that's because "a unique set of circumstances at play, that cast members were fatigued and suffering from significant hunger with an unusual group dynamic" so "the department to decide a warning letter was prudent."
🤩 I recommend: Olympics edition
- These two Olympics shows
- These Olympics-related true-crime stories, recommended by the Best Evidence team
- Watching on Peacock, where NBC finally seems to have figured out how to offer Olympics coverage. It’s amazing, and worth the $8 or $14 for one month—and then you can watch all of this amazing Traitors goodness, too!
That’s everything for this week. Enjoy the Olympics or whatever you watch on TV this weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 391 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 2 Aug. 2024, and it is now Team Bri, even though the laundry is a mess