How DWTS captured the kids' hearts • a Survivor merge! • recaps/reviews/news
Dear newsletter friends,
Anyone know how to get cats to understand our dumb twice-a-year time change? Because they’ve been waking me at 5, thinking it’s 6, which is still too early! 🥱
At least they’re cute. 😻
Today, the finale of Bake-Off arrives for us in the U.S.; those of you in the U.K. have had it for a few days—lucky!
Earlier in the week, I looked at the last few episodes, and asked, Who will be Bake-Off’s winner? Its 5x star baker?
It’s always fun to see people succeed wildly in a competition, though often in Bake-Off they can’t quite get it together to pull out the win, like Dylan last year. I’m curious if that’ll happen to Jasmine this year.
I also looked at what makes The Great British Bake Off work so well.
That’s in audio form, so you can listen wherever you get your podcasts—Apple Podcasts • PocketCasts • Overcast—or read the transcript, though that doesn’t come with the pleasures of my Muppet-like voice.
Speaking of my podcast: I was very excited to learn I was #6 in the TV reviews category! And then I realized that was just in Vietnam. But thank you, Vietnamese listeners!
🕺🏽 Reviews and news
Reviews:
Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (Netflix)
Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking (Food Network)
News and analysis:
Ridiculousness is dead. Paramount’s plans for MTV’s corpse? Even more ridiculous.
How Dancing with the Stars is crushing Survivor and The Voice
Will these 22 words improve—or wreck—Survivor 49’s post-merge game?
😍 Recaps
🏝️ Survivor
💰 Below Deck Med
💩 The Amazing Race
🎄 TOC: All-Star Christmas
⏰ Dancing with the Stars
Hall of Shame for these judges! And Flavor Flav wasn’t the worst!
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
This week’s reality TV premieres the return of Holiday Baking Championship; a new season of Squid Game: The Challenge, the show that proves no one at Netflix has any idea what the original was about; and more Gold Rush, Expedition Unknown, Ms. Pat Settles It, and My Lottery Dream Home, plus Love & Hip Hop: Miami, which moved to BET.
Specials and docs premiering this week include The Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Holiday, with Cheri Oteri, Janelle James, Baron Davis, and Oliver Hudson; the start of the Real Housewives of Orange County reunion; The Food Network special World’s Sweetest Candy Shops; and docs about pigeons, the International Space Station, and Alex Rodriguez.
💬 Comments of the week
On my Survivor recap, Melissa wrote,
Andy, how could you completely ignore Sage’s toot?! I mean, balls and poles humor will never not be funny to me too, but farts are so rare in Survivor, Danny’s is the only other one I can remember, they deserve to be recognized. I must have rewound and rewatched it a dozen times. I am now fully Team Sage.
On Marshal’s DWTS recap, Mike b. wrote:
I gave into the madness. After watching his VH1 show many moons ago I came to hate Flavaflav and wondered if he could even see anything on the dancefloor with those sunglasses on. Might as well have Stevie Wonder judging. When he gave Dylan that 10 I was all on board. Go Dylan!!! And loved having Chicago and Kool on stage live.
On last week’s Survivor recap, Sara wrote,
I have really grown to appreciate both Sage and Rizo this season. I may have gagged at the first “Rizgod, baby!” but now I see him as just a loveable goof. I want to see more of Sage (and maybe even her bag of blackheads) and hope that’s the case even though she got rid of her arch enemy. Great fun!
🗞️ Reality TV news
Chef and regular Food Network competitor Tobias Dorzon talked to People about being shot in his front yard, and the recovery he's gone through in the year since, from being told he wouldn't be able to walk again to doing just that. The trial of one suspect starts Dec. 5.
A cruise featuring some super D-list reality TV stars that was to leave yesterday has been cancelled, and its website and that of its parent company are now offline.
Two of those stars, Mark Long and Johnny Bananas, released a statement on Instagram Monday, saying the "owners of the company have become completely unresponsive" and saying they'd pursue legal action for "fraudulent activity."
The owner of the company wrote in a Facebook group (screenshot on Reddit), "I have used revenue from one cruise and lapsed it into paying deposits for other Postgame Cruises (an action a lot of businesses do). With mass cancellations and failure to hit sales goals on future cruises, the funds have not been made to pay for all talents to take part in this cruise."
Brad Goreski said he decided not to return for Canada's Drag Race season 6 "for different reasons," and added "Hope it's a great season."
Three-time Top Chef competitor and chef Stephanie Cmar started a newsletter "about the shit we don’t put on Instagram: eating when you’re sad, drinking when you shouldn’t, and loving yourself in the wrong order."
The first installment of Stephanie's Shitty Little Stories starts with a disclaimer that "The first few chapters are going to be hard to read… I can say that because they felt nearly impossible to write. But I promise you: things do work out."
🤩 I recommend
Tournament of Champions: All-Star Christmas on Food Network, which is just as intense as the original, but with fun sweaters
This duel from The Floor, which came as part of one contestant’s spectacular run
This Andy Richter video. He may not be able to dance, but he can social media VERY well!
This hilarious review of Ryan Murphy’s new Kim Kardashian Hulu show
That’s everything I have for today. Have a fantastic weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 443 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 7 Nov. 2025, and it wakes its cats up when they’re sleeping sometimes so I guess all’s fair.