The many joys of Bake-Off • Traitors news • an old but can’t-miss dating show • recaps, reviews, and more!
Dear newsletter friends,
Happy November! I hope you had a great Halloween, whether you went trick or treating with kids, partied with friends, or hid in your house with the lights off. No judgement. 🎃
The week’s reality TV follows, but first…
Please vote! Every vote matters these days.
If you already voted early or by mail, gold star! ⭐️
You can join me in stress-eating all weekend—or find something to do to help, even if that’s just encouraging your friends and family to vote. We’re not powerless, even though it sometimes feels like that.
Okay, on to the form of reality that’s distracting, not terrifying! 😅
🧁 Reviews
The best season in years:
An import from the UK:
A fun new Food Network show:
🔔 Recaps and reviews
Below Deck:
Did Glenn fire chef Cloyce for cloywning around? (I crack myself up sometimes—I mean soymtimes.)
The Summit:
Survivor 47:
🔪 True crime
A review of Netflix’s This Is The Zodiac Speaking, which is worth hearing out
Hackers, Hoosiers, and the Black Dahlia: True-crime reading recs!
News from Sarah D. Bunting:
A true-crime fan got married over the weekend — and Dateline correspondent Josh Mankiewicz officiated. Per HuffPo, Mankiewicz and Sara Runnels got to be Twitter friends a couple years ago after he RTed a funny tweet Runnels had made about the show; when Runnels got engaged, she asked Mankiewicz to do the ceremony. Mazels to all.
An NBC News headline asks, "Did Hollywood help the Menendez brothers' case?" I don't think it's impossible; I also don't think we can separate project recency bias from the question. And you have to consider a couple of the sources who agree (Kim K; Mark Geragos). Higher visibility usually does help, though, at least in terms of lighting a fire under authorities and case calendars.
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
The big reality TV premieres this week include the fourth season of Drag Race Down Under, with new host Michelle Visage, and new seasons of Homestead Rescue and People Magazine Investigates.
Documentaries premiering include Netflix’s Martha, about Martha Stewart (do we just call her “Martha” now?); ID’s Chris Brown: A History of Violence; PBS’s Our Texas, Our Vote; and PBS’s Dracula’s Hidden Kingdom, about Transylvania.
💬 Comments of the week
On this recap, ZZZ wrote:
I’m shocked they didn’t include it, so they could once again paint Andy as a victim of being the last one picked. And the sadness of it all, you know?
On this recap, Melissa wrote:
I totally agree as well! They seem to be more interested in playing a game than winning it. I guess we’ll see how it works out, but at this point, I’m betting on none of them reaching The Summit.
Unless…. at the end, does the very first person to get to the summit win and no one else? That’s the only way what they’re doing makes sense.
🗞️ Reality TV news
The Traitors US season 3 has a premiere date: Jan. 9, 2025. 🎉 Its celebrity cast was previously announced.
Big Brother's producers told EW they'll stick with three nominees and a live Thursday competition for BB27. Allison Grodner said "it's very likely to be carried forward."
Also of interest, the producers were happy none of the people they cast said and/or did horribly racist and bigoted things in the house or in the past. “When we're able to just focus on the show and the creative of the show and all of those things, it really is much more fun than dealing with all the outside stuff,” Rich Meehan said.
Allison Grodner said that she was even thrilled with the show's normally ungrateful fanbase: “overall, the reception from our usually very critical fan base was really positive, so it was a nice summer,” she said.
Oh, well. There's always next year.
America's Got Talent fired its longtime showrunner Jason Raff immediately after season 19. It was not about the show itself, but budget cuts. (That's how dire things are in Hollywood right now.) Raff had been with the show since its start, and told Deadline his dismissal "came as a surprise."
Two days after Justin Sutherland—a former Top Chef and Iron Chef America contestant and Fast Foodies co-host—"pleaded guilty to one count of threats of violence - reckless disregard" for choking and threatening to shoot his girlfriend, was "arrested on suspicion of gross misdemeanor violation of [the] protection order," KARE reported.
WCCO news reported that, at a Target in St. Paul, "an officer spotted him with a woman who has a no-contact order against him," and followed them to a Spirit Halloween store, where Sutherland was arrested.
Naked and Afraid, Naked and Afraid XL and Fight to Survive star Sarah Dancer died last Sunday. She was 34, and a passenger in a car that that hit a parked vehicle.
Hawaii News Now’s obituary says she "worked at Island Divers Hawaii in Hawaii Kai and the company is working on an ocean memorial with her family," who remember her as "a master diver, boat captain, survivalist and self-described ‘pirate.’"
Former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider's lawsuit against Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids was tentatively dismissed by a judge, Rick Ellis reports on All Your Screens. The judge wrote that Schneider "[did] not come forward with any evidence that the alleged defamatory statements are false."
🤩 I recommend
This season of Great British Bake-Off, which is such a freakin’ delight
Netflix’s first dating reality show, which I dissected on Extra Hot Great this week
This Rick Steeves special, who made it free to watch for good reasons
That’s everything for this week.
Coming Monday: an interview with a producer who’s using social media to talk about reality TV and the industry.
I hope you have a great weekend, and an excellent start to the month.
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 396 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 1 November 2024, and it’s ready for this season of The Apprentice to be cancelled, finally.