The Mole is coming back!! 🥳 HBO Max is deleting shows 😫 Plus: BB banner planes • ANW DQ • and more!
Dear newsletter friends,
Streaming has given us the ability to watch so many shows any time, including many old shows. I keep turning back to The Golden Girls on Hulu when I need some background comfort, and I was so thrilled when Netflix added the original Mole last summer.
But what the streamers give, they take away.
Netflix dropped The Mole’s original seasons after a year, and now HBO Max has been deleting shows, reality and scripted, to help save its parent company money.
Oh, and Warner Bros. Discovery fired the people who developed shows like Legendary and Fboy Island.
Here’s a full list of what’s leaving HBO Max this week 😰, plus a discussion of why this is happening.
Among the shows that have disappeared—or are about to—are a dating series that was one of the few to have queer leads, and the better of the two dog grooming reality competitions.
The Mole!
As I told you about last May, building on reporting from Buzzerblog, Netflix is bringing back The Mole.
The great mystery has been just when it’ll actually show up. Even though it filmed in 2021 and started post-production last August, there’s been no news since then.
While we wait for it, join me in (re-)experiencing the magic of The Mole season 1 and The Mole season 2; while Netflix stopped streaming both, you can still get season 1 on DVD for $15. And a DVD player for $30 if you need one of those, too!
I recapped
Claim to Fame, which prompted me to write this headline: Claim to Fame’s girls trip over lies detected. I’m very proud of that.
The Challenge USA, which had car crashes and fires, but also seems to have found a way into a bit of a rut.
Reality TV news
I took a deep dive into a few seconds of Monday’s American Ninja Warrior, and this was the result:
Also in the news this week:
Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn is leaving
Love Is Blind’s Iyanna and Jarrette are getting divorced. LOVE IS DEAD.
R. Kelly's trial began, and his lawyers wanted the judge to axe any jurors who’ve seen Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly
Messyness co-host and comedian Teddy Ray died
This week and next:
This week’s reality TV premieres and documentaries airing on TV
Like reality TV and fantasy novels? There’s a new book out Tuesday that combines the two: Tune in Tomorrow: The Curious, Calamitous, Cockamamie Story of Starr Weatherby and the Greatest Mythic Reality Show Ever by Randee Dawn
🤩 I recommend
This video, especially for early fans of Big Brother
This show, which is being deleted from HBO Max within days, though this essay by one of its cast members will not go anywhere!
This podcast, which takes a real-life incident and turns it into really funny true crime that made me cry with laughter a few times
See you back here in your inbox next Friday, and hopefully on reality blurred in the meantime.
—Andy
🌄 This is Reality in Focus issue 303, first sent 19 August 2022, and it has not been deleted off of HBO Max. Yet.
💻 This newsletter is hand-crafted in Florida by me, Andy Dehnart, and is supported in part by reality blurred patrons and paid subscribers to this newsletter. I’m grateful for them. If you can—or have a healthy expense account!—consider becoming a patron or upgrading your newsletter subscription.
💌 If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend! If you're that friend, you can subscribe here!
✅ Bookmark realityblurred.com and visit daily for the latest of my reality TV news analysis, reviews, and commentary.
📷 Photo of a cat looking out the window by Keenan Barber