Top Chef's back • a 🤯 Survivor • Matt Paxton's latest • recaps and recs!
Dear newsletter friends,
I love the community that has formed around reality blurred. That word can be overused, but it’s so true, in so many different ways.
I put my thoughts into the world, and y’all build around that—whether that’s the robust conversation we often have in the comments or those who reach out with tips or corrections—never mind you right here in your inbox. You’re all amazing!
That’s one reason I’m working on making the community experience on reality blurred even better; a recent addition is the ability to edit comments to fix typos or whatever. Much more to come.
Anyway, our community was top of mind this week since two of you were actually on my TV screens! 😳 😍
- Two years ago, one of you asked about getting tickets for Tournament of Champions. I answered that question, and this week a person who commented on that story was actually in TOC’s audience!
- A player on a current reality competition told me during their exit interview that they’d been reading reality blurred since they were 13! (That’s one of the rare things that didn’t make me feel old, as they’re 37, so that means they’ve been reading for about 24 years, most of its life.)
Humbling and awesome and just more evidence that y’all are the best reality TV-adjacent people in the world, whether you’re fans or producers or executives or cast.
Thanks for being here! Speaking of…
A quick programming note: About a third of you didn’t get last Friday’s newsletter, because of an issue with AOL and Yahoo e-mail. I still don’t understand what happened—or if it’ll suddenly be sent when the server gods decide to do that—but my apologies. And I hope that doesn’t happen today. 😰
🌷 ICYMI: Here’s my spring reality TV premiere guide
🌏 Survivor and Amazing Race
The Amazing Race
- Episode 2: Airport intrigue was back! But this guy saved the day
- Episode 1: Did The Amazing Race 37’s new twist fork up anyone’s game?
Survivor 48
🇨🇦 More recaps
Deal or No Deal Island
Below Deck Down Under
Top Chef
👩❤️💋👨 Two interviews and an answer
I interviewed Mark L. Walberg:
And on my favorites, Matt Paxton:
And I answered some FAQs about TOC:
And I talked about some of these on my podcast:
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
This week’s premieres include new seasons of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Top Chef, Spring Baking Championship, American Idol, and Naked and Afraid, plus Lifetime’s series starring Octomom and Gypsy Rose.
This week’s documentary premieres include Saturday night’s RuPaul’s Drag Race Live! — actually live from Las Vegas! Also: a profile of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed by Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust; and Discovery Channel’s Constables on Patrol.
💬 Comments of the week
I wish they had done a bit more with the Fork in the Road idea, because it definitely has potential. But this was basically just a spruced up detour challenge.
That said, I enjoyed this episode overall. It almost felt like old school TAR, with actual travel and navigation!
I will miss Jackye and Lauren. They had such a beautiful spirit about the race. It always seems to be the teams that probably know they have no chance of winning that can really enjoy it, as opposed to the overly competitive Jonathans of the world.
After her TOC experience, Melissa wrote, in part:
After the taping was over, we were hanging out outside. We had parked at a different location and they shuttled us to the studio. So we got to see a couple of the chefs and Tiffani leaving. They were all very nice, waving and thanking us for coming. And then Guy Fieri drove by! In his black Corvette, he stopped and rolled down the window and thanked us all for coming. And I saw his dog in the front seat! Really good guy, I’m a bigger fan now.
🗞️ News
- Here’s the ‘outrageous mix of reality icons and crafty gamers’ for Hulu’s new comp—which includes “reality rookies” who were already on reality TV shows. 🤔
- A group of reality TV cast members and fans—led by Peppermint and Frankie Grande, and including Alan Cumming, Nicole Byer, Michelle Buteau, Monét X Change, Zeke Smith, Ts Madison, Christian Siriano and others—have signed an open letter to the reality TV industry about queer inclusion.
- One of the Temptation Island men—not the tempters—is already on OnlyFans.
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Jeff Bezos found another way to crawl further up dear leader's ass: The Apprentice is now on Amazon Prime Video. A new season will drop every Monday through the end of April, probably along with more democracy-eroding norms and destruction of systems that we all rely on.
Mark Burnett got in on the action, too, saying in the release, "The Apprentice is one of the best shows that I ever produced. The charismatic onscreen presence of President Donald J. Trump made it a bona fide hit!"
Crime news:
- Ghost Adventures star Aaron Goodwin's wife was arrested for conspiring to have him killed.
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Big Brother 2’s Mike "Boogie" Malin was arrested for the second time this year. The first for allegedly shoplifting from CVS, and the second time was "after a bench warrant was issued when he was a no-show at court," TMZ reported, for "recently violating the terms of a restraining order."
He allegedly did that by contacting Dr. Will Kirby's wife. In 2021, Mike was found guilty of felony stalking Will. - Hulu just released Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna Hutchins, a documentary about the death of the cinematographer who was killed by star Alec Baldwin when he fired a gun during a rehearsal.
Indiewire has a fascinating interview with director Rachel Mason, a friend of Halyna's, who says, "It’s very different from anything I’ve ever done. It feels painful because I have to think of the fact that this is not a film that really should exist. Halyna should exist. And I don’t want to have to have a film instead of my friend."
🤩 I recommend
- Filthy Fortunes, Matt Paxton’s new show
- This NSFW joke about Survivor
- Browsing this list of books
- the Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List
That’s everything for this week. Have a fantastic weekend and a happy St. Patrick’s if you’ll be celebrating! 🍀 🍻
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 410 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 14 March 2025, and everything’s computer here, too.