Tournament of Champions' winner, Top Chef's Last Chance Kitchen, Survivor's monster and torches, and more
Dear newsletter friends,
Happy Earth Day!
This week, there are several Earth-focused documentaries premiering on TV and streaming—including a Disney+ feature that follows a polar bear, and a doc filmed over seven years.
Among recent reality TV premieres are everything from Netflix’s look at Our Great National Parks to a three-part series about how we’ve been lied to for decades, just so rich people can get richer. (Did you know what happens to most of our recycling? 😩)
If that’s all too much 😅, reality TV has you covered!
This week brought us the premiere of The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans, plus new seasons of Deadliest Catch and Selling Sunset, among other shows.
Top Chef and TOC
I recapped and reviewed the finale of Tournament of Champions, which was fantastic in its finale and all season long.
ICYMI: Here’s my behind the scenes of TOC.
In Ask Andy, I explored how Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen is filmed. It’s quite surprising!
Survivor
This week on Survivor, the monster was finally revealed:
In my recap, I discuss that and also the disappointing parts of this episode.
In Ask Andy, I answered a question about why Survivor players don’t use their torches to light their fire
In sad news, another Survivor player died: Ralph Kiser was on Survivor: Redemption Island, and memorably misspelled players’ names (“Phile”).
He’s the 10th Survivor player to die from the CBS version.
Reality TV news
Added to my new news round-up recently are these stories—and some light snark:
The Challenge: All-Stars’ new cast
The return of Big Brother: UK?
The Kardashians’ alleged ratings success on Hulu
Nyle DiMarco’s new book
A mole who quit The Mole mid-season
Find all those here, and check back during the week, as I add new stories!
🤩 I recommend
This show, which you can now watch three full seasons of
This live show, which has given me several new songs on my playlist
This show, which concluded its second season last night
This piece on RuPaul’s Drag Race
That’s everything I have for you this week. Have a terrific weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is Reality in Focus issue 287, first sent 22 April 2022, and it had no idea.
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📷 Photo of a butterfly in Taiwan by Boris Smokrovic