Traitors ends! Survivor & TAR start • Spring premieres • 12+ reviews & recaps
Dear newsletter friends,
Happy Friday, and happy March!
Without a newsletter last Friday, we have a ton of great stuff this week—more than a dozen reviews and recaps, and that’s not even close to all. 🤯
If you read something here that makes you laugh or think or yell at me, a favor: Would you text it to a reality TV-loving friend, share it in a group chat, or post to social media?
Your recommendations mean so much! Thanks. 😀
🌏 Survivor and Amazing Race
The Amazing Race
Survivor 48
Episode 1: Survivor 48 starts its game of alliances and mistakes with great character building
Episode 2: Survivor 48 explores the pros and cons of diarrhea mouth
🚨 Survivor news 🗳️ With this meta twist, Survivor 50 is “in the hands of the fans,” literally
🚁 Competition recaps
Tournament of Champions
TOC 6’s qualifiers are a strong start to the new season. Except Hunter. Oof.
The Traitors
Episode 10: A near-useless episode of The Traitors US ends with an obnoxious cliffhanger
The finale! The Traitors ends as an exceptionally entertaining but broken game
Deal or No Deal Island
Episode 8: Will anyone dethrone ‘the king and queen of Deal or No Deal Island’?
Interview and episode 9 recap: Why DONDI was ‘a dream come true’ for its latest eliminated player
👍 More recaps!
Below Deck Down Under
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
👍👎 Reviews
Remember Showtime’s Gigolos? One of its cast members is in prison for killing a client, and that story is now its own show: Sin City Gigolo: A Murder in Las Vegas.
Peacock’s Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy: 6 better uses of your time than this
The Man Nobody Killed: art, community, and the grief left behind
True crime:
🌷 Spring reality TV
Here are my brand-new guides for reality TV premieres over the next three months (and beyond!). Bookmark these as I’ll keep updating them until June:
💬 Comments of the week
On this Extracted story, Bob wrote, in part,
Sometimes I honestly think the producers just roam the streets, grabbing the first gullible idiot they see. “Hey, wanna be on TV?” “Sure, what’s the show about?” “Oh, nothing too crazy—just a little camping trip. No big deal.” And next thing you know, some poor schmuck is freezing in British Columbia while their family back home is screaming, “DON’T TAP OUT! WE NEED THE MONEY!”
On this Amazing Race recap, David wrote,
I think another thing is it forces the midpack teams to potentially have to gamble a little bit- Do they go for the task that they think they might be weaker in but know they have more leeway because there are still a ton of open slots left, or go for their strength knowing their margin of error is lower?
And it also guarantees both of the options are used- it must frustrate the producers when they have a early leg task setup that none or only one team actually attempts- and there are budgetary costs to consider as well…
🗞️ News
Will anyone let us watch these two friends’ Oscar-winning film?
Tyra Banks received Essence’s Luminary Spotlight award, and in her speech, said, in part:
Over 20 years ago, I created a television show called America’s Next Top Model. And you guys have no idea how hard we fought to bring the diversity to that television show at a time when it didn’t exist; to show different beauties at a time when the world was like, ‘What? You casting that? And what? Was it that?’ A time when people in the fashion industry were telling me, ‘You putting the girls from the hood on your show?’ I was like, ‘Why can the girl from the trailer park become a supermodel but the girl that’s chillin’ in the park in the hood can’t?’ And we fought and we struggled and we made it happen.”
Did we get it right? Hell no. I said some dumb shit, but I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the Internet when there were 24 cycles of changing the world. We all evolve. We all get better together. And I am so excited that I, and so many of us, have opened that door for others to follow.”
Two Below Deck crew members have sued Gary King, Bravo, NBCUniversal, and production company 51 Minds, claiming “sexual battery, assault, hostile work environment harassment, and false imprisonment” plus “wrongful termination, retaliation, gender violence, discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress,” according to Rolling Stone’s report on the lawsuit.
Genre titan Joseph Wambaugh, author of The Onion Field, has died. My esteemed colleague Kevin Smokler and I spoke about book and film on The Blotter Presents years ago; both are rightly considered classics.
At the premiere of Suits LA last week, Patton Oswalt told People "exclusively" that he'd kept the true-crime books that influenced his late wife, Michelle McNamara, for their daughter Daisy to read. "'But, it's not like, here are all the true crime books you should read,' he adds. 'It's like these are the myriad books that shaped your mom and also, which by default shaped you. So that's kind of what we're doing.'" McNamara, author of I'll Be Gone In The Dark, helped to bring the Golden State Killer to justice via her research.
🤩 I recommend
The Traitors US season three, for the spectacle
Boycotting Target for the next month
Coming soon! An interview with Hoarders’ Matt Paxton, whose new show premieres on Discovery Channel Sunday night.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end. I hope you have a nice rest of your week and weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 409 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 7 March 2025, and it still marvels at an adult who puts on t-shirts like this