Bake-Off is back!
My last bit of work for the week is settling in to the new season of The Great British Bake-Off, which I’m planning to recap in abbreviated form. That makes it easier to eat cake while watching. —Andy
The Bravo and reality TV tea
I was a guest on Bravo Breakdowns last week! It was a fun conversation. Listen here!
And while you’re in your podcast app, don’t miss my conversation with Big Brother’s producers about the show’s format
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Invite me in to your podcast player for behind-the-scenes looks at reality TV, and the sweet sound of my muppet-like voice
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Why Survivor players wear costumes
On today’s show: It’s time for a new season of Survivor, and in honor of that, a behind-the-scenes look at what Survivor players wear.
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Latest stories
Great British Baking Show recap: full of cake and hope
The Great British Baking Show is back! And series 17/collection 14’s Cake Week was an excellent start for the bakers (despite their disasters) and new judge Nigella Lawson. Let’s recap!
Lizzie Borden, but make it a jukebox musical
Why does Lizzie Borden attract musical interpretations? Is it the blood, the summer’s heat, the generational conflict, or that there’s few things quite as punk rock as a woman in a corset with an axe?
Traitors New Blood recap: bad evidence
The Traitors: New Blood episodes 3 and 4 gave us a new traitor and two new murders, but it’s CBS that may have committed murder tonight, moving Big Brother against The Traitors: New Blood’s second hour.
Survivor 51’s surprise start
It’s a new season of Made from Humans: How Reality Becomes TV, and today I’m looking at my expectation versus reality of Survivor 51’s premiere, and Wonka’s The Golden Ticket.
Survivor 51 premiere recap: old is new again!
On Survivor 51’s premiere, PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY made me LOL, but it was a great episode, tugging at my nostalgic heartstrings and giving us poo-poo hitting the fan and Drunk Reddit swim teacher.
The Floor questions, answered: how the Fox game show is produced
I talked with The Floor showrunner Anthony Carbone, who answered all my questions about how the Fox game show works behind the scenes.
Dancing with the Stars season 35 recap: holes start to show
Dancing with the Stars 35’s celebrities faced their first week of a speedier, 7-day schedule. How did they do? And whose holes need filling? Marshal Knight recaps for us!
Dear Wonka’s Golden Ticket: You lose! Good day, sir!
The biggest offense of Wonka’s The Golden Ticket is not the disembodied voice of Gene Wilder, resurrected 10 years after his death via AI. My review explores and explains.
Big Brother’s Dan Gheesling, star of the Army’s Twitch propaganda, stunned by criticism
Big Brother’s best winner and Twitch streamer Dan Gheesling is not handling criticism well for his participation in a live-streamed U.S. Army reality competition, i.e. propaganda.
Below Deck Med 11 episode 16 recap: broken
What a horrible cliffhanger from Bravo to leave Below Deck Med season 16 on, especially knowing what we know now about the violence Nathan was convicted of committing.
previous stories
News & updates
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Yahoo! theorizes that recent renewed interest in the Lizzie Borden case could have an astrological basis. Riiiiight, that old “algorithm in retrograde” chestnut. (hee.)
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Amazon MGM Studios has optioned Hang the Decorators from producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter; Mike Makowsky (Death By Lightning) will write the project.
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Absolutely ludicrous that The Traitors: New Blood ended episode four on a cliffhanger tonight—and NBC will make us wait two weeks for that to resolve.
Look at this:
- Sept. 24: Two episodes, starting at 8 ET
- Oct. 1: no new episode, just a repeat of episode two?!
- Oct. 8: one episode, starting at 10 ET
I understand NBC not wanting to air Traitors next week against BB28’s finale on Oct. 1, but who thought that schedule would help? The Traitors: New Blood is going to bleed out before it returns.
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Dancing with the Stars 35 is on fire, defying all the trends by growing its audience year to year.
Rick Porter reports that the premiere episode “drew 6.77 million viewers, up 26 percent from last year’s premiere. The next night came in at 6.44 million viewers, holding 95 percent of the premiere audience,” and together they were “the best premiere for the show since 2017” among young viewers 18 to 49.
He notes: “All that is confounding. Shows that have been around that long just about never post growth like that, but DWTS is only continuing a run that started last season. It’s one of the more remarkable ratings stories on network TV in the past few years.”
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Taylor Frankie Paul announced that she’s done with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. “I don’t desire to move forward like this,” she wrote at the top of a 277-word paragraph.
She says she received “ongoing abuse” from “Almost the entire cast plus some,” and now ” it’s a pleasure to remove myself so they can continue, because I’ve almost convinced myself I’m deserving of all this pain and to a certain degree absolutely this is consequences of my actions.”
Mikayla Matthews quit the show last week, apparently citing Taylor’s ongoing involvement:
I’ve said from the beginning of this that I’m not comfortable being a part of something that continues to platform behavior I don’t agree especially given my own experience growing up in a home with multiple forms of abuse. There’s no amount of money worth going against my morals or changing the stance I’ve had since I first saw and heard the things that made me feel this strongly. And for me personally, continuing to directly profit from this behavior feels wrong and unethical. It feels like a disservice to the children, everyone’s healing and the millions of people watching.
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Drag Race España season 6 has cast a drag king, Marcus Massalami, whose “name out of drag is Melisa Meseguer, a lesbian actress, singer, violinist, and nurse,” Them reported.
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Rachel Aviv wrote for The New Yorker about the results of the Thirlwell Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the Lucy Letby case. Her 2024 article about the case in chief is excellent.
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The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey has a premiere date at last — the series will FINALLY debut on Netflix December 10th. THR and other outlets have first-look photos of Clive Owen and Melissa McCarthy as John and Patsy.
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The Floor season six premieres tomorrow, and has a cast of “champions,” including Big Brother winner Xavier Prather, American Ninja Warrior winner Katie Bone, Amazing Race winner Ricky Rotandi, and Worst Cooks in America winner Adrian Reid Bronx.
Marisa Roffman has a great interview with showrunner Anthony Carbone about how that casting twist emerged organically. “We were never like, ‘Okay, mathematically, we only want 12 people who have won reality shows,” he says. “It was really just who are the best players and, obviously, who are the most interesting contestants.” Read more.
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Former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider’s lawsuit, which claimed that Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV had defamed him, got thrown out last week.
Recent comments
I wonder if they will ever find Nathan. I think he’s in the philippines or thailand.
Oh, he is totally insufferable and has been. I think I’ve learned to tune it out by really just looking at my phone instead and then go back to watching when he has stopped talking. He loves listening…
the last ten seasons were getting sooooo formulaic. glad the permanent uncertainty era is on and I hope this keeps the players (and viewers) on their toes now moving forward. fingers crossed 🤞
Music WAY TOO LOUd!!! Unbearable!!! Can hardly hear what people are saying! Love the show but really. How can producers not see this
I was raised on the Chad Mitchell Trio and that song is just the best. I’m so glad you know it and are introducing it to new listeners!
Funny, I am a BB fan (yes, I admit it… VERY guilty pleasure) and I still watch The Traitors “live.” This is truly a great show and I think having regular people is just as great as C-list…
Dead air is a broadcasting 101 no no and I agree he ruins the show. STFU (it will never happen).
Welcome back, Andy! It is great to hear your voice again. I am glad you enjoyed your break.
I must be in the minority but I could barely get through the episode since Jeff wouldn’t STFU. He is insufferable. The stream of consciousness rhetorical verbal diarrhea about the game is over the top at this point.…
I was thinking they would use “expect the unexpected” since apparently big brother and survivor are morphing together theses days and not for the betterment of either show!
Great story.. learned a lot, especially things I never thought about!
Baffling scheduling decision – I assumed NBC had NFL or something next Thursday to pre-empt it. Even if BB28 is tougher competition than it might have been in previous years it surely hurts The Traitors more to take…
When it comes to safety, you definitely don’t do whatever the guests want. The guests telling him that is actually kind of damning, makes it pretty clear it wasn’t just the wind.
Pan past a clock showing midnight. Katie: “This is my first turret, and thinking of all who came before me… I can feel their power.” Me, inevitably: “In the midnight hour / I can feel their power /…
From the archives
Recommended reality TV shows
Three recommendations: Road Rules + Shark Tank, Ellen’s Game of Games, and The Profit
Netflix’s Barbecue Showdown is even more succulent in season 2
Claim to Fame: ABC’s promising but insecure celebrity relative guessing game
Tournament of Champions 5 is back, strengthened by the qualifiers and past winners
True crime reviews
Old-school spiritualist scams; New York cold cases
I was wrong about The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson
Killer Lies: Chasing A True-Crime Con Man is the best of both worlds
Enjoyed the premiere. Heard that Irish guy Lewis is some YouTuber living in a bus farming in PR and a real wild guy who likes chaos – came across so differently here. Like when Jeff asked the players…