reality blurred + archives + January 2 to January 8, 2011

week of January 2, 2011

Sea Shepherd, whalers' claims "impossible to verify," AP says, ignoring Whale Wars
Is it possible that the Associated Press has no knowledge of Animal Planet's outstanding reality series Whale Wars, which documents the Southern Ocean battles between...
Casting directors discuss whether actors should do reality TV
Does it help or hurt an actor to go on a reality TV show? There's varied evidence, from The Real World's Jamie Chung, who will...

Reality TV saves teenager's life
Some good news to start 2011: Discovery's Man vs. Wild and Survivorman were credited with saving a 14-year-old's life. He spent nine hours in -17...
American Idol will replace the on-stage band with audience members
American Idol has hired Ray Chew as its new band director, but is planning to hide him and the musicians, replacing them on the stage...
Chris Lambton explains why he rejected The Bachelor
Brad Womack returns to ABC tonight to try to find love again, and will face the two women he rejected (Jenni Croft and DeAnna Pappas),...
WWE Tough Enough resurrected by USA Network
The series that lets people compete for a pro wrestling contract will return to TV more than six years after being effectively canceled. WWE Tough...
Amber Portwood gets $280K a year, doesn't "want to be known as Amber from Teen Mom"
Teen Mom star Amber Portwood was released from jail last week, but not before a judge forced her to reveal in open court how much...
Leif Garrett says Celebrity Rehab producers asked him to use when he was sober
Celebrity Rehab participant Leif Garrett said that before his time on the show with Dr. Drew Pinsky, he was sober but producers asked him to...

Paula Abdul returns to reality TV tonight (sigh)
After being blissfully absent from competitive reality TV for more than a year now, Paula Abdul returns to host, judge, produce, and clean the windows...
Pepsi sponsors X Factor, announcement takes shots at American Idol
Pepsi has signed on as the official beverage sponsor of Fox and Simon Cowell's forthcoming The X Factor, and the Fox press release includes not-so-subtle...
Winter 2011 reality TV debut schedule
The new year has brought with it a lot of new and returning reality TV shows: More than 25 series debut in the first 15...
Brett Hoebel and Cara Castronova: Biggest Loser's still-a-mystery trainers?
The Biggest Loser is still keeping the identities of its mystery trainers a secret, even after its first episode tonight, but reports on fitness blogs...

Kathy Griffin confirms (again) that My Life on the D-List is over
Kathy Griffin's Bravo reality series My Life on the D-List is officially over, which Kathy said in mid-November but which has become news again today,...
Insulting copycat Live to Dance needs to die
Paula Abdul's Live to Dance, which debuted on CBS last night, is the worst kind of plagiarism: it's like the student who changes a word...
10 million people watch all of Live to Dance; did they fall asleep?
Paula Abdul's Live to Dance did surprisingly well last night: just over 10 million people watched the show, and stayed with it through both hours,...
Camille Grammer out of Real Housewives
Camille Grammer won't be on Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills if it returns for a second season, so producers will have to find...

Top Chef has its 100th episode, still the best competitive talent-based show on TV
Top Chef had its 100th episode during the middle of its first all-star season last night, and on that occasion, had a special quickfire challenge...
Viewers figure out that Paula Abdul's Live to Dance isn't worth watching and leave
The first episode of Live to Dance, Paula Abdul's CBS dance competition, had a surprisingly high number of viewers considering how awful it was, but...
Top Chef judges defend elimination decision
Top Chef All-Stars' judges are defending their decision to send Casey Thompson home instead of Jamie Lauren, and they say it was simply because Casey's...
Survivor 23, 24 applications due Tuesday
Applications for Survivor's 23rd and 24th season are due on Tuesday, and these are the real applications, not the online casting competition that gave us...

Taking on Tyson trailer, Mike Tyson make his pigeon racing series a must-watch
When Animal Planet first announced its reality series Taking on Tyson, on which Mike Tyson will race pigeons, it seemed like a joke. But like...
Survivor producer Mark Burnett to me: "You ask such stupid questions"
Thursday night at a party for the new Oprah Winfrey network, OWN, I briefly interviewed Survivor executive producer Mark Burnett, who recently produced HGTV's Design...
Addicts who Relapse will be focus of new A&E series from Intervention producers
A&E has ordered another series focusing on addicts: Relapse, which focuses on coaches who work with addicts to help them through relapses. It's produced by...
This week: Two shows on Oprah's new network, plus Teen Mom, Gold Rush return
It's 2011 and a bunch of new reality shows kicked off this week, and even more new and returning series come our way during the...