Next year, Syfy will air a real-time reality competition series that sounds very much like Big Brother, but with a twist: Opposite Worlds will divide the house with a glass wall, and the two sides will somehow represent the past and future, “each with its own unique advantages and disadvantages,” according to the network. The… continue reading
Archives for October 2013
A pre-merge failure for Survivor’s losing tribe
I’ve been so conditioned by Survivor‘s editors to expect an introduction of a red herring that I was genuinely shocked by the vote last night. With the threat of Aras plus Vytas so well-established by both tribes, it seems shocking that Laura Boneham’s bone-headed blurting to Vytas would be enough to convince her tribe to… continue reading
Omarosa vs. Bethenny: Bethenny loses $10K, makes another unsympathetic reality star look good
Omarosa took down Bethenny Frankel on Bethenny’s own talk show today, and their argument is pretty spectacular. “You made cupcakes. I worked in the White House. Get a grip,” Omarosa said at one point. Previously, awful talk show host Bethenny Frankel made Kate Gosselin sympathetic, so she’s clearly making an art form out of making… continue reading
Guy Fieri’s horrifying SUV fight dismissed as “messing around”
Next Food Network Star winner, Guy vs. Rachael star, and Food Network personality Guy Fieri got in a horrifying fight Saturday with the person responsible for his hair. Cue the obvious jokes. The fight was filmed at the San Francisco International Airport by someone in another vehicle, and shows Guy’s hair stylist, Ariel Ramirez, is… continue reading
Reality TV’s first zombie: Criss Angel reanimates a corpse
After six seasons of A&E’s Mindfreak, Criss Angel took a three-year break from TV, but returned this month with his new show Criss Angel BeLIEve on Spike. And while the show has included very interesting illusions and demonstrations, Tuesday’s episode took things farther than any other reality show has before: he re-animated a corpse, creating… continue reading
The real reason Laney left Face Off: guilt
Laney Parkhurst left Face Off during last week’s episode, becoming the first person in the show’s history to leave voluntarily, and leaving four returnees as the show’s final contestants. Her departure seemed to be because of homesickness, but she says it was because of something else, and not a desire to relieve us of her… continue reading
The day has arrived when it’s a sad thing for Snooki to be leaving a TV show
With no elimination last week because votes were discarded, and the addition of scores from this week’s group numbers, there was a lot going in to this week’s Dancing with the Stars results. At the end, it was former Jersey Shore cast member Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi who was sent home. This was surprising and surprisingly… continue reading
Tim Gunn to Project Runway cast accusing the show of being rigged: “bullshit!”
“Big Daddy’s here to protect you,” Tim Gunn said at the start of the reunion he hosted of the Project Runway cast. But Big Daddy wasn’t going to take any crap from this season’s crazier contestants, who were pretty insistent that the show was rigged, and proved himself to be a far better reunion host… continue reading
One celebrity says he’s been cast but Apprentice is still in limbo
The fate of The Celebrity Apprentice has been in limbo since late last spring and is still unclear; the show still doesn’t have a debut date or a cast at a time when it’s normally in production. However, at least one celebrity–Motley Crue’s Vince Neil–has said he’s been cast. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that… continue reading
American Idol results shows cut to 30 minutes (again, for the third time)
American Idol 13 has already made major changes and baffling changes, but there’s another change coming that has been long overdue: the reduction of the padded, filler-filled, redundant, unnecessarily drawn out results show to 30 minutes. That news came in Fox’s spring schedule, which said that new sitcom “Surviving Jack is set to air on… continue reading
Brad Culpepper defends himself: “I’m not misogynistic, I’m not sexist, I’m not racist”
Survivor Blood vs. Water cast member Brad Culpepper defended himself in interviews this week after his exit from the show was broadcast Wednesday, and insists he’s not the sexist man ordering around his wife and other women that the episodes suggested he was. Asked very, very lightly about his shushing of women (“There was talk… continue reading
The Rock, TNT dump The Hero for its “natural successor”: yet another motivational show
TNT has effectively cancelled The Rock-hosted series The Hero by announcing that he’ll star in a new series, tentatively titled Wake Up Call, which looks like it’ll double down on the worst parts of The Hero and have only one thing that made the summer show watchable: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. A press release described… continue reading
Best reality star revenge video ever: Amazing Race’s Joey Graceffa car towed
Joey Graffeca, the YouTube star who went on Amazing Race and is returning for spring’s all-star season, complained on YouTube about his car being towed–and the person who towed his car responded with his own video and evidence to counter Joey’s claims. Needless to say, it is awesome. Because Joey apparently always has his camera… continue reading
Blackfish airs on CNN tonight, exposes SeaWorld’s shameful behavior
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, CNN will broadcast Blackfish, the film about SeaWorld’s killer whale, Tilikum, that’s really about a lot more than that. It’s worth watching. The film is not as gorgeously shot, narratively engrossing, or polemic as The Cove, the Oscar-winning documentary about dolphin slaughter that plays like a real-life thriller. At first,… continue reading
Survivor tribe swap scratches open new wounds
As last week’s promo spoiled, the tribes switched on Survivor Blood vs. Water, leaving tribes of essentially men versus women, with the exceptions of Vytas and Ciera as the one member of the opposite sex on their new tribe. That opened up a brand new dynamic and led to yet another surprising vote, though this… continue reading
Yes, we know Padma Lakshmi gains weight on Top Chef: enough already
There is one story the media never gets tired of, but it has become extraordinarily tiring: Padma Lakshmi’s weight gain during production of Top Chef. Full disclosure and confession: I wrote such a story more than five years ago, when the Los Angeles Times reported on that she gained 12 to 15 pounds each season… continue reading
The one thing Face Off needs to do next season: change everything
SyFy’s competition series Face Off has been renewed for a sixth season, and that’s great news: it consistently shows off strong talent and impressive challenges, and is a solid competition show. The network also ordered two specials: Nov. 12’s “Naked and Painted,” which is about body painting, and Nov. 19’s “Top 20 Countdown: Judges’ Favorites,… continue reading
Fox’s new reality exec is former Discovery Channel exec Simon Andreae
Fox has hired Simon Andreae to replace for Mike Darnell, the long-serving reality executive who quit earlier this summer after 19 years. Andreae previously worked as senior vice president of development and production for Discovery Channel’s west coast offices, and before that, ran The Incubator, where he produced reality series ranging from WE tv’s Jilted… continue reading
Hotel Impossible has its Amy’s Baking episode: post-Sandy help yields death threats
Hotel Impossible broke the fourth wall repeatedly last night as Anthony Melchiorri worked on the Hurricane Sandy-destroyed Thunderbird Motel in Seaside Heights, N.J., and eventually walked off the job because of horrific behavior from the family that owned it. He’d actually found a hotel that it was impossible to help, kind of like the now-famous… continue reading
Dancing with the Stars dumps all viewer votes because of on-air screw-up
Dancing with the Stars eliminated no one last night after all viewer votes were thrown out because incorrect phone numbers were displayed last week, resulting in viewers voting for people they didn’t intend to vote for. While first pretending they were going to eliminate someone at the end of the episode (“so mean,” Brooke observed),… continue reading