Cannonball, which is being previewed on NBC before airing on USA Network, looks like it should be the next Wipeout or Floor is Lava. It’s not.
Archives for June 2020
The return of Unsolved Mysteries and other reality TV premieres this week
The start of viewer-selected Chopped marathons, a preview of Cannonball, and two Everest documentaries are among the unscripted TV premieres this week.
Karma’s great cast deserved a far better game than this weak copy of Endurance
HBO Max’s Karma mimics Big Brother’s game, except without giving its players a chance to save themselves except by random chance. It’s a waste of a beautiful location and a terrific cast, who make the show compelling even when the game design fails them.
Survivor and race, a Real World season 1 marathon, and other must-watch/listen/reads
This collection of recommended reads and listens includes a discussion tonight between Black Survivor cast members. Plus: the Heroes vs. Villains Ponderosa band that nearly led to a jury mutiny.
The birth of Survivor’s first alliance, and the roots of an epic betrayal
In Survivor: Borneo episode four, Richard Hatch suggests creating alliances, but The Tagi Four alliance is born first between Kelly and Sue.
Crazy Delicious: Netflix’s competition takes GBBO’s DNA into an ‘enchanted garden’
Carla Hall is one of the three food god judges on Crazy Delicious, which has a Willy Wonka-ish set but in tone and approach, is much more like The Great British Baking Show.
Survivor 41: news from Fiji, and Jeff Probst’s need to ‘reinvent the show every single time’
There’s good and bad news from Fiji about season 41. Also: Jeff Probst seems tired of trying “really hard to try to reinvent the show every single” season. I have an idea!
Big Brother is not premiering this week, but these 11 reality shows are
Big Brother may not be premiering this week, as it would in a normal year, but there are other summer shows coming, including The CW’s Penn & Teller: Fool Us, Netflix’s Crazy Delicious, and TBS’s Celebrity Show-Off.
Tournament of Laughs: a bracketed comedy competition where we pick the winners
Comedians face off in a bracketed competition that’ll be judged by viewers in TBS’s new competition Tournament of Laughs, which
Floor is Lava and Don’t: two kids’ games, turned into reality TV competitions
Netflix’s Floor is Lava is visually stunning, with its set of gurgling lava slime, but it needs better narration, like Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool-style narration on ABC’s new game show Don’t.
10 free documentaries and reality series about racism in America
A few documentaries and reality series I found to be illuminating, insightful, and informative about race in America—and that are free to watch for everyone right now.
Top Chef All Stars LA: an outstanding season that sometimes seemed ancient
Top Chef All Stars LA was, for the most has part, an excellent season, even if many of the challenges and product integrations felt like they came from a different time—because they did.
MTV fired Alex Kompo for racist posts; Siesta Key edited him out
The star of MTV’s Siesta Key has been fired after old but brutally racist social media posts resurfaced, and the show will edit him out of the rest of season three.
The Survivor episode that led to a lawsuit claiming the show was rigged
“Quest for Food,” episode 3 of Survivor Borneo, focuses mostly on the tribes’ attempts to find things to eat, but it’s what happened off-camera that led Stacey Stillman to sue.
Remember Whodunnit? Get ready for Killer Camp, coming to The CW this summer
The CW is importing four international reality shows this summer: Killer Camp, Taskmaster, Being Reuben, and Fridge Wars.