Epix’s The Contender season five is the reverse of the very first NBC season: it’s now mostly boxing, with a little bit of reality show.
All reality show and documentary TV reviews on reality blurred by TV critic Andy Dehnart. (Learn more about Andy.)
Review: ABC’s Castaways, a survival series with shades of Survivor, Lost, and Alone
ABC’s new survival series is familiar and promising, and flashes between the cast’s attempt to survive and their home lives, but it also drags.
Recommended: Tabloid Wars, a Bravo reality show filmed at the paper that just fired half its staff
Tabloid Wars aired just six episodes on Bravo back in 2006, and went behind the scenes of The New York Daily News’ daily reporting. It’s still great reality TV.
Making It turns Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman’s charm and chemistry into wondrous reality TV
NBC’s crafting competition is as charming as The Great British Bake-Off, and just might be having even more fun.
Nailed It season two’s Queer Eye crossover, and Cooking on High’s many lows
Nailed It season two is still a genre-ignoring pile of exuberance and silliness, but Cooking on High is about as useful as a wet joint.
The new Double Dare is perfect, balancing classic and modern flawlessly
Nick’s new version of Double Dare had Marc Summers and new host Liza Koshy, and was still the show we grew up on.
Why Queer Eye is this year’s best reality TV, and Trading Spaces feels like a rerun
The reboot of Queer Eye was a revelation, the best new reality series of the year. The reboot of Trading Spaces was surprisingly lifeless.
The sad decline of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant rescue shows
Tonight, Ramsay is back with 24 Hours To Hell and Back, a new Fox series that is simply his old Fox series, Kitchen Nightmares with an even dumber conceit. How different is it from Ramsay’s original UK series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares?
The Mister Rogers doc, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, strips away the myth and reveals the man
The new documentary about Fred Rogers, star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, is in theatres today. It’s extraordinary. See it.
Review: The Fourth Estate has access to The New York Times, but less insight
The look inside The New York Times is often compelling reality television. But there’s also something missing.
American Idol isn’t perfect. But it more than justified its return.
A review of ABC’s American Idol, which continually revealed itself to be more than I expected—and became worth watching again.
Review: Netflix’s Evil Genius, an intriguing but unsatisfying true crime series
A review of Netflix’s new documentary reality series about the mysterious case of a pizza delivery man who robbed a bank and then was killed by a collar bomb.
The Great Interior Design Challenge is the splendid makeover that the interior design competition needed
My new reality TV competition obsession from the UK has amateur designers redecorating rooms in buildings already blanketed with history.
Review: Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, on which everything old and tired is back again
In an attempt to get big ratings, MTV has reunited most of the cast of Jersey Shore, who get drunk and party. Okay.
Review: In Nailed It, a celebration of trying and failing, America has its signature baking competition
Nicole Byer hosts Netflix’s wonderful baking competition, which dispenses with the usual reality TV chicanery and phony, hyperbolic stakes, and just has fun.