Friends to Lovers? and Work Out cast member Greg Plitt, 37, was killed Saturday afternoon. He’s the second cast member from Work Out series to die. He was hit by a train in Burbank and was apparently filming with his own camera when he died. Burbank police told People that it “appears to be an accident” and “does… continue reading
Andy Cohen sometimes feels bad about what he’s done
Andy Cohen was profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, the terrific newsmagazine show that rarely goes deep but is nearly always insightful, and Sunday it showed that the man who helped turn The Real Housewives franchise into an entire network’s focus and its own industry sometimes isn’t always pleased with what he’s done. He’s profiled by Erin Moriarty,… continue reading
Bravo’s Below Deck cast member did gay porn
Bravo debuted yet another reality series about rich people behaving badly last night, but Below Deck seems different, in part because it focuses on the people who have to serve the poorly behaved rich people. Oddly for a 2013-era Bravo docudrama, the first episode was rather watchable, and even had surprising moments. Like Million Dollar… continue reading
Bravo’s shows mocked by SNL; Top Chef’s product placement mocked by The Onion
Top Chef‘s increasing product placement has become the subject of satire in The Onion, while SNL parodied Bravo’s Real Housewives-style shows and their spin-offs. The best part of The Onion’s video, below, is the cleverly edited Top Chef footage, which makes it both farcical and satirical. Yet it’s not that far off from reality despite… continue reading
Has Bravo run out of assholes for reality shows?
Bravo, one of the cable networks responsible for establishing multiple sub-genres of reality television, is venturing into scripted programming, which must only be because they’ve run out of assholes to feature on their increasingly awful reality series. The network has ordered pilots for two shows, both of which “center on the complex dynamics of modern… continue reading
80 Plates Around the World vs. No Kitchen Required: no contest, as BBC America bests Bravo
Two new food competition series borrowed elements from Survivor and The Amazing Race, but have had wildly different results evolving the food competition format. Bravo’s Around the World in 80 Plates is shrill and annoying and fumbles nearly every opportunity it had, while BBC America’s just-concluded No Kitchen Required is a truly fresh take on… continue reading
Watch flawless, hilarious impressions of Bravolebrities
Comedian Amy Phillips does flawless impressions of Bravo stars such as Bethenny Frankel, Ramona Singer, and Tabatha Coffey, and earlier this month turned them into a video in which they wish head Bravo star Andy Cohen a happy birthday. (Andy was mocked on SNL with a good impression, but these are significantly better.) Amy has… continue reading
Watch SNL’s takedown of Watch What Happens Live and Andy Cohen: “like a shark!”
Saturday Night Live parodied Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live last night, which is a pretty significant challenge considering Andy Cohen’s nightly talk show/hot mess is pretty much an unintentional parody by itself–and even of itself. But it worked. Andy Cohen was, unsurprisingly, thrilled by the attention, tweeting, “OMG the one night I go to bed… continue reading
Unfair reactions to Bravo’s terrible new shows
Before their upfront presentation to advertisers, Bravo announced seven new shows that they called an “aggressive development slate”–and collectively, they seem like aggressively awful shows. I’m judging, of course, based on a few dozen words in a press release, and that’s it, so of course I’m being ridiculously unfair. These shows might end up being… continue reading
Bravo, Oxygen, Style boss Lauren Zalaznick’s ridiculous argument about why people watch her shows
Former Bravo president and current NBC executive Lauren Zalaznick is undoubtedly very smart and responsible for much of what I love on television. She also made a ridiculous argument that suggest she has very different relationships to her shows than viewers do. “I reject easy slams like ‘train wreck’ and ‘guilty pleasure. It’s just not… continue reading
Andy Cohen gets five nights a week for the well-watched disaster known as Watch What Happens Live
Bravo is expanding its chat show Watch What Happens Live, hosted by its executive-turned-blogger-turned-host-turned-TV personalty Andy Cohen, to five nights a week. It will air Sundays to Thursdays starting Jan. 8 thanks to the fact that Andy has higher ratings than fellow cable chat show hosts Chelsea Handler and Conan O’Brien. But it also means… continue reading
Reviews of summer food competitions: Rocco’s Dinner Party, Extreme Chef, Chopped, more
Food competitions have multiplied across network and cable channels, and summer seems to be the time when they proliferate. While we wait for the return of Top Chef Just Desserts later this month, I thought I’d look at some new and returning food competition series and give them brief reviews. Let’s start with Hell’s Kitchen… continue reading
Bravo renews five shows, gives Jeff Lewis and Tabatha Coffey new series
Bravo has ordered 11 new reality series, and renewed four others, including the awesome Top Chef Just Desserts. Also renewed: The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (only a minor surprise here), The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, and whatever they will call Bethenny Frankel’s third season. The network is also giving two of… continue reading
Chad Rogers insists his decision to leave Million Dollar Listing wasn’t “mutual” by having his lawyer threaten a TV critic
Chad Rogers has left Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing, something we first learned last April, but the terms of his departure are so important that his lawyer has threatened a TV critic–even though the critic’s reporting is based on something Bravo’s president said. In addition, his lawyer also claimed “Chad enjoys extremely positive publicity.” The Pittsburgh… continue reading
Bravo will “never” do a gay Housewives, but may have show with “a group of gay guys”
Despite reports that Bravo had already cast a The Real Housewives spin-off featuring gay men, sort of like Logo’s obnoxious The A List but called From The Bottom To The Top, the network’s executives insist that is not true and will never happen, even though they are casting and developing shows with groups of gay… continue reading