A first for Amazing Race & Survivor; Worst Cooks murderer's sentence; behind the scenes of The Quest; and much more

Dear newsletter friends,

Summer has suddenly rolled into Central Florida, where it will be somewhere between 90 and 93 today, depending which forecast I look at. As I write this about 7 a.m., the humidity is 95 percent.

Weather is also on my mind because it’s the subject of one of the six episodes of Adam Conover’s new Netflix series, The G Word with Adam Conover, which I reviewed this week.

Short review: It’s great!

Here are this week's other reality show premieres and documentaries that aired on TV or streaming.

Survivor and Amazing Race

In CBS reality TV show news:

• The penultimate episode of Survivor 42 featured a spectacular, single-handed move.

• This fall, Amazing Race and Survivor will be paired together for the first time ever.

  • They’ll also be paired with this intriguing show.

• This show ended. If you kept watching, how was it? (I stopped after two episodes.)

Behind-the-scenes

• I interviewed two of the producers of one of my all-time favorite shows for this behind-the-scenes look at Disney+’s The Quest.

Reality TV news

I published my May news round-up, which I’ll keep updating all month.

It starts with a pair of must-read profiles of Real World New Orleans cast members, and includes other recent news such as:

1. The Challenge appears to be recruiting family members and/or enemies of past contestants. Have they run out of contestants again?

2. Todd and Julie Chrisley’s trial for tax evasion and bank fraud started this week.

3. Camila Cabello is joining The Voice to coach alongside Gwen Stefani, John Legend, and Blake Shelton. That means Kelly Clarkson is out after eight seasons. 

4. Worst Cooks in America winner Ariel Robinson was convicted of killing her 3-year-old daughter and sentenced to life in prison.

5. The Staircase’s creators say the new HBO Max drama based on the documentary series “recklessly blurs fact and fiction,” according to Vanity Fair. That’s understandably frustrating—except what did director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade expect? (He’s a paid EP on the new series but didn’t even read scripts!) There’s no reason to make the new series except to blur fact and fiction!

Upfronts

Writing this for this newsletter:

• I can’t believe Fox renewed this show for a second season, which lost about half its live viewers from the first to last episode, though perhaps that’ll give it a chance to improve.

…prompted me to start compiling other interesting and/or surprising news from this week’s flurry of upfront announcements, when TV networks try to lure advertisers.

I’ll probably publish that later today/Friday; I’m still working my way through announcements, such as MTV Entertainment Studios’ list of more than 90 shows it will produce.

🤩 I recommend

• This new Netflix show

• This relatively new Netflix show, whether you have kids or are annoyed by them

• This interview, if you’re interested in how reality TV is made

And that’s a wrap on this week’s newsletter. Have a terrific weekend!

—Andy

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🌄 This is Reality in Focus issue 291, first sent 20 May 2022, and it is already sweating.

💻 This newsletter is hand-crafted in Florida by me, Andy Dehnart, and is supported in part by reality blurred patrons and paid subscribers to this newsletter. I’m grateful for them. If you can—or have a healthy expense account!—consider becoming a patron or upgrading your newsletter subscription.

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📷 Photo of a cat in the shade by Dim Hou