Big Brother's Paloma • Challenge USA blindside • Holey Moley's 🤯 finale • Claim to Fame • lots of news

Dear newsletter friends,

I finally watched Holey Moley’s finale on Wednesday night, and it caused me to jump off my couch and scream three times.

Afterwards, I Googled to see what the winner had to say about their win, and their spectacular final round.

I only found one story: about the runner-up.

I was in disbelief that the winner wasn't being heralded and/or interviewed all over the place. Then I realized: Oh, I can do that! 🙃

So, here’s my interview with Holey Moley’s winner. It covers:

• their bruised ribs (!) from The Pecker (!!)

• how an Amazing Race team member encouraged them to apply

• how players deal with the cold

• and much more!

Claim to Fame

Also this week, I reviewed a new ABC competition that surprised me, and is the best new broadcast format I’ve seen since Tough As Nails.

If only Claim to Fame would stop spoiling itself!

That wasn’t the only new show this week, so here are:

• This week’s reality TV premieres

• Documentaries premiering on TV

Big Brother news & The Challenge recap

The big CBS reality TV news of the week was revealed on the live show last night, but actually happened 24 hours earlier, and I tried to give that as much context as possible:

• Paloma is out of after a week of conducting the ‘Taylor Hate Train’

Meanwhile, I recapped the (much-better show) that I am actually watching (versus just following/covering):

• The Challenge: USA had its first major blindside.

Reality TV news

• Here are the Emmy-nominated reality shows and hosts

• NBC has dropped Million Dollar Island before it was produced, Joe Adalian reported. He said "industry buzz" points to the fact that Studio Lambert sold that show to NBC—and a few months later sold Squid Game: The Challenge to Netflix. As I wrote, they are both very, very similar!

• Naked and Afraid is doing a winter season with these all-stars

More news!!

• Tyra Banks is getting a co-host when Dancing with the Stars moves to Disney+ this fall: season 19 winner Alfonso Ribeiro.

• The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah is still filming the Bravo show after deciding to plead "guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing."

• Bethenny Frankel is joining Kevin O'Leary on Money Court for season two, which will premiere in 2023.

• Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Let’s Make a Deal, and Judge Judy will get their own PlutoTV channels starting Aug. 1.

🤩 I recommend

• This new competition

• This show’s season finale, after which you should read this

• This newly Emmy-nominated show

That’s my writing and reporting for this week! Have a great weekend.

—Andy

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🌄 This is Reality in Focus issue 298, first sent 15 July 2022, and its only claim to fame is that my cousin’s cousin was the actor who crawled out of the TV in The Ring.

💻 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 summer clouds by Nick Fewings