Popular Reality TV

Bravo’s reality competition Work of Art should work better than most talent-based competitions. That’s because, unlike Top Chef, we can watch the construction from something to nothing and, with some exceptions, judge the final product ourselves. We don’t have to rely on judges to tell us how something tastes; we can just look, as we can on Project Runway. But as the second-season finale proved, Work of Art is majorly broken, and that’s because of its judging. It’s terrifyingly obvious that the show needs to dump its judges—China Chow, Jerry Saltz, and Bill Powers—because they cannot offer a consistent, coherent critique of the art and unintentionally mock the art world by being a parody of art critics. Consider last night’s finale (warning: results ahead; skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know). Can you summarize the judges thoughts about winner Kymia Nawabi’s show versus runner-up Young Sun Han’s work or third-place Sara Jimenez’s show? Kymia’s looked more cohesive a...

Survivor »     by Andy Dehnart / January 31, 2011, 8:54 AM Jeff Probst’s charity The Serpentine Project has been the recipient of money earned from the end-of-season Survivor auctions for the past two years, and that has taken the charity from one funded by Jeff himself to one that now has about $400,000. Variety reports that “Probst funded the nonprofit org, which currently serves six youths, almost entirely by himself,” but the auctions “[have] put an estimated $400,000 in Serpentine’s coffers, which pays for college tuition, books and rent.” Besides the prop auctions, tickets to Survivor Gabon’s finale were auctioned off in November of 2008, and the charity also benefited from a Samoa set visit auction . The organization exists to help former foster kids transition into self-sufficiency, and recently merged with The Alliance for Children’s Rights , which calls itself “Los Angeles’s pre-eminent free legal services organization dedicated solely to protecting impoverished, abused a...

The Biggest Loser strike is over, after producers and the union representing crew members came to an agreement two weeks after the crew walked out and production shut down . Among those who didn’t work were host Alison Sweeney and trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, who not only refused to cross picket lines but actually raised money for striking workers. IATSE announced it had reached a tentative agreement [PDF] to end the strike. Its VP, Mike Miller, said in a statement, “This agreement is a positive step forward for the crew of ‘The Biggest Loser,’ especially in the area of health benefits. We are pleased to see them go back to work.” Production company Reveille’s Lee Rierson said, “We have reached a fair agreement with the IA while managing to avoid significant disruption to the production, and are happy to see our entire crew working together again.” That agreement says that “crew members on the show will be eligible to count their work hours toward their health insurance ...