Popular Reality TV

Say what you will about Rachel on Big Brother, but this week was all about her, and it pulled the show out of sleep-inducing territory, at least momentarily. Whether Rachel was crying in the plants or peeing on live television (another technical score for the show’s production staff, which left the audio for her mic on after Cassi left the house and Rachel went to the toilet), it was all about her. Of course, when she won HOH, I threw up my hands and threw up all over my floor. Big Brother’s game structure only works when there are constant power shifts, and having the returnees in charge for three weeks is impossibly lame. The only good thing about this is that, besides Daniele, the golden key holders (aka people the show completely ignores) will be newbies. The most dramatic part of Cassi’s eviction was immediately after she left the house, when the producers showed us a live feed of the houseguests talking, which included audio of Rachel peeing . Yes, it’s live TV. Before we could ...

And it is done: Russell Hantz is out of Survivor—forever, he says. After three seasons with nothing but Russell all the time, I don’t even want to think about the possibility that he’ll return someday, but instead will celebrate his loss, and his crying breakdown afterward, which made it all the more delicious. Before arriving at the challenge, Russell promised us that he’d beat Matt (“I’ll just take him out”) and then everyone else (“I’m going to pick them off, and I’m going to make them suffer”). I momentarily considered rooting for Russell when Matt said “I’m fighting to honor my god,” because I completely loathe reality contestants who act as if god is involved in helping them win challenges but not, say, in ending genocide or starvation. As with many of Russell’s promises, his promise to win failed to come true. Still, the Redemption Island challenge was quite dramatic: Matt and Russell had to assemble wood block dominoes, basically, along planks connected to rope that would caus...