Our theme song is “Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under the Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License. [music]
Hello, and welcome to Andy Dehnart’s Reality Blurred.
I’m the aforementioned Andy, the creator of Reality Blurred, and a writer who believes in the power of true stories.
Every week I’ll take behind the scenes of reality TV and my writing.
On today’s show, is love blind?
Should shows be judged blind?
Are The Traitors players and fans blind to the bias that is there?
Can I please find a better word than blind for all of this?
Also, recommendations and life advice from reality TV, this time from a chef.
[end music]
Hello, so glad to be with you this week.
I am going to start today with the segment analyzing the analysis, where I look more closely at a show and or my critiques of it.
And this week we’re covering a whole bunch of different shows and a bunch of different pieces because I think I’m working my way towards some kind of bigger idea, some kind of thesis.
And it’s sort of appearing in fragments and repeated ideas.
So I’m just going to talk about it a little bit, see if this takes me anywhere, see if maybe it prompts anything for y’all.
And you can help me focus this a little bit more, perhaps.
Not that you need to do my work for me, but I’m curious to hear what you have to say about all those two.
So the impetus originally is a piece that I just published about Padma Lakshmi’s new show, America’s Culinary Cup, which premieres on CBS tonight, March 4th.
It’s a show kind of like Top Chef.
I don’t think she would love me saying that, but it’s going to be relatively familiar to people.
It’s not something that is totally going outside of that model, though it is bringing in a bunch of elite chefs to compete against each other.
You’ll hear from one at the end of this episode.
What was really interesting to me is that she had a chance to sort of create a brand new format.
She talked about this in a press conference that she did earlier this year with the Television Critics Association and some of its members.
And basically was like, I wanted to create something new.
And here we go.
We’re starting from scratch.
Like, how can we reinvent this?
What can we do to make it really amazing?
And that’s really exciting.
And she can fix all the things that she saw were wrong with Top Chef from the position that she had as host and judge.
So I was curious to watch the first episode, which I did back in January before this press conference, and to see how she handled judging.
Because I’ve become addicted to, basically, really — just enjoying Tournament of Champions on Food Network since its debut seven years ago now — which I can’t believe it’s been that long because we’re on season seven now and it’s 2026 and the first one was in 2020 and I think that’s the math.
Anyway, the brilliant idea for that show that I’ve written a lot about is that it’s not only a bracketed competition, So one chef faces off against another chef and then the one who loses is out and just move on from there.
But the judges score every dish numerically.
All three or four judges’ scores are averaged together and that’s what determines win or loss.
The most remarkable thing is the judges have no idea whose dishes they’re tasting, but they also have no idea who’s even in the competition.
There is no connection at all there.
The judges don’t find out until the very end who is even competing.
The show goes to great lengths to ensure this. The trailers for the judges are on one side of the soundstage and the contestants on chefs are on the other and never do they meet in the middle.
And so it’s, it’s a pretty incredible operation.
But as a result we see just, I think, pretty pure judging.
Obviously judging food is still subjective and you can see that because when there’s three judges like there were on the season premiere just some of them were disagreeing with each other about certain things like, “Is this dish too vinegary or not?”
That’s the subjective part.
But each of them scores it and then the numbers do the work.
It’s not like we see on Top Chef so much where the judges are saying like, “Oh my gosh, why are you crying? Like, why was this so hard for you? Why did you screw it up?”
And so it’s become not just they’re, they’re seeing the person in front of them who they’re judging and their presentation of the food, but they may also be bringing other things to that like their expectations for that person or their annoyance with that person.
Like there’s been plenty of times when I’ve watched Top Chef and been like, get rid of that fucker because I am tired of them and they’re annoying me.
And they don’t do that, generally speaking.
They stick to making culinary decisions, but you have to wonder what does play a role.
What’s interesting, and I wrote about this in the piece that I published today — and I guess I will get back to that in a second because I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent here — is that Top Chef has had, I’m going to actually pull up the numbers right now because I’m so bad with numbers that I don’t want to get them wrong while I’m actually recording this.
So Top Chef has been around for 22 seasons now.
And if you look at the number of female chefs that have won Top Chef in 22 seasons, it’s the same number that have won Tournament of Champions in six seasons.
And that six.
So it took Top Chef 22 seasons to get six female winners and no man won Top Chef in a regular or sorry, no man has won Tournament of Champions in a regular season so far.
Now, there was a special all-star holiday Christmas edition that was really fun, but people were competing in pairs.
There were some same-sex teams, mixed-sex teams of like chef/pastry chef or chef/chef, whatever.
And the winners of that were the Voltaggio brothers.
They, of course, are two men, so Tournament of Champions does have two male winners, though hard to kind of like because they’ve won together, so still judged blind.
But if you add them in, basically Tournament of Champions has had female winners 85 percent of its life and Top Chef 27 percent of its life.
That’s a huge disparity.
Now, like season to season, you can’t make any argument or maybe you can based on what happens in that season.
But I don’t think there’s something where it’s like, oh, my gosh, like this is like, you know, this season shows Top Chef is biased in this way or these judges or whatever.
But when you look at the pattern across time, that should be much closer together.
If not, you know, not necessarily identical.
But I think it indicates that something’s going on there, which is that female chefs are being held to a different standard, judged more harshly.
And we see this in all kinds of other places in the United States, in our lives in general.
And this is something I actually mentioned in my review, or not review, but I guess my final thoughts on this season of The Traitors, season four, which ended last week.
And one of the things I was noting was just about how the winner really did, I think, benefit from the fact that he was a cute dumb white man and he basically admitted that he said, “They’re just underestimating me because of that.”
So he acknowledges it and it’s, and it’s, of course, a strength he’s gonna use that.
And like the same thing happened on Celebrity Traitors.
I’m spoiling a bunch of things here, so if you haven’t seen these, I apologize.
But uh, they’ve been over for a while, so I’m assuming not spoilers.
Alan Carr won Celebrity Traitors and he did it by using his personality and his kind of like, haha, I’d laugh at everything.
I’m awkward.
And that really helped him even when he was like lying to people, as is the Traitors game.
They kind of didn’t assume he was lying to them at all.
And you can kind of see the same thing being played out in other aspects of the Traitors to where like we have someone making a wild guess and then being shunned as Ron —
— not a wild guess, a well-supported guess as Ron Funches did at the beginning where he says, “Here’s some evidence. It’s Porsha.”
They vote Porsha off. It’s not her.
And then everyone like shuns him.
And then later like Colton comes in and uh does the same thing with someone else and they don’t shun him.
They kind of coddle him.
So are they coddling him because they like Colton as a person as a character?
Do they know him outside the game?
Is it because Ron Funches is somebody they don’t know inside reality tv circles?
Does it have anything to do with their age?
Ron is older, Colton is younger.
Is it their race?
Uh, Ron is a Black man, Colton is a white man.
Like, so there’s all kinds of things that can play in.
And I don’t honestly think that people are going into these games and being as overtly racist as I don’t know, other people in our society are sure as hell being lately, whether it’s on social media or, you know, in their actual decision makings about our lives and our government and who they kidnap off the streets.
But I’m taking yet another tangent, so I’m going to bring all this back.
In this piece about the traitors, what I talked about was that basically, you know, like we do bring our biases into games and into life.
Like if you look at statistics, for example, black women who are having babies are three times more likely to die during childbirth than white women.
And that’s, again, a huge gap there.
And there’s reasons for that, including like access to care during pregnancy.
But then also because, and this is documented by research that you can look up for yourself, about the fact that doctors, including female doctors and including just doesn’t matter their race, but they don’t believe black women when they describe pain.
Just like doctors tend to not believe women when they talk about pain, it’s just magnified for Black women.
You know, whereas a man goes in and has the slightest thing and it’s like, “Let’s bend over backwards and invent a brand new pill for that,” and we will all, and we’ll solve all those problems because, you know, a man has that.
Here, I’m taking another tangent.
This is tangent episode today.
This, this happened like we were at the vet with our one of our cats and they were doing a little what they call a sanitary shave just because she’s can’t really reach and gets a little bit of stuff caught back under her tail.
And so they were just going to kind of shave it off.
They’re like, oh, we got some new clippers that work really well.
And they don’t, you know, and they’re like, they’re actually made for men’s genitalia.
And I’m like, of course, like that’s if men need something, we’re going to make invent the perfect tool for it.
If a cat needs it, fuck it, we’re not we’re not doing that.
Anyway, to bring all this back around, if that’s even possible anymore.
So they come into reality TV competitions and games like The Traitors, like Top Chef, like Tournament of Champions.
That’s just, we’re humans.
I know I have those biases.
I know that like I was raised in a very predominantly white community and in a position of relative privilege and all like that’s going to affect just the way I see the world.
And I try to fight against those every day in any kind of internalization that I’ve done.
But like, I know that that is, that’s part of life.
So when we had this press conference with TCA and Padma and her fellow judges and a producer, I asked her about the decisions that they made about judging.
So they actually do numerically score the chefs and dishes in the first round, but they don’t do it blind.
So effectively, they are seeing the person in front of them, give them food, and some of them are known really well.
For example, Buddha Lo, who’s won Top Chef twice when Padma was hosting Top Chef.
He is on this season, so she knows him.
She knows his food.
There he is.
Does that bring a kind of warmth to her heart, or is maybe in the deep recesses of her mind where, who knows, is she saying, this guy better not win again because twice is enough.
Who knows?
And maybe we don’t even know that ourselves.
Those are called implicit biases when you’re not even aware of them, and we all have versions of those as well.
So I was curious like why they chose to do that.
And then in the second round, they just have two dishes and decide between them like which one is better and who’s going to go home essentially.
And what she told me was interesting and it was basically she never considered blind judging at all.
And the reason for that was that she thinks that once she’s tasted someone’s food, she knows who it is and basically starts to know their style, their personality through that food.
And that’s interesting because effectively the model of this show where you have three judges, one of whom’s also the host, and of course in this case the producer or creator of the show, moving through this season together, you can’t hide from the judges who people are.
So what she’s saying is even if you presented the dishes to us, I would start to recognize this is this person’s cooking, this is that person’s.
So why even bother with blind judging.
And I get that.
And to do actual blind judging the way that Tournament of Champions does it obviously involves a lot more logistical support, probably cost.
You bring in more judges.
You are trying to make sure that they’re kept separate.
There’s all kinds of like scheduling and things that have to be done that don’t have to be done if you just have the same three judges for the whole season.
And I don’t know, maybe there’s also a benefit and a positive to having people just there and presenting, you know, just getting to know the people’s food, getting to know how they cook and getting them, giving them advice, feedback, etc. throughout a season.
That’s a possibility that this kind of show obviously allows for that a show like Tournament of Champions does not because of the way it’s structured.
Finally, I just want to mention Love is Blind here because that show, of course, is it’s ending right now.
I have not seen this I have followed it on social media effectively.
The reunion is coming out today, I think Wednesday.
And I think it’s, you know, it’s been the usual shit show that Love is Blind is with just absolutely shallow people, especially these shallow guys.
And what’s fascinating is that the experiment, at least the idea is that you sit and talk to someone through a wall and fun behind the scenes fact on Love is Blind, when they’re sitting in their pods, talking to each other, sitting on their couches, they can’t hear each other through the wall.
So they’re hearing each other through a speaker.
So I’ve always thought that’s interesting because like we’re basically hearing a higher quality version of their voices than they are hearing each other.
So curious how that ever affects them, I guess.
But there’s been a lot of comedy and also a lot of like, I guess, dismay over the way sometimes people talk.
And like, I’m not going to remember names enough to give a specific examples here, but it’s basically like some you know dumb bro will sit down and be like, “Hey, like to the to this to the woman, like, oh so do you think you’re shorter taller than me?”
And like, “Could you you know pick me up and a couch or uh not?”
And like basically it’s like, “Why don’t you just tell me what your body shape is?”
So like the whole point of this experiment is supposed to be you’re not seeing each other so you’re falling in love with the person’s mind and they’re immediately going to superficial things.
And don’t get me started on how I think this experiment kind of falls apart by like forcing them to get engaged or right out of the pods.
Like I think that’s just the stupidest fucking thing, especially after so many seasons of just utter disaster from this.
You know, it’s one thing to like kind of meet someone that way, really get to know them, and then decide you want to do more.
And I think that’s effectively what they’re doing now when they follow some couples and then they decide to get married or not at the end.
So at least they’re not getting married and having to get divorced right afterwards, like happens on Married at First Sight now.
But it’s still, I just think, forcing them toward this, like, you should talk to someone for three days and then get engaged is not a way to have a healthy relationship in any space.
So yes, welcome for relationship advice.
Who knew, tune into this podcast and hear me complaining about bias and giving relationship advice at the same time.
A final little note here, which is I don’t love the term blind judging because of the word blind in it.
And it’s like, I want a better term and I’ve sort of struggled with that, but I haven’t come up with one.
So if I’m missing something, please let me know.
I think it’s mostly because like people who are actually blind, it’s like we are using your condition, disability, whatever they want to call it, or just their way of life.
And using that as a sort of like pejorative, like, oh, now that we’re blind, we are able to see like, which it just that’s and that’s what’s happening on Love is Blind.
Of course, blind judging, the same kind of thing.
So I don’t love that that’s the word, but maybe I’m overthinking that part of it.
And maybe that is perfectly fine for.
So anyway, I just wanted to note that because it feels awkward the more I even type blind all the time in these contexts.
And especially because reality TV doesn’t have a lot of representation from blind people.
So finally, I guess I’m just I’m curious if we can I think The Traitors, Love is Blind, in general, but also these other cooking competitions can maybe start creating some —
I think they have started creating some dialogue among fans who are watching, like, especially The Traitors this season really seem to get this conversation going in a way that I haven’t seen that before around this show, especially, and sometimes and even around other shows.
But I think it’s just a really good way to look at how we function in society, even when we’re watching, obviously, a silly game.
People are in a castle.
They’re interacting with Alan Cumming in his wild costumes.
They’re doing fun challenges.
They’re just lying to each other as part of this game.
And they all know that someone’s lying to them.
So it’s not like there’s consequences outside of that.
But then what happens to people in that mode?
What are they bringing into that?
How can we learn to grow and be better?
And how can we help fight against those biases?
Is it changing structures like Tournament of Champions has done?
Is it about acknowledging things like Padma talked about and just kind of, you know, running with that, but trying to like fight against those biases that you might have.
I don’t have an answer here, but I’m, you know, glad to keep thinking about it and glad to have reality TV as a model.
Okay, on to recommendations where I share things that are bringing joy and entertainment into my life.
First up, Tournament of Champions Season 7 just started.
It’s great.
Watch it.
I’ll link to my review, my first recap review.
It’s just always a good competition for the reasons I was just talking about.
So check that on Food Network, Sunday nights, eight o’clock, or of course on HBO Max streaming.
Next up is Vanderpump Rules, which is ending its season this week with a reunion.
It’s a kind of ending time right now.
This new season, they brought in a whole new cast of people who work at Sir, which of course is Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant that I’ve heard other people joking is basically empty all the time except when cameras are there so maybe it’s just a way for her to keep this restaurant going.
I watched it pretty much as background TV and pretty got through it in like a week.
I’m glad I didn’t watch it week to week.
I’m not so sure I’m even recommending it as like this is an excellent model of TV but I will say it’s really fun in some moments because of how dumb these people are and just how ridiculously they’re functioning in their relationships.
Maybe again good model for us to look at and be like that’s not who I want to be.
Or that’s, if I see that behavior in my friends, I’m going to call them on it because that’s ridiculous.
But, you know, kind of a bunch of like dumb hot people on a reality TV show, all like creating dumb little fights with each other while they’re at work.
Not a bad way to have, you know, something in the background, basically.
Two more quick recommendations.
One, just a show that my husband and I are about to finish up, but it’s great.
Netflix’s How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.
It’s created and written by Lisa McGee, who also created Derry Girls.
We have not yet watched that.
It’s on the list.
Don’t yell at me.
I know I want to watch it.
This is not a sitcom like Derry Girls.
It’s a drama mystery series, and it just has like a really kind of fun, quirky tone.
There’s some really serious stuff, but then there’s like really great interplay with the characters and some fun writing.
It gets really close to being almost too absurd for me at one point, but it pulled it back and I’m excited to see how it ends.
So check out How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.
And then finally, I published last week interviews with four Survivor players who were on Heroes vs.
Villains and are back for season 20.
And one of those people is Colby Donaldson, who was on season two.
And one of the things we talked about in that interview 15 years ago, 16 years ago, was his guest starring role on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I’m going to link to this in the show notes, so check your app in the details or episode description area to see this.
But if you haven’t seen that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Colby guest stars, you must watch this scene because it’s absolutely hilarious.
The setup for Colby’s guest star appearance is that he gets invited to a dinner party as a survivor player, and also invited to that dinner party is a survivor of the Holocaust.
And they basically get into a verbal spat about who is the real survivor.
And it’s funny, not because it’s making fun of the Holocaust — I do not think it’s doing that at all.
I think it’s completely making fun of Survivor, the use of the word survivor as for the TV show.
And the best part and the reason I’m really recommending it is that Colby is so great at making fun of himself and the show in just this really fun way.
Like basically he’s, and this is, you know, Curb Your Enthusiasm.
So it’s improvised.
And so the stuff he comes up with about Survivor is hilarious.
Even all these years later, I rewatched it and was laughing just as much.
Okay, that’s everything for today.
Thank you so much for listening.
Feel free to send me your feedback, questions, and thoughts.
And if you’re in a five-star mood, tap those in your podcast app of choice to help other people find this.
I will really appreciate you for doing that.
Our theme song is Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod.
And this episode is by me, Andy Dehnart and is copyright 2026 by Reality Blurred LLC, which is also me.
You can find me at realityblurred.com and andydehnart.com.
I’ll leave you today with life advice from Reality TV, this time from Chef Russell Jackson, who you may recognize from Food Network Star or Iron Chef America.
And he’s one of the contestants on Padma Lakshmi’s new CBS show, American Culinary Cup, speaking here very briefly about why he wants to compete, and I think it’s good advice for us all.
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[begin clip]
If I’m not growing, then I’m dead.
[swelling music]
I want to compete against the best.
