Reality TV, PhD

Here it is. The episode you all have been waiting for… The episode where Christina and Em leave the comfort of their reality TV dating show coverage and embark into the unchartered territory that is SURVIVAL SHOWS aka ALONE SEASON 11. This episode of the pod features a competitive draft where Christina and Em both choose 4 of the remaining 8 players to be on their team for the rest of the season....

Episode Description : SOMETHING IS IN THE WATER BECAUSE WHAT IS HAPPENING ACROSS THESE SHOWS? We need to talk about Harry. We need to talk about Rob. And guess what?????? WE DO. That’s honestly all we’re going to say. Tune in :)  Episode Timestamps & Spoiler Warnings: 0:00-24:47 Home Room: Report Card, Pop Quiz, Show & Tell [spoilers: Race to Survive: New Zealand; Below Deck Med Season 9;...

WARNING: Very long, meandering conversation at the top of this episode that has nothing to do with Reality TV. That’s just what we needed, OK?! Once we get that out of our system, we dive in. For this first time in history, Christina gives one of Em’s favorite shows an A, which is huge, IMO. Em gives details on a most recent challenge in The Challenge: All Stars, which involves electrocuting conte...

Seminar was Race to Survive NZ, but in reality this ep is a bunch of mini episodes. We talk F Girl Island—I mean Lovers and Liars—and how that (almost) ends. We talk Love Has Won, and we will never talk about it again. We talk Love Island UK, which should be at the top of your to-watch list. We close with Race to Survive, where we dissect all the pairs of racers, who the favorites are to win, and...

Welcome back to our (arbitrarily named) Season 4 of the pod! We missed you all! In this ep, we recap all the shows… no really, all of them: Deal or No Deal Island Season 1; The Circle Season 6; Lovers & Liars Season 1; Summer House Season 8; The Valley Season 1; Top Chef Season 21; The Bachelor Season 28; The Golden Bachelor Season 1; The Challenge All Stars Season 4; Farmer Wants a Wife Seaso...

Don't worry -- we didn't leave you! We are just taking a very short pause. See you in June :)

Yes, we are releasing this a week after we recorded it… but you know what? There actually wasn’t much to talk about in the reality TV space this past week, so we aren’t sorry. Also, we had to recover from our vulnerable stories we share at the end of this episode *shudders* before posting it. We hope you can relate!!! Anyway, tune in to hear our final thoughts on LIB Season 6, and some other stuff...

Here we were, thinking we’d not have much more to say about LIB, and yet… how wrong we were! We unpack each couple and get into allllllll the drama. And also, Em asks Christina a vulnerable question regarding Sarah Ann’s decision to send JerAmey a DM. You won’t BELIEVE what Christina says! We also discuss Survivor Season 46 premiere, Couple to Throuple, and a whole lot more. Most importantly (no j...

The day hath arrived: A new season of love is blind, a new EXPERIMENT (barf) to discuss! We invite our fav Love is Blind guest, Ed, to unpack the first episode drop. We originally said we’d just cover the first 3 eps, because 6 is a doozy, but who were we kidding, we cover them all! Prepare yourself, because this is truly a meandering episode with many a tangent and many a hot take, but we had fun...

First things first: Em deeply apologizes for her audio failure. We fixed it after 20 minutes and we are MOVING ON. (Edit: Christina actually doesn't think it's too bad!) In seminar, we do our deepest dive on the Traitors yet—because, honestly, Sandra deserves it. But before that, we discuss a couple classics (Farmers Wants Wives, VPR, the Bachelor), and Em gives an extremely inarticulate m...

We talk Farmers, we talk Wives, we talk Bachelor producers and Traitors. But most of all, we welcome back our resident VPR expert, Jen D’Angelo, to talk about all things VPR Season premiere. Why do we always root for Schaena? At what point do people get personal assistants? Did James know he was going to be living on a Burbank airport flight path? What has Jen learned from listening to Rachel’s po...

It was a light week in reality TV but we still had MUCH to discuss. We both had short notes this week which means we got to go on many delightful tangents, including an impromptu overview of the entire Bachelor cast, discussing the low of Queer Eye Season 8, and a sprinkling of David Foster Wallace. We end with a seminar on the Traitors, episode 5, and unpack how simultaneously epic and also deepl...

We are BACK, BABY! With so much—some might say too much —to discuss. We cover VPR (Christina binged all 10 seasons!), Survivor (good winner!), Selling Sunset (philosophizing about friends “changing” and what it is to live a meaningful life), RHSLC (Monica), and much more! We close with a seminar on the most divine show on television right now: The Traitors US. As a bonus, our partners make a brief...

We’re still here, we promise! Well, at least Christina and her guest co-host, Chelsea, are still here. While Em traipses around in the Shire, we talk about all the shows we’ve been watching and wonder why on earth House of Villains remains so elusive for viewers. Chelsea questions Survivor beauty norms and Christina rants about Selling Sunset and the Golden Bachelor. We even ask our resident pilot...

Are we releasing this episode a week after we recorded it? Yes. Do we have any regrets? NEVER!!! Anyway, please join us for this episode where we mostly discuss the legendary cast of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and also confirm yet again that Em is not, and never has been, Mormon. If we remembered any other details about what we talked about in this episode, we’d put them here, but we don’t...

Have we talked about this show for the past three podcast episodes? Yes. Did we still decide we needed a Seminar dedicated to it? Also yes. But that’s not all—we also have a jam packed homeroom where we cover the highs of Survivor and the lows of Monica’s mother on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. We also introduce a new segment, Show and Tell, where Christina basically gets to talk about anythi...

This week we broke all the rules because we are adults so why not?! Departing from our usual structure, we present to you an EXTENDED HOMEROOM where we deep dive into ALL the shows we are currently watching. There was simply too much to discuss to focus on just one! Not sorry! We talk about Christina’s crush on FBOY Island, Em’s crush on the Challenge, the peak reality TV that is House of Villains...

We are back after a week off, and Em is just going to pretend LIB Season 5 finale and reunion never happened. We have bigger and better things to talk about, like the focus of this week’s episode: FBOY Island! Join us for seminar where we go through all the male contestants’ Instagrams and roast them when we feel compelled to do so. We also talk Survivor x probability, fertility, and Christina’s n...

On Love is Blind Season 5, Ep. 8-9   Oh how the mighty have fallen. We started out so excited for this season of LIB, only to be severely disappointed at how big of a trainwreck it has become. The word of the week is: BLEAK. We also ponder if Reality TV would lose any of its entertainment value if it treated contestants more humanely (it wouldn’t), give big props to Emily on Survivor, and once aga...

We love nothing more than when we disagree, and we’re so happy to report that we disagree on this episode about at least ONE Love is Blind character! Whose side are you on with this one: Em or Christina? (Yes this is a competition, isn’t everything???) In addition to unpacking the progress (or destruction) of the LIB Season 5 couples, we also have a good-grade-packed homeroom where we spend an ino...

Not to be extreme… but this episode is going down as one of our all time faves. We are joined once again by our resident Love is Blind expert, Ed, to unpack all the mess of what MIGHT be the best LIB season yet.  We talk archetypes, intentionality, vulnerability, dystopian hypotheticals, predictions, and so much more.  No stone is left unturned—Ed even does some social media detective work on the...

Ugh ugh ugh. Why was After the Altar so… anticlimactic? Thank God Christina thinks we are still in Peak Reality TV Era, because Em’s confidence is waning! Anyway. This episode we praise the new season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, anti-praise the Ultimatum Reunion, and discuss LIB’s After the Altar. Christina also came armed with 15 Pop Quiz questions (she cut it to just a few), and we sha...

Can someone please help us understand what is happening this season of the Ultimatum? Em is confused, Christina is confused, and we simply must know: is it an Ultimatum problem, or is it an us problem? In addition to trying to figure out what the heck is going on in these trial marriages, we also have an eclectic homeroom spanning Temptation Island to Nailed It to everything in between. Em closes...

So happy to be back after a week long hiatus (or should we say, yacht hiatus!?!?! Listen to this ep and you’ll get it). This episode features a philosophical discussion of why The Challenge USA might be the first and only show that Christina does not see all the way through. We also enjoy a lengthier homeroom as Christina had not one, but TWO of each grade to give out (oh how we will miss summerti...

Recapping the most recent episode of Project Runway, featuring Below Deck cast members, left us with just one question: WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE REALITY TV CROSSOVER SHOWS? We discuss Gary’s hair, the Anna romance, and do our best to talk about a topic that is a true growth area for both of us: fashion. We also chat Stars on Mars, Love is Blind USA, Bachelorette, Temptation Island, and more. Tune in...