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    ‘Love on the Spectrum’ Delivers on the Promise of Reality TV

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    The Netflix series, which follows a group of autistic people as they search for love in their hometowns, feels good to watch, but don’t just call it feel-good TV.You know the story: A superstar surprises a fan on a talk show, and the online crowd goes wild, sending the clip viral. But when the affable actor Jack Black surprised Tanner Smith on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” in April, a particularly poignant and joyful alchemy was conjured.“Jack! Jack! I’m so excited to finally meet you,” Smith exclaimed as they embrace. “You’re so handsome, you’re looking good, Jack!”“I love you on the show, and I can’t wait for the next season,” Black told Smith, referring to the Netflix reality series “Love on the Spectrum,” which recently wrapped up a memorable third season. “I’m so happy for you for having all of this success,” Black said. “To meet you in person is really amazing for me, too.”Smith is a beloved star in his own right. Online — his handle, tannerwiththe_tism, nods cleverly at his having autism — he has about 2.5 million followers. It’s a number that is not unusual among his castmates, all of whom are autistic.On the viral clip, one commenter called Smith “easily one of the most beautiful humans to walk this earth.” Another wrote, “This was a moment where humanity remembered what love, truth, and presence really looks like.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Reality TV Wades Into Cross-Generational Dating Pools

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      Bravo’s “Love Hotel” and ABC’s “Bachelor in Paradise” are widening the age range of prospective love matches.Age-gap relationships are nothing new when it comes to depictions of older men in TV and film plots. But a wave of recent releases, including “Babygirl,” “The Idea of You,” “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” and “Lonely Planet,” have zeroed in on romantic and sexual relationships between women in midlife and younger men.Two new reality dating spinoffs are now catching up. Bravo’s “Love Hotel,” which premiered Sunday, features three over-50 “Real Housewives” — Luann de Lesseps, 59, Gizelle Bryant, 54, and Shannon Beador, 61 — looking for love among eligible bachelors whose ages range from their 30s to their 60s at a luxury resort in Los Cabos, Mexico. (Ashley Darby, 36, rounds out the group of bachelorettes.)In the first episode Bryant asks Wale Alesh, 38, if he wants children. When he responds that he does, the cameras cut to Bryant in an interview filmed after. “Gizelle doesn’t have a uterus, so that means we aren’t compatible,” she says, speaking in the third person.Meeting Jay Bramble, 46, Bryant explained: “My three daughters are in college. I have the house to myself, so I just walk around naked.” He responded, “You’re living the dream.”Bryant, who is divorced and who dated the “Winter House” cast member Jason Cameron, 38, on a past season of “The Real Housewives of Potomac,” said it’s important that audiences see mature women living vital love lives. “Hey, ain’t nobody dead because they have, like, jumped over 39,” she said in an interview.Bryant added that the program gives the women a chance to show “we can spend whatever days we have left in a happy place with somebody that, you know, you really want to rock out with.”

      @bravotv Be cool, the wait for #BravosLoveHotel is over. #CountessLuann ♬ Luanns Right Back from Bravos Love Hotel – Bravo We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When Kristen Kish, ‘Top Chef’ Host, Hits the Mute Button

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      The reality TV star and author of the new memoir “Accidentally on Purpose” on airplane snacks, tongue-scraping and the problem with women’s pants pockets.In her new memoir, “Accidentally on Purpose,” Kristen Kish reflects on her childhood as a Korean adoptee in Michigan, coming out as gay in her late 20s, winning Season 10 of “Top Chef” and struggling with anxiety.Yet Kish, who now hosts the Bravo competition series, is known for her laid-back interactions with contestants. “If my anxiety level was at a million growing up and being a young adult, it is certainly now in the hundreds,” she said. “It has drastically reduced because I’ve given time and energy to managing it in the best way I can.”Kish, 41, in her book recounts an upbringing filled with meatloaf, casseroles and Sunkist candies. Such down-to-earth predilections have stuck with her despite her upscale culinary career.“People ask what my guilty pleasure food is,” she said. “I don’t feel any guilt around anything. I want it, I like it, it’s delicious — I have no shame.”In a phone interview last month, the globe-trotting restaurateur shared her favorite travel snacks, how she keeps in touch with her parents and the thing you’ll probably see her doing while she’s cooking. These are edited excerpts.Fit Joy PretzelsOne of my favorite airplane snacks. The honey mustard flavor is specifically glorious, especially when you’re flying — you know how they say your taste buds go a bit muted. These are salty, there’s enough sweetness from the mustard, and the crunch is exceptional. I would rather eat five little packs of these over one meal they’re offering.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Love Island: Beyond the Villa’ Will Follow Season 6 Cast Around Los Angeles

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      Trying to capitalize on the success of the sixth season of “Love Island USA,” Peacock announced a series that would follow former islanders around Los Angeles.In its sixth season, “Love Island USA,” an American remake of the popular British dating reality show, found its footing with fans. That season, which aired on Peacock last summer and was hosted by Ariana Madix, a veteran of “Vanderpump Rules,” was the top-rated reality series in the United States for multiple weeks and a hot topic on social media. It also produced some of the franchise’s most memorable couples, many of whom are still together.Given that success, it was not a surprise this week when Peacock announced “Love Island: Beyond the Villa,” a spinoff series featuring some of the islanders from Season 6.Here’s what we know.How is it different from the original show?“Love Island USA” is a reality dating competition that gathers a group of contestants, called islanders, into a luxury villa — Season 6 was set in Fiji — and has them couple up, either out of true love, friendship or simply for survival. Single islanders are kicked out of the villa, and every so often viewers are given the chance to vote out their least favorite couple. The pair voted “most compatible” at the end wins a cash prize.“Love Island: Beyond the Villa” appears to be more of a straightforward reality show, without a competition element. According to Peacock, the show will follow several of the cast members “around Los Angeles as they navigate new careers, evolving friendships, newfound fame and complex relationships outside of the Love Island villa.”Who’s going to be on it?Almost all of the Season 6 favorites are slated to star in the show, including two couples that made it to the finale: JaNa Craig and Kenny Rodriguez, and Leah Kateb and Miguel Harichi. Kendall Washington, who split from his finale partner, Nicole Jacky, will also star in the show alongside Olivia Walker, Connor Newsum and the exes Aaron Evans and Kaylor Martin.Ms. Craig and Mr. Rodriguez, who made it to the Season 6 finale, are both part of the main cast for “Love Island: Beyond the Villa.”Eugene Gologursky/Getty ImagesIn something of a surprise, only half of Season 6’s winning couple was officially announced as being part of the show: Serena Page, who, alongside her partner, Kordell Beckham, took home the grand prize, will appear. But Mr. Beckham — the younger brother of the N.F.L. player Odell Beckham Jr. — is not listed as a main cast member.Ms. Page cleared up the gossip around Mr. Beckham’s absence rather quickly, replying to a fan on Snapchat, “He’s gunna be in it with me!!!” and saying that he could not be announced as part of the main cast because he had booked another role.Also missing from the listed cast was Robert Rausch, a veteran of Seasons 5 and 6 of the show, though Peacock’s announcement said other islanders would appear, so he might be on at some point.What else do we know?Peacock did not release a trailer or announce a release date for the show, but the streamer said it would be coming in summer 2025. More

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      What to Expect From Bravo’s Nepo Baby Reality Show, ‘Next Gen NYC’

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      “Next Gen NYC” is a big bet on the Gen Z offspring of the cable network’s “Real Housewives” franchise.Bravo is making a big bet on the Gen Z offspring of some of the most famous stars from its “Real Housewives” franchise. The network released a trailer this week for “Next Gen NYC,” a show that will follow the lives of four young reality scions and their influencer peers as they navigate work, life and love in Manhattan.For the reality connoisseurs among us, try to imagine “Rich Kids of Beverly Hills” meets “NYC Prep.”For everyone else, here’s a primer.Who’s on the show?The cast features the offspring of four “Real Housewives”: Ariana Biermann and Riley Burruss, the daughters of the former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” stars Kim Zolciak-Biermann and Kandi Burruss; Brooks Marks, the son of the “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” favorite Meredith Marks; and Gia Giudice, the daughter of the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” legend Teresa Giudice.The rest of the cast is made up of a handful of influencers and so-called nepo babies, including Ava Dash, a daughter of the record executive Damon Dash and the fashion designer Rachel Roy; Emira D’Spain, a model and influencer who will be Bravo’s first full-time trans cast member; Georgia McCann, a creative strategist Bravo describes as “New York’s ultimate Gen Z It girl”; Charlie Zakkour, a crypto trader and club kid; Hudson McLeroy, Ms. Biermann’s on-again, off-again boyfriend and the heir to the fast-food chain Zaxby’s; and Shai Fruchter, an assistant at the Wall Group.What kind of drama can be expected?“Next Gen NYC” looks relatively restrained compared with the high-stakes drama on some of the editions of “Real Housewives.” (Legal battles! Shocking divorces! Physical altercations!) But the show has teased Ms. Dash and Ms. Biermann feuding over fashion, and Ms. Biermann cursing out Mr. Marks as Ms. Giudice deadpans, “This is so stupid.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ Has Its Title Backward

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      This dating show isn’t about farmers looking for women. It’s about the agrarian fantasy that has women dreaming of farms. Almost 80 years ago, Universal Pictures released a film called “The Egg and I.” It starred Fred MacMurray as Bob MacDonald, a newly decommissioned soldier back in his civilian duds. He tells his new bride, Betty, played by Claudette Colbert, that he engaged in some self-reflection down in his foxhole. War made him think about what’s really important: “the basic things” like “love and food and babies and things growing out of the ground.” So he has decided to quit his job and buy a chicken farm.When “The Egg and I” came out, in 1947, a carton of eggs cost 55 cents, which is about $8 in today’s money. In the intervening decades, the agrarian dream has held steady, both as a premise for comedies and a very real thread in the American psyche. As of 2025, you can indulge that dream simply by opening your phone: Social media is packed with down-home fantasies featuring agricultural influencers, rural “tradwives” or the swineherds on TikTok. As you sit scrolling in a grimy D.M.V. waiting room, what could make you swoon like an expansive wheat field and miles of open sky?And on television, you need only tune into Fox’s “Farmer Wants a Wife,” which recently began its third season, to get a fantastically rosy picture of what Bob and Betty MacDonald’s life might look like today. The series follows the contours of a standard reality-TV dating show, but it clearly aims to offer some folksy respite from the California-scented mating rituals that normally populate the genre. It imagines a dreamy alternative to the headaches of urban dating: No apps, no open relationships, no semiprofessional D.J.s. Just a farmer and his spouse. The simple life.American agriculture is, by all accounts, really hard.And the premise is simple: Over the course of some three months, four eligible yeoman hunks select potential life partners from among a group of women. The women hail from across the United States, though the major metropolitan areas of Texas seem especially well represented. They are identified by their professions too: This season brings a bounty of nurses and nannies, but also a “chief of staff” (for whom? of what?) and one woman whose job is listed only as “pharmaceuticals.” These contestants move into the men’s homes, on or near one of four farms. There are dates, many of which bear an unusual-for-TV resemblance to normal American courtship. Instead of the helicopter rides and therapy circles of the “Bachelor” franchise, the farmers and their could-be wives picnic in pickup trucks, take in college football games and spend afternoons fishing. They drink beer!But there is a catch for these women: They have to prove themselves at chorin’. “Farmer Wants a Wife” delights in the spectacle of women with fresh blowouts being goaded into shoveling dung, trying and failing to compete with Eva Gabor’s elegant detachment in old episodes of “Green Acres.” Layered atop the near-constant pop-country music is a secondary soundtrack of squeals and screams as contestants touch a grub for the first time or struggle to mount a horse. According to recaps, when the show first ran, briefly, in the early 2000s, one woman learned of her elimination after a task that involved reaching inside a cow’s rectum.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paige DeSorbo of ‘Summer House’ Adds Author to Her Resume With ‘How to Giggle’

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      When Paige DeSorbo graduated from college in 2015, she scored a full-time position at a TV station in her hometown, Albany, N.Y. She’d always wanted to be an on-air personality, so the job seemed perfect, at least on paper. As her mom put it at the time, Ms. DeSorbo could work her way up to anchor, get married, have kids, and live down the street.But she imagined something different for herself.“I remember just getting the biggest pit in my stomach of like — no, that’s not my life. No way,” Ms. DeSorbo, now 32, said in a recent interview.Instead, she persuaded her parents to foot six months of rent in New York City so that she could try to find something better. She took a job as an executive assistant at ABC before landing a role on “Summer House,” a Bravo reality show that follows young New Yorkers as they spend debaucherous summer weekends at a shared house in the Hamptons.“​​I called my dad crying when they offered it to me because I was like, ‘I think I’m actually too sensitive to do this,’” Ms. DeSorbo said. “And I remember him saying: ‘Do it for the first summer, and if you hate it, we’ll get you out of it. You never have to go back. And if you love it, you’ll never wonder, Oh, imagine if I didn’t do this.’ And honestly, after the second weekend, I was like, ‘I love it.’”So began Ms. DeSorbo’s unexpected career as a reality star.Paige DeSorbo worked at a television station in Albany, and was an executive assistant at ABC, before breaking into reality TV on the Bravo show “Summer House.”Eugene Gologursky/BravoTo date, she’s appeared on three Bravo shows — “Summer House,” “Winter House” and “Southern Charm” — despite the fact that, in many ways, she’s the antithesis of the modern-day reality personality. She has a New Yorker’s authenticity: direct, assertive and unafraid to voice her opinion even if it might make her look bad. She lacks pretense and showiness, which has earned her fans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amanda Batula of ‘Summer House’ on Emerging From Kyle Cooke’s Shadow

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      Amanda Batula spent most of eight seasons supporting her husband. Now she’s joining the reality show’s alpha women.There are lots of different reasons people tune in to reality shows — there’s messiness, fights, drama and romance.Over nine seasons, Amanda Batula has contributed each of those elements to “Summer House,” the Bravo reality show set in the Hamptons, while the show’s other women took on dominant story lines. But this season, Batula, 33, has become a fan favorite for breaking out of the norms that “girlfriend” reality stars often get stuck in: starting a family, quitting a job and moving to the suburbs with their attention-hogging male leads.Batula had been very much ready to follow that plan. (She first appeared on the show as a late-night hookup for Kyle Cooke, now her husband.) But this season and the last saw her priorities shift. She started her own business ventures, and prioritized her friendships and mental health.“When I was younger, I thought I’d be married at 24” and “have kids by 30,” Batula said. “I don’t have to follow this timeline that I set.”Last month, Batula discussed in an interview what it’s been like to break out on the show and how she figured out what actually makes her happy.Batula made her reality television debut in 2017 during the first season of “Summer House,” not as a cast member but as a late-night invitee of Cooke, who had recently broken up with her and was filming for the show.

      @bravotv Amanda is doing what works for her ❤️ #SummerHouse ♬ Amandas Journey from Southern Charm – Bravo We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More