When reality TV began its reign in the early aughts, it was a combination of slice of life shows, like The Real World, and competition shows. The genre has spread from network to cable and back again, stretching to include talent competitions, social experiments, dating shows, and more. Many shows have come and gone, including some greats like The Mole, America’s Next Top Model, even Fear Factor, but plenty of them have thrived, some successful enough to be airing their 41st season more than 20 years later. Here are nine of the absolute best.
Survivor
The cream of the crop, and a personal favorite, Survivor has endured through a mix of reinvention and nostalgia, bringing back returning players or twists for some truly remarkable seasons. Sometimes the show needs a new twist, sometimes they just need to bring back an old one, but either way, Survivor scales new heights with bigger challenges or greater obstacles for these castaways to tackle to get to the end.
While the physical competitions and advantage games are thoroughly fascinating to watch, the real heart of Survivor is in the interpersonal relationships and how far is too far to stretch them. Bonds form quickly and deeply on the island, so betrayals feel monumental even after just knowing someone a few days. When you’re stranded on a beach with little to no food, a canteen, and a machete, you learn to depend on the people and the skills you have to share.
Top Chef
While Top Chef didn’t start until 2006, it has gone strong since its inception. Bouncing from city to city, allowing local cuisines and cultural practices to influence the food and challenges the chef-testants must complete, this show has so much more to offer than just a food competition. Honestly, the sincerity and passion that these people have for food is vivid and delicious. They equate food with art, evaluating it on many criteria, including presentation and look of the dish put in front of them.
Tom Colicchio has been the mainstay, there from the absolute very beginning, with Padma Lakshmi in a close second. The one-two punch of Colicchio and Lakshmi has proven a sound combination to keep them in the fight season after season. Top Chef has been nominated for the Best Competition Show Emmy every year since 2007. They managed to take the title home one time in all those years, in 2010 for Top Chef: Las Vegas.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
A little newer on the scene, RuPaul’s Drag Race has been a beacon of fun and fabulousness. There aren’t many people who don’t watch, or at least know what you’re talking about when you mention the show. It’s been around since 2009, and has given us 12 magnificent seasons worth of incredible drag performances.
Drag Race has been nominated for 5 Emmys for Outstanding Competition Program (among a host of other categories) and has won 4 of those years, including the most recent ceremony, in 2021. RuPaul has won for hosting, helping to give them a total of 24 Primetime Emmy wins. That’s a hell of a resume, for sure.
The Amazing Race
We haven’t gotten a new, full season of The Amazing Race for a while because it’s irresponsible to be running around the world on a treasure hunt in the middle of a pandemic. So, the show went on a hiatus, and will, hopefully, be able to get back on the air sooner rather than later.
But when it’s on the air, The Amazing Race is an intoxicating travel adventure around the globe, ulitizing every mode of transportation available in one way or another. And as the racers traipse from country to country, they are forced to complete tasks that normally have some cultural significance. We’ve seen contestants race cheese wheels down hills, carry water long distances, participate in cultural performances, and so much more. The Amazing Race makes the world a little smaller, and that allows us all to be exposed to traditions we otherwise wouldn’t have even heard of.
The Great British Baking Show
Definitely the kindest show on this list, The Great British Baking Show is a behemoth all its own. While there are some that have undoubtedly avoided many of the shows on this list because they weren’t of “high enough quality,” even those people have probably watched The Great British Baking Show. Who knew it would be so insanely fascinating to watch hobby bakers build whole sculptures out of flour and sugar.
While the Mary Berry/Paul Hollywood years are probably the most well known, the show has taken a note from the Survivor playbook in reinvention to keep things fresh. New hosts, new judges, and always new desserts, there really hasn’t been a bad season yet. We all hold our breaths as delicate towers of confection are wheeled to the front of the room. We cry when structures collapse, and smile with tears in our eyes when contestants are sent home, but always with a roomful of hugs to share the love.
Project Runway
Bravo had a pair of reality shows that stood out in the mid-aughts, one that showed off a group of chefs, and one that was all about fashion design. Project Runway was a bit of a cultural phenomenon. This show makes art out of watching designers craft pieces and collections, sometimes out of fine fabrics, sometimes out of broken mirrors or, in one incredibly memorable episode, gardening materials.
While the early years were synonymous with Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, the most current seasons are utilizing the talent they discovered, Christian Siriano, as well as some very recognizable faces in the fashion world.
Big Brother
This reality competition show takes the social experiment of Survivor and locks it in a box. At least in Survivor, you can walk away from camp, swim, fish, explore a little. On Big Brother, there’s nowhere to hide. And the game itself is a little different, too. It’s still all about out-lasting your opponent, but on Big Brother, only nominated houseguests can be evicted. And there’s the whole Head of Household and nomination process, too.
Both tentpole CBS competitions shows started in 2000, right at the beginning of the reality TV boom, and both are still on the air. Survivor delights us with two seasons of social politics a year, while Big Brother gives us a super-sized three month season every summer.
The Circle
The newest show on our list, but one that definitely carved its own niche very quickly, The Circle is Netflix’s take on a social networking game. While watching people stare at screens could come off a bit boring, the geniuses behind The Circle have used the anonymity of the contestants to their highest advantage, instead creating a unique and elaborate commentary on internet practices.
Catfishing on the internet has been a real problem for a long time, and there's really no justifying it, but, watching someone do it for a game show gives you a bit of a window into why someone would want to lie about themselves in the first place. This reality show really just gives a glimpse into all the lies and realities of social media and will leave you thinking about how you use the internet, as well as which contestant you're hoping wins in the end.
American Idol
Last, but most certainly never least, is the behemoth of American Idol. While there have been many singing competitions that have come after, this competition show laid the groundwork for the myriad of singing and talent competition shows of the 00s. It’s perhaps the least gimmicky, since it came first, and its most outrageous controversies were Simon Cowell’s harsh commentaries and the viciousness of advancing terrible singers in the audition rounds just so they could sing badly on camera.
It spawned The Voice, The Masked Singer and many more, but laid some solid groundwork to start from. Not to mention launching the careers of some seriously talented performers, including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Hudson, and Jordin Sparks, just to name a few. American Idol is a major factor of change to the television landscape, and it definitely sparked a trend.