Counting Down the Moments that Shaped Reality TV in 2023

Catch Up on 25 Days of Reality TV (and the Scandals That Shape Them) [vulture logo](   25 Days of Reality [25 Days of Reality]( On March 3, 2023, reality-television fans stood still. Midway through [Vanderpump Rules]( tenth season, news broke that series leading man Tom Sandoval cheated on his longtime partner and co-star Ariana Madix with another co-star, Raquel Leviss. The scandal wouldn’t be addressed on the show for at least two months, when an episode named after the hashtag that dominated offscreen conversation (#[Scandoval]() finally aired. The cameras didn’t document the affair, but they managed to capture the slow motion collision of unscripted TV and real life — of what happens when the Bravo edit slams into a narrative already built, struck down, and refashioned by TikTok scholars a hundred times over. 2023 felt like crash after crash, from [Love Is Blind]( to [The Real Housewives of New York City]( to [Below Deck: Down Under]( to [Squid Game: The Challenge](, all of which reckoned, in various ways, with what constitutes reality and how much intervention goes into documenting it. In celebration, Vulture has rounded up 25 moments — one for every day until Christmas — that shaped reality TV in the year of the lighting-bolt necklace. [EXPLORE 25 DAYS OF REALITY](   Catch Up On Vulture’s Reality TV Advent [Day 1: Anatomy of a Scandoval]( [Day 1: Anatomy of a Scandoval]( [There is life before Scandoval, and there’s everything that followed.]( [Day 1: Anatomy of a Scandoval]( [Day 2: Death by Squid Ink]( [Yearbook Superlatives With the Cast of Squid Game: The Challenge]( [Day 3: Bake-Off’s Delight]( [Day 3: Bake-Off’s Delight]( The Great British Baking Show Cracked the Co-Host Code [Day 4: Claim to Fame Said No T-Hanks]( [Day 4: Claim to Fame Said No T-Hanks]( Tom Hanks’s Niece Doesn’t Regret Her Claim to Fame Calamity [Day 5: Free Willy!]( [Day 5: Free Willy!]( [Where Were You When Drag Race’s Anetra and Marcia Did That?]( [Readers Choice: Save up to 70% and pick your favorite tote o]( [Readers Choice: Save up to 70% and pick your favorite tote o]( [Day 6: A Survivor Star Is Born]( [Day 6: A Survivor Star Is Born]( [Carolyn Wiger Answers Every Question We Have About Season 44]( [Day 7: Love Is Enormous]( [Day 7: Love Is Enormous]( [How Netflix Became the New King of Reality TV]( [Day 8: Who Said That?]( [Day 8: Who Said That?]( [How Well Do You Know the Year’s Best Bravo Quotes?]( [Day 9: Run Time Rumble]( [Day 9: Run Time Rumble]( [A Tale of Two Reality Blocks]( [Day 10: The Gilded Age]( [Day 10: The Gilded Age]( [The Golden Bachelor Breakout April Kirkwood Doesn’t Do Small Talk]( [Day 11: RHONY Rheset]( [Day 11: RHONY Rheset]( [2023’s Rookie Housewives, Ranked]( [Day 12: Legacy in Limbo]( [Day 12: Legacy in Limbo]( [Sonja Morgan Wants to Plan an Ultimate Girls Trip With Brynn Whitfield]( [Day 13: She Is the One]( [Day 13: She Is the One]( Kamie Crawford’s Dream Job Is Other People’s Business [Day 14: Lightning Strikes]( [Day 14: Lightning Strikes]( [The Charm Offensive]( [EXPLORE 25 DAYS OF REALITY](   [Vulture]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. View this email in your browser.]( Opt out of marketing emails [here](. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on e-mail newsletters please contact AdOps@nymag.com [unsubscribe](param=daily) | [privacy notice]( Vox Media, LLC 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved.