Entertainment Is Broken

Traitors, Canada Shore & the Truth About Reality TV

Is reality TV trash…or is it secretly one of the most powerful storytelling tools we have? In this episode of Entertainment Is Broken, film critic Richard Crouse and reality-TV scholar and Big Brother Canada winner Sarah Hanlon dive deep into the past, present, and future of reality television — just as Canada Shore lands in Kelowna, BC and The Traitors Canada proves the genre is having a full-blown renaissance. We unpack where reality TV really began (hint: it wasn’t Jersey Shore), why shows like Survivor, Big Brother, The Traitors, Canada’s Drag Race, Love Island, and The Great British Bake Off keep pulling us in, and whether reality television is cultural junk food…or a machine for empathy.