Used to be we’d sometimes be able to discover new people and new personalities from the array who volunteered to be part of reality shows (well occasionally anyway).
Lately, reality shows have been depending heavily on people who had been on once already in an effort to pre-sell their new seasons like a bad sequel. It’s happening this summer on “Big Brother,” where Rachel is haunting our TV sets one more summer.
And it’s happening again on “Survivor,” where the 16 new players named earlier this week will be joined by Benjamin Wade and Oscar Lusth – the players better known as Coach and Ozzy respectively.
The tree-climbing Ozzy is so good at “Survivor” he should have won once before. But he like Coach have been on two seasons already and have yet to win. The Coach doesn’t seem likely to be a winner either, though it’s great to have him on TV again. But maybe he should host a philosophy or hunting show on some other network.
Finally, “The Bachelor” has been named for next season and like the previous several seasons of “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette,” it’s somebody who didn’t get the final rose on a previous season. In this case it’s Ben Flajnik, who was the runner-up on “The Bachelorette” earlier this month when Ashley Hebert rejected his proposal.
Flajnik, 28, a winemaker from Sonoma, Calif., who was rumored to be dating Jennifer Love Hewitt after his time on “The Bachelorette,” spent some of the summer on the Connecticut shore, visiting his mother.