Reality News Update, September 30: Amazing Race, Big Brother, Restaurant Renewed, Other New Shows Coming

We’ve had some big news for future reality TV in the past few days, from old shows getting renewed to new shows joining the fun. We’ve got the latest on Big Brother, The Amazing Race, The Restaurant, Cupid, a show about cutting hair, one about a casino, and one that takes place in jail.

We’ve seen rumors for a few weeks now that The Amazing Race had been renewed for a fifth season, but nothing precisely official. Indeed, when the show won an Emmy last week, executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer noted backstage, "You know what feels great about winning? We still haven't been renewed, so this feels wonderful. CBS, are you watching?" Apparently they were.

The 13-episode show will apparently once again air in the summer, in an attempt to duplicate its ratings success this year, in which it averaged over 8.4 million viewers per episode and stood out in a summer full of reality TV shows. However, the possibility remains that it could air as a mid-season replacement in the Spring. Pre-production work has already started, as has casting. You can apply on CBS’s website (if you get on the show, just remember who sent you to the application!).

One thing that might worry fans of the show is that executive producer Bertam van Munster indicated there would be “drastic changes” to keep the show fresh, but he won’t actually outline any of the changes. He did promise viewers would be “in for a big surprise.” Hopefully, this show won’t go the way of so many others in adding new “twists” that end up taking away from the overall likeability of the show.

Congratulations to The Amazing Race for the Emmy win and its renewal. I know the staff and readers of RealityNewsOnline are already anticipating the fifth season.

At the same time as the announcement for the renewal of the critically-acclaimed Amazing Race series, CBS also said they would renew the not-so-acclaimed Big Brother for the summer of 2004. No matter what critics thought or what fans thought of the final two of Alison and Jun, the fourth season was the most successful ever, with an average of 8.8 million viewers per episode – three times a week!

In previous years, CBS had not officially picked up the series again until February, so this early renewal date shows just how happy the network is with BB. Casting will begin in February, but you can apply now at CBS’s website (once again, remember us if you make it!).

Nothing has been revealed about what twists we can expect next year. Perhaps it will all be twins who were separated at birth or gang members from adjacent prison cells or something. You know, I probably shouldn’t be giving them any ideas.

Two other shows under discussion for renewal include NBC’s The Restaurant and CBS’s Cupid.

While NBC has indeed ordered new episodes of The Restaurant for late in the season (rather than the summer, when it originally aired), details about what the series will actually show are sketchy. For example, they don’t know if Rocco DiSpirito will be the focus of the show again or if they will once again follow the opening of a new restaurant with a new chef – or both. (Adding my own two cents – fans who have talked to me about the show would like to see them revisit Rocco. We heard so many times about how a large percentage of restaurants go out of business in the first 12 months, it would be nice to see how he is doing after a while and why his restaurant is different from those which go out of business.)