Generally speaking, I’m not a nostalgic kind of person. However, there is one thing that makes me crave the good ol’ days of the mid-2000s — the absolutely unhinged reality shows.
In the early 2000s, reality television was still finding its feet. While real life had been broadcast on television as early as 1948 with Candid Camera, it wasn’t until the early 90s that we saw international shows like MTV’s The Real World or Australian shows like Sylvania Waters actually follow the lives of real, everyday people.
By 2001, we were in Big Brother territory, with broadcasters forced to think on their feet as contestants occasionally did things that weren’t appropriate for broadcast, like the infamous turkey slap incident of 2006 that caused so much uproar that Prime Minister John Howard called for the show to be cancelled.
Thankfully, it wasn’t. Instead, Big Brother — and the new risque form of media it represented — continued to grow, leading to the emergence of a whole new host of reality concepts that pushed the boundaries and titilated audiences.
Admittedly, during this toddler stage of reality television, there were some hugely unethical misses. Shows like There’s Something About Miriam (which was a dating show hinging on a trans woman hiding her birth gender from her suitors) or The Swan (a series which gave extreme cosmetic surgery make overs to “ugly” women without letting them look in a mirror until their transformation was complete) huge, real-life implications on the contestants. And, for the viewers at home, perpetuated damaging ideals.
While there were certainly a handful of shows which showcased the dark side of humanity and fame, there were also a bunch of early-to-mid 2000s reality shows that were onto something. I think, with tweaks for appropriateness and 2025 sensibilities, we should bring them back.
So, without further ado, here are the early-to-mid reality shows I want to see make a comeback before 2030.
1. The One: The Search For Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic
No reality show has had a more lasting impact on me than The One: The Search For Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic.
The immaculately woo-woo series hit our screens in 2008 and tragically only lasted for two seasons. Hosted by Andrew Daddo, the premise saw a handful of Aussie psychics compete in weekly challenges which tested their supernatural abilities.
Some weeks, they’d be tasked with challenges such as finding a lost child in bushland, identifying a photo hidden in an envelope, correctly naming someone’s medical history just by looking at them or tracking down a thief on public transport. But instead of being given a map or any clues, they had to use their special psychic gift.
At the end of each episode, two judges — Australian Sceptic Inc’s Richard Saunders and spiritualist Stacie De Marco — had to rank how they went and send one contestant home each week.
The beauty of The One was that sometimes, the psychics would perform feats that seemed out of the realm of possibility, but other times, they’d fail miserably. It made for absolutely brilliant television, and I would give up my firstborn child to have this show come back for another season.
You can check out an example of one of the challenges below.
2. A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila was a dating show like The Bachelor, but with a twist. The 2007 MTV show followed model, singer and MySpace personality Tila Tequila on her search for a partner. The beauty of the show was that Tila was a bisexual woman with no preference for men or women, so instead of just casting a bunch of single heterosexual men, they also cast a bunch of single lesbians.
The best bit? The men and women were separated. No one knew that Tila was bi until the end of the first episode, after Tila came out to all of them. After the big reveal, the contestants went bonkers. A fight broke out. One woman quit. But after the news sank in, all of the contestants had to live together while they fought for Tila’s affection.
It was jam-packed with drama. It was incredible and much to the delight of viewers, after Tila’s first relationship with season one’s winner didn’t work out, MTV gave it another crack with Shot at Love II.
Full disclosure: Tila Tequila and the show itself aren’t perfect. Despite being a show featuring queer love, there were some homophobic moments, and the queer women were often overtly sexualised.
To make matters worse, Tila made some super fucked up pro-Nazi comments and had a well-deserved fall from grace in 2015. In 2018, Tila even claimed that she was never bisexual and just did the show for publicity. So, I’m not saying that we bring back Tila, but rather, the concept of a bisexual dating show.
Problematic features aside, I was in my early teens when I watched this show, and while it definitely leaned into bisexual stereotypes and straight-up made bisexuality a gimmick, it was the first time I saw bisexuality depicted in media as a real, legitimate thing.
3. Extreme Cheapskates
In 2011, Extreme Cheapskates premiered on TLC. As the name suggests, the series follows the everyday life of people who live extremely frugal lifestyles and are willing to do whatever it takes ot save a buck — even if it shocks those around them.
The extreme cheapskates featured on the show aren’t just trying to cut down on spending by foregoing a haircut or walking instead of catching an Uber; they’re straight-up dumpster diving, using lint from drying machines as cotton swabs and pouring leftover alcohol from bar spill mats into shot glasses for her friends.
As awful and judgmental as it sounds, the series hinges on the reactions of the cheapskates’ family and friends as they try their unconventional (and often gross) methods.
You can watch a selection of some of the best cheapskates in the clip below.
4. Fear Factor
Before Joe Rogan was known for his status as the ultimate podcasting bro, he was the host of an NBC reality show called Fear Factor. The challenge-based reality series saw six contestants come up against each other in difficult and often straight-up disgusting tasks.
In each episode, contestants would have to do three challenges designed to terrify the shit out of any regular person. Some tasks involved lying in tubs of creepy crawlies or reptiles. Others featured food challenges where you had to eat animal testicles or suck from a goat’s udder. In one particularly scary challenge, contestants were placed in an airtight sheet with a tiny hole to breathe through and stuck in a morgue drawer.
Only one person could win each episode. Then, they’d have to come back for another round of batshit challenges to win the $50,000 prize money.
Truthfully, it was absolutely horrific, but it was a testament to the strength of human will, and I say we should bring it back.
5. Who Dares Wins
I have such vivid memories of coming home from school and tuning into Channel Seven to watch Who Dares Wins. The series followed hosts Mike Whitney and Tania Zaetta as they went around Australia, challenging regular people to a range of difficult challenges.
Each episode, an unsuspecting person is nominated by family or friends to participate in a dangerous stunt without their knowledge. They only find out that they’ve been nominated when Mike — and a huge, elaborate TV crew — rocks up. If the contestant decides to give the dare a crack and completes it, they win a huge cash prize or a worldwide holiday.
However, if they pull out or fail, Tania steps in to give it a crack. If she wins, the nominated punter misses out on the prize. If she fails or pulls out, the contestant wins. Juicy, hey?!
Along with the big dare, the show also follows Mike around the country to various shopping centres, where he would offer cash prizes for people who did more low-key dares like shaving their head or putting their hand in a bucket of cockroaches.
6. Big Brother VIP
When Channel 10 announced that old school Big Brother was coming back, I was stoked. But I think we need to go one step further and bring back Big Brother VIP.
Big Brother VIP is exactly the same as Big Brother but it features a bunch of celebrities rather than everyday people. The beauty of it lies in the same vein as I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here. We get to see the celebs outside of their comfort zone, fighting for the last tins of tuna and competing bonkers challenges for a charity.
We’ve also seen this format absolutely thrive in the UK with the latest season of Celebrity Big Brother UK featuring JoJo Siwa and Chris Hughes‘ unlikely love story.
7. Australian Princess
In 2005, Australian television was blessed with a series called Australian Princess. The series premise was created off the back of our very own Tasmanian princess-turned-queen, Queen Mary of Denmark, who married into the Denmark royal family in 2004 after meeting the then-heir to the throne, King Frederick, in a pub in Sydney.
The series followed 12 regular Aussie (and kinda bogan) gals on a deportment journey to become posh, sophisticated and ready to embrace a royal life. Led by Princess Diana‘s former butler, Paul Burrell, the women had to work hard to refine the way they presented themselves to convince a panel of fancy judges that they had what it took to become a true royal.
It’s giving the deportment classes some girls in my grade did in year six. Arguably, I don’t think there’s any merit in women being told to act more “ladylike”. But, I think there was something special about a show tapping into the real-life love story that captivated the nation and, at the time, made other girls think they, too, could fall in love with a prince at a bar like Slip Inn.
While we’re taking a trip down memory line, check out some of the most scandalous reality TV moments!
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