Reality Check
David Schmidt
Published Apr 04, 2026
Lightning bolts, lip syncs, Love Island Games: We’re counting down the 25 moments that shaped reality television in 2023.
Clockwise from top left: Lisa Barlow of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Lydia Velez Gonzalez of Love Is Blind, Ariana Madix of Vanderpump Rules, Ubah Hassan of Real Housewives of New York, Tom Sandoval of Vanderpump Rules, the cast of Squid Game: The Challenge, Raquel Leviss of Vanderpump Rules, Anetra of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Uche Okoroha of Love Is Blind, Gerry Turner of The Golden Bachelor. Photo-Illustration: Vulture ; Photos: Paramount, Nicole Weingart/Bravo via Getty Images, Craig Sjodin/ABC via Getty Images, Rudy Webster/Bravo/Everett Collection, Netflix, Bravo, Chelsea Guglielmino/Bravo via Getty ImagesOn 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.
Day 1: Anatomy of a Scandoval
Read StoryDay 2: Death by Squid Ink
Read StoryDay 3: Bake-Off’s Delight
Read StoryDay 4: Claim to Fame Said No T-Hanks
Read StoryDay 5: Free Willy!
Read StoryDay 6: A Survivor Star Is Born
Read StoryDay 7: Love Is Enormous
Read StoryDay 8: Who Said That?
Read StoryDay 9: Run Time Rumble
read storyDay 10: The Gilded Age
read storyDay 11: RHONY Rheset
read storyDay 12: Legacy in Limbo
read storyDay 13: She Is the One
read storyDay 14: Lightning Strikes
read storyDay 15: Food Fights!
read storyDay 16: Jenna Fucking Lyons
read storyDay 17: The Saboteur
read storyDay 18: Love It and Leave It
read storyDay 19: America’s Next Top ChefTok
read storyDay 20: Originals Only
read storyDay 21: The Talented Ms. Garcia
read storyDay 22: Fun and Games
read storyDay 23: Speak of The Devil
read storyDay 24: How Low Can You Go?
read storyDay 25: Let It Barlow
read story Reality Check
