The Cutprice Guignol

So, I have a slightly…fractious relationship with UnREAL. I think it’s best summed up in this article, that I wrote after the end of season two a couple of years ago, but if you want the tl;dr, a show that was ostensibly about the goings-on behind the scenes of a Bachelor-esque reality show and the grotesquely nightmarish manipulation exacted on the hapless contestants by the staff lost sight of it’s meta-ness and became too wrapped up in it’s own drama (and major restructuring in UnREAL’s writers room led to some scrappy, messy plots and arcs to boot). But I still think the first series is brilliant and I adore both Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby, who play showrunner Quinn and producer Rachel respectively, so when season three rolled around, I knew I had to give it a go.

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