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In HBO's reality series 'The Rehearsal,' participants practice real-life scenarios

David Bianculli

Nathan Fielder walks people through different tricky conversations and scenarios on The Rehearsal. HBO hide caption

Nathan Fielder walks people through different tricky conversations and scenarios on The Rehearsal.

Nathan Fielder's HBO series The Rehearsal is hard to pin down. It's a comedy, but only in spots. Other times, it's unexpectedly touching, even dramatic. It's a reality show — maybe one of the most real reality shows I've ever seen — in capturing actual behavior. Yet it does so, much of the time, in absurdly unnatural, artificially created environments. And while Fielder has set up his new series as a scientific social experiment of sorts — trying to help people find the best ways to maneuver in a given situation — many times he's the one doing the learning, or becoming a subject in his own experiment.

In the premiere episode, Fielder places a very specific ad, targeted at people who have some issue they're trying to overcome. A 50-year-old teacher named Core Skeet replies, and his issue is that he's lied to a small group of friends for years, claiming to have had an advanced educational degree. Core wants to confess the truth to one woman in particular, but is afraid of her reaction.

Fielder's pitch, and the premise of his show, is that if you practice with a series of scenarios and variables, you can find the best way to proceed. In other words, you can prepare for this event with a series of rehearsals, then perform it for real.

The concept itself sounds absurd, and that absurdity is only magnified when Fielder uses HBO's significant program budget to go all in. Organizational flow charts break down the various possibilities. Actors are hired and coached to play, in rehearsals, the people the subjects will confront in real life. And entire sets are built where those practice sessions are staged — working replicas of homes, bars and restaurants where the real meetings eventually will occur.

It sounds crazy, but Fielder isn't out to make fun of the people in his shows; he's genuinely interested in helping them. And once each experiment in The Rehearsal begins, something strange and hard to explain happens. You really start to see patterns, flaws and obstacles to overcome. You see people. Real people.

I've seen five episodes of The Rehearsal. In addition to the teacher who wants to confess his falsehood, there's an episode about a man who wants his brother to release a grandfather's inheritance. Another features a woman who is afraid to commit to the responsibilities of parenthood and marriage. Not all of these experiments reach their natural or expected conclusions. Despite all of Fielder's meticulous planning and flow charts, there's a lot of chaos theory at play here.

The Rehearsal is unlike any TV show I've ever seen, and I'm not even sure I'd classify it as a comedy. But whatever Nathan Fielder is up to here, I'm fascinated by it.

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Is netflix’s ‘unlocked: a jail experiment’ real the controversy, explained.

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Unlocked: A Jail Experiment

Netflix’s new reality series is not like any other. In the social experiment, incarcerated men are given increased autonomy in hopes of creating a community-driven atmosphere and deterring future criminal behavior. But is Netflix’s Unlocked: A Jail Experiment real ? Find out why the docuseries could be facing legal trouble.

Using interviews and unprecedented access, Netflix’s Unlocked: A Jail Experiment chronicles what happens when detainees can come and go from their cells and decide how their unit should operate. Over six weeks and eight episodes, 46 inmates are documented with unprecedented authority in the Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Sheriff Eric Higgins, who was behind the unique experiment, wanted to discover what would happen when unit cells were “unlocked” for six weeks. “We thought, ‘What can we do to create some ownership for those detainees in that unit?’” Higgins told Netflix’s Tudum . “How do we make the facility safer, and what can we do to still hold them accountable but empower them at the same time?”

Is Netflix’s Unlocked: A Jail Experiment Real?

Netflix’s Unlocked: A Jail Experiment is an unscripted real-life social experiment conducted at Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. Although the series was advertised as having “no locks” and “no officers,” that was actually not the case.

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In an ordinance shared by KATV , Higgins wrote that officers were stationed in the H-unit approximately six to eight feet from two secured doors. An officer was also monitoring cameras in the unit, and deputies were in the unit consistently. Higgins also said that “no locks” meant their cells were open and inmates had a higher degree of freedom.

“Pulaski County Regional Detention Center is a direct supervision facility, which means the deputies are inside the unit with detainees,” Higgins told Tudum. Although security levels differ in each unit, the Sheriff’s intention for the experiment was simple: establish an environment with reduced direct supervision.

The first step of the experiment was removing deputies from the unit, giving inmates greater authority over their everyday routines. The Sheriff organized a tier-based structure that they replicated from a re-entry unit elsewhere in the facility. That way, detainees who consistently demonstrated good behavior could earn more privileges.

“Our re-entry unit is for detainees who want help with their addiction or other issues they’re dealing with,” Higgins explained to the site. “There’s an interview process — it’s an open-barrack unit, and it’s the safest in our facility. The behavior is better, it was safer, and the facility was cleaner, because they took ownership. Looking at this experiment, we wondered if that was something we could implement; if we could take a typical unit and modify behavior based on a system of responsibility and benefits.”

The subjects involved in the experiment were briefed about what to expect. “We didn’t automatically open the doors,” Higgins clarified. “We talked to them about the possibilities, and about behavior. We gave them a list of responsibilities and [made] personnel available to them to ask more detailed questions” before filming of the Netflix show began.

The production company also told detainees that they would be recorded and could depart the experiment if they wanted to. “We checked to see if they wanted to be there,” the Sheriff explained. “At any given time, a person could leave [the experimental unit].”

Why Is Netflix ’s Unlocked: A Jail Experiment Controversial?

State officials are looking into Higgins’s decision to allow a production crew to film inside the Pulaski County Jail. The Pulaski County Quorum Court has questions about the docuseries and passed an ordinance at the end of March to learn more.

The ordinance required Higgins to answer around 40 questions and provide “any copies of any agreements signed, any lists of reimbursements and compensations that came from filming, as well as questions regarding who knew this was taking place when it happened and more,” according to Fox 16 .

Justice of the Peace Phil Stowers, District 13, said there are concerns that this is a bad look for the county, but the ordinance will affect how they move forward legally, the news site reported. “It’s not a question as to whether or not the sheriff has the ability to try something out of the box, something new in the jail,” Stowers said, per Fox 16. “The questions and concerns are why did that have to turn into a reality TV show?”

In April, Higgins responded to the ordinance ( obtained by KATV ) and disclosed that $60,000 was paid to those participating in the show, payable to the Pulaski County Government. Two PCSO employees were paid $40 per hour for their off-duty hours, but no other compensation was given. When asked if PCSO adhered to the policies and protocols while conducting the experiment, Higgins said yes.

On April 10, the NAACP in Jacksonville held a Q&A session with Higgins, where he addressed questions about why he chose to proceed with the controversial jail experiment.

"I want to humanize people. I want to empower people to have an impact on their culture, environment, and community. If you can do that on a micro level, in jail with people you don't care about or didn't initially care about, and if you take that with you when you go to the broader community, then maybe you realize that you are empowered, you can have a positive impact on your neighborhood, on your family,” Higgins said, according to THV11 .

President of the NAACP Jacksonville branch, Barry Jefferson, also expressed his support for the experiment.

"We need to change because the system we're doing now is not working, building more prisons is not working, putting more people in jail is not working, because it's a revolving door but we can change the dynamic of jail on how people go and when they get released, that he won't come back," Jefferson explained. "This is all because people shouldn't have to feel that they don't have no other choice, but jail."

Unlocked A Jail Experiment is now streaming on Netflix.

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Television July 28, 2023

‘survive the raft’: watch a sneak peek from the new social experiment reality show.

Discovery’s new reality show “Survive the Raft” kicks off on Sunday, and “Extra” has an exclusive sneak peek at what’s in store.

Based on a 1973 social experiment, the show follows nine contestants living together on a boat. They are tasked with completing challenges as they work toward a shared cash prize. At the end of each episode, however, they have the option of continuing together or swapping out a contestant for a new participant.

In the clip, host Nate Boyer checks in with the contestants to see how their first night went. While everyone seems “agreeable,” a contestant named CJ opens up about his apprehensions in a confessional.

“Everyone at face value says we’re friends and we’re going to ‘Kumbaya’ around the campfire, but the truth is I have no idea who these people are,” CJ says. “I have no idea if I trust them and if I voice my opinions right away, it may be my death sentence.”

Cut back to Nate and the group, and Boyer asks a woman named Maddie if she thinks it will be “smooth sailing.”

She replies, “I think we all know it is not going to be smooth sailing,” adding, “I have a lot of faith. Each and every one of us I feel very confident can make this work.”

“Survive the Raft” premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery.

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‘Love Is Blind’ Creator Chris Coelen On Designing An Unprecedented Social Experiment For Netflix

By Matt Grobar

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In Love Is Blind , Chris Coelen engineered a social experiment, designed to answer major two questions: Can love conquer all? And can people fall in love without ever seeing one another?

Hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, the Netflix reality series follows 30 men and women that hope to be loved for who they are on the inside, as they engage in a novel approach to dating. Over the course of 10 days, the singles go on a series of speed dates within “pods”—private chambers linked by an opaque wall—which allow for intimate conversation. Free from the distractions of physical appearance, and the physical world as a whole, they are able to engage in flirtation and courtship on the basis of a deeper kind of connection.

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As the founding CEO of Kinetic Content —a subsidiary of Red Arrow Studios—Coelen has dabbled in social experiments before, with series such as Married at First Sight . “We’ve done a lot of work in the relationship genre, and it’s an area I’m particularly interested in,” he says, “always looking to tap into what big themes are, in terms of where we are, as a society or a culture.”

From Coelen’s perspective, Love Is Blind seemed like a series that would resonate, given the universally relatable themes and questions at its core. “ Love Is Blind is pretty simply about whether love—pure love—can overcome all of the obstacles that can get in its way in today’s world,” he notes. “Regardless of who you are, what you look like, where you’re from, what you feel that you have or are lacking, everyone wants to be loved for who they are on the inside.”

While there are many potential barriers between people in the incredibly divided modern age, Coelen felt that technology is one of the greatest hindrances to the development of successful relationships. “When you have a conversation with someone, we tend to be distracted, checking our devices. If you’re on a dating app, you have so many choices that you’re constantly going to the next one, or you become focused on very superficial things, or people discount you for very superficial things. We all feel sort of disposable,” the EP says. “This show set out to address those things.”

As Coelen explains, these insights into the modern world of dating informed the format of Love Is Blind , and the set of “very loose rules” with which it was set up, one of which was that participants had to disconnect from technology for much of their time on the show. Following 10 days of intensive conversation, the men and women in the pods could propose to a potential partner. “If you fell and love, and if you chose to get engaged, and if that proposal was accepted, then you would be allowed to see each other. Otherwise, you wouldn’t,” the EP says. “And if you got engaged, your wedding date would be set in four weeks.”

After seeing one another for the first time, couples that got engaged in the pods would go through all of the normal steps of a relationship, at an accelerated pace. “We sent them on a romantic getaway after they got engaged and saw each other, because it felt like they should have a moment without any distractions, to try to turn their emotional connection into a physical one,” Coelen says. “Then, they moved in together and prepared for their weddings, and got the chance to spend time with their friends and family, and make sure that they felt like they were doing the right thing before they got married.”

In casting the series’ Atlanta-based first season, Coelen searched for people with a genuine desire for a lifetime commitment, or who wanted to explore the idea of making one. Having prospective participants go through background checks and psychological testing, the EP put together a group diverse in age, race, socioeconomic background and physical type, also ensuring that all of the singles featured were based in the same area.

“It’s a show about overcoming lots of potential obstacles, whether that be looks, or age, or background, or ethnicity, asking the question as to whether those actually need to be obstacles, those sorts of differences. But we didn’t feel like geography should be an obstacle,” he says. “It felt like if we were really going to give these people a shot at making it work, having someone from Portland and someone from Miami [was] maybe a bridge too far.”

While producing Season 1, Coelen was both scared and excited by the total unpredictability of what would unfold on the show. “It’s not a show of gotchas, or producers pulling strings. There was no guarantee anybody was going to do anything,” he says. “Nobody had to fall in love; nobody had to get engaged; nobody had to make it to the altar; nobody had to get married. It was their free will that led them to each of those steps.”

Heading into the shoot, the show’s singles were certainly skeptical of the experiment at hand, and its viability, as a matchmaking system. “I think they thought, ‘Hey, you know what? It’ll an adventure. Maybe I’ll meet somebody. [But] who knows?’” Coelen says. “I don’t think any one of them ever really felt like this was going to happen to them, what happened to them, but it did.”

Ultimately, the series became a pop culture phenomenon, and the social experiments’ results surpassed the expectations of producers and participants alike. “The people who met one another in the pod described that experience as being completely unlike any other they’ve had in their life,” the EP says. “They felt like they knew the person on the other side of the wall better than they had ever known anyone in their entire lives, and described it in very transformative terms.”

In Season 1, eight couples got engaged, and two ended up getting married. The results were such that the production team hit upon a limit, in terms of the amount of stories they could tell in 11 episodes. “[Out of] eight total couples, we followed six. We had to make choices, but I think that’s part of the exciting thing about the show,” Coelen says. “Again, you’re riding, as a producer, without too many rails, and what happens, happens.”

While the number of engagements resulting from Season 1 caught Coelen off guard, he believes they’re a testament to the core idea of the show, one in which he really believes. “People say the most important factor in the success of a long-term relationship is trust and being vulnerable, and so often, you see things not work out because things like a lack of trust, or a lack of vulnerability, get in the way,” he says. “Here, people went in with that. They formed their relationships based on that. So, actually, when you think about it from that perspective, it’s not that surprising to me that the people who chose to stay together are still together.”

Premiering in February, Love Is Blind was renewed for a second and third season the following month. In March, it was announced that Season 2 will take place in Chicago. The coronavirus pandemic’s impact on production aside, Coelen has no idea yet about the direction in which future seasons will go, and feels that’s a good thing. “This is the kind of show that will end up taking us in a lot of unexpected directions that I have no way to predict right now, “ he says, “and to me, to be able to ensure that that opportunity is there—for us, as producers, and for the participants, and for the audience, ultimately—that’s my main goal.”

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Screen Rant

The 10 most creative reality show concepts.

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Over the decades, reality TV has come into viewers' homes in many forms, from hidden-camera shows and competitions to makeovers and celebrity slice-of-life series. Some of the concepts behind these reality shows have been genius, revolutionary, or at the very least, quite strange.

RELATED:  10 Reality Shows That Haven't Aged Well

Some of these creative shows are so simple that they seem like obvious ideas for hits in hindsight, whereas others are quite complex and turn the possibilities of reality television on its head. While some of these shows didn't quite make it off the ground despite their strong, creative concepts, others live on to this day, either in a long-running series or in several shows that took inspiration from the original.

Candid Camera

One of the first reality television series ever,  Candid Camera premiered in 1948 and has existed in several iterations in the years since, airing over 1,000 episodes of hidden-camera entertainment. The show's main premise was using a hidden camera to capture people's reactions to practical jokes.

This format is everywhere now, having influenced other hidden-camera shows like  Punk'd ,  What Would You Do? , and  Impractical Jokers . The creative spark of the original is still bright, though, as modern takes on the formula have still not abandoned the original premise and intentions of this classic.

Changing Rooms/Trading Spaces

The British show that inspired the American spin-off  Trading Spaces ,  Changing Rooms sees friends designing room makeovers for each other's homes with the help of home design and renovation experts. The results were often positive, but many watched the show for the occasional botched makeover or disappointed reaction.

By combining the home makeover show with the unpredictability of swapping design projects,  Changing Rooms had all the makings of reality TV gold. The game-like concept spurned a number of international versions and spin-offs, as well, proving the versatility of the concept.

Are You The One?

Shows following contestants looking for romance are a huge genre in the world of reality television, and many of these shows have a competitive edge to them.  Are You The One? stands out in part because it is a cooperative endeavor, in which a group of people must find their perfect matches by the end of the season to win a collective cash prize.

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Each season's cast is secretly put into pairs based on matchmaking techniques, and the rest of the season has the couples pairing up and trying to find the assigned matches, getting hints on their progress at weekly ceremonies. With this concept, the show is a unique blend of strategy and romance.

King Of Mask Singer / The Masked Singer

Part of an international franchise based on the South Korean series  King Of Mask Singer ,  The Masked Singer is the American version of the incredibly creative show that has viewers guessing which celebrities and public figures are performing behind elaborate masks and costumes .

The extravagant costumes and surreal clue videos add flair to the simple-yet-clever concept that has a panel of celebrity judges working through the possibilities for each singer, and the less-successful singers are unmasked. This combo of singing competition and guessing game is an inspired fusion that fans love.

Ninja Warrior / American Ninja Warrior

The English name of the Japanese reality competition series  Sasuke and  Kunoichi was  Ninja Warrior , and the obstacle course-based competition eventually became  American Ninja Challenge and then  American Ninja Warrior in the United States.

All versions of this series have contestants competing in huge, challenging obstacle courses that look like a difficult-to-navigate playground. What sets the  Ninja Warrior franchise apart from similar shows is the fact that it's treated as a sport rather than pure entertainment, with serious competitors who return year after year and who are beloved by fans.

This show, which ran from 2009 through 2010, followed a group of ordinary people surviving simulated post-apocalyptic scenarios, with an emphasis on survival skills and the human psyche in an isolated environment.  The Colony stands out for its use of actors to create a realistic and unpredictable environment.

The casts of the show's two seasons had to contend with practical issues like finding food, power sources, and other resources by hunting, fishing, looting, and trading with actors who portrayed other survivors. The show's narrative-like format is quite unique, drawing viewers into a post-apocalyptic story that blends fiction and reality.

Arguably the blueprint for countless shows that have come after it,  Survivor created something utterly new in the realm of reality television by combining two incredibly intriguing elements: survival and competition. The series sees a group of ordinary people living together in a remote location with few resources.

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At least once per episode, one of these castaways is voted off. What makes the concept so interesting, though, is that changing locations and twists alter the survival portion of the competition. The strategic part has grown complex over the years, too, starting with the concept of an alliance and evolving all the way into advanced strategies, like minority split votes. Many fan-favorite players have gone on to change reality TV themselves, too.

The 1900 House

A famous reality show concept that spawned numerous international spin-offs and sequels, as well as a  Simpsons parody,  The 1900 House followed a contemporary 1999 family living in a simulated Victorian-era home. This included the members of the family taking on the gender and familial roles of the period.

The 1900 House was a social experiment with a fly-on-the-wall style that is echoed in many other reality shows like  Big Brother . What really makes the series creative, though, is the attention to detail in recreating the household and highlighting the differences between living then and now through the Bowers family experience.

Reality shows, especially competitions, are often intense or even harsh on their competitors, but very few have gone to the lengths of  Solitary . As its name suggests,  Solitary places a handful of players into solitary confinement pods, where they can only communicate with a sadistic computer known as VAL.

To add to the intensity,  Solitary players must complete difficult challenges, such as memorizing long strings of words or setting up precarious domino tableaus. Elimination challenges are even more creatively vicious and usually involve the first player to quit being eliminated after several rounds of activities like challenging physical exercise or gross food consumption.

One of the most unique reality competitions ever devised,  The Mole is a spy thriller in reality TV form, having players accumulate prize money over a series of challenges while facing a traitor in their midst. In the end, the winner gets the whole pot of money and the mole is revealed.

Over the course of each season, players do difficult challenges across the world (much like a cooperative version of  The Amazing Race ), which include puzzles and physical feats, in order to add to the pot. The mole, however, tries to sabotage these challenges without being caught. Each week, players take a test on the mole's identity and wrongdoings, and only the players in the know will move on, adding to the tension.

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Survivor turns 20: Reflecting on the core of the greatest social experiment

By daniel george | may 31, 2020.

Survivor turns 20 years old today. What that means to us, both now and then.

I wasn’t allowed to watch  Survivor at the very beginning. My mother, though typically open-minded in philosophy and childrearing at the time, wanted to protect me, a 10-year-old child alongside my 8-year-old brother and 5-year-old sister, from the ills of greed, betrayal, and subterfuge in the quest for a million dollars.

Even with that mentality, we were allowed to see one episode; the finale, featuring the Final Four. Over two hours viewed by more than 50 million people across the United States (and countless millions across the world), we saw an epic battle for endurance, a cunning strategist force his best friend on the island to be voted out by a young river guide, and the most epic speech in reality television history from Sue Hawk en route to Richard Hatch being awarded the million-dollar prize.

Survivor is as prolific as a show on its own merit as it was a cultural phenomenon that changed the television landscape forever. It was, is, and will be dubbed as one of the greatest social experiments ever, bringing 16-20 Americans from all walks of life (later, specifics walks of life) to observe tribal dynamics, compete in challenges and, after every three days or so, vote each other out until a winner is decided by a jury of their peers.

It was a perfect formula that mixed social interaction with a competitive spirit aided further with the Hidden Immunity Idol starting in season 11,  Guatemala , and has now completely been overrun by tertiary content influencing the winners. Everything from overpowered idols to stolen votes to blocked jury votes, idol nullifiers, and even a brand new economy designed to make life easier for those in control has done its best to chip away at the core of the game.

More. 5 Survivor themes we want to see in future seasons. light

However, as evidenced as recently as the winner of season 39’s  Island of the Idols,  Tommy Sheehan, the core of  Survivor is the social aspect. People who share their life experiences with one another do so more than just to leverage their relationships for future votes; they do so to learn from one another and better themselves as individuals, together.

It dates back to the very beginning, as the partnership between a hard-nosed, conservative, Navy Seal legend like Rudy Boesch and a gay corporate trainer like Richard Hatch was the unlikeliest to emerge. However, Richard helped open Rudy’s eyes to a world he had not been as open-minded to prior to playing the game, helping to broaden his horizons while still maintaining a veneer of steadfastness.

There have been countless learning moments for both the castaways and the viewers at home. From Richard and Rudy to Matthew and Daniel bonding over Mandarin in  The Amazon,  all the way to Jack and Jamal talking race relations in  Island of the Idols and Sarah opining about the institutional gender dynamics within  Survivor in the  Winners at War finale, the players have served as stand-ins for those at home.

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If there is something that  Survivor did push forward, especially in the beginning, it’s for better representation of people from all walks of life. Especially in 2000, voices of gays and lesbians were not as vocal and faces not as present on television, and the show did its small part in continuing the push from Ellen Degeneres three years prior in legitimizing those in the LGBT community.

The show has helped push the needle on societal acceptance in no small part due to its relevance and impact on the television landscape. Though reality TV shows existed before  Survivor (especially more personality-driven shows like  The Real World ), the instant celebrity status of the 16 castaways that made up  Borneo  spawned an infinite number of imitators in search of the “real people” they can push to an audience searching for authenticity on their television.

Survivor , at its core, is a reflection on society, especially that seen in North America. It is not always pretty, as the show’s contestants (even with the presence of mind to remember they’re filmed 24/7) have exhibited moments of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other societal atrocities we’ve seen for ourselves by others in the past 20 years.

Must Read. Survivor: Ranking the best Survivor seasons ever. light

We’d like to think that the heroes always prevail, and those that do and mean well will always rise to the top. However,  Survivor has elevated both the pure of heart and treacherous of mind. It is a game of social grace and social deception, where convincing others to partner up for shared interests (even if those interests may differ in reality) advances people forward at differing rates.

Twenty years later, the enduring legacy of the show remains miraculous. It was CBS’ highest-rated program of the 2019-2020 cycle , in no small part thanks to the tough conversations, honest revelations, and day-to-day moments shared by the castaways, as the best parts of  Survivor remain in the honest, earnest moments of humanity.

While countless dozens, hundreds, thousands, and maybe even more television shows have come and gone since the first episode of Survivor aired on May 31, 2000, our favorite reality competition program remains. Much like the society it reflects in its 40 different microcosms throughout its 20 years on the air, it has a flawed, complicated history of the very good and the very awful.

Survivor may have had a profound effect on the direction of television in the 2000s onward thanks to the success of its very first 16 castaways, but it is the stories of those individuals and the hundreds of others that followed that make the show meaningful. We see friends, family, lovers, and enemies we know represented on the islands, and more times than not, they’re putting on an amazingly entertaining show for us at home.

We live in uncertain times, both at home, in our communities, and abroad. More often than not, the show provides comfort and distraction from a world needing one and has been our method of choice for 20 years as of today.

dark. Next. Survivor winners: Ranking the best Sole Survivors by season

Though the powers and advantages may resemble a game less and less than what we saw in Malaysia two decades ago, we cannot overlook the staying power of strangers coming together to simply outwit, outplay, and outlast one another in competition for the pride and money that comes with the title of Sole Survivor.

Written in the Stars

In a stellar social experiment, singles representing each of the 12 zodiac signs are paired up by world-renowned astrologers. Matched using their birth charts, these new couples will find out if true love really is written in the stars. more

In a stellar social experiment, singles representing each of the ... More

Starring: Clara Amfo Colin Bedell Michele Knight

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In a stellar social experiment, singles representing each of the 12 zodiac signs are paired up by world-renowned astrologers. Matched using their birth charts, these new couples will find out if true love really is written in the stars.

Starring: Clara Amfo Colin Bedell Michele Knight Francesca Oddie

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Pharrell-produced science show ‘Brainchild’ wants to inspire kids to pursue STEM

‘brainchild’ has a new set of brain games..

Audra Schroeder

Brainchild , Netflix ’s new kids science series, is the good kind of social experiment.

The show is produced by the same company behind National Geographic’s Brain Games , but it’s more comedic. Brainchild better recalls the interactive challenges of HBO’s ’80s kids show Braingames . A companion to Netflix’s recent Bill Nye revamp, and another entry in its growing explainer genre ( Follow This , Explained ), the 13-episode Brainchild covers topics like space, creativity, memory, and germs. Pharrell Williams  served as executive producer, giving input on creative decisions despite not taking much of a hands-on approach on set, according to host Sahana Srinivasan . (He appears in the “Space” episode, asking NASA astronauts about the most “awe-inspiring” thing they’ve seen up there.)

Pharrell’s touch is subtle, and  Brainchild is more than just aesthetic. In the aughts, TV science shows have essentially become YouTube shows , and while Brainchild has that vlog feel, it also sets itself apart with representation. Srinivasan, a 22-year-old senior at the University of Texas at Austin, auditioned for the series by simply setting up a camera in her apartment and recording, vlog style.   Innovation Nation ‘s Alie Ward stars alongside Srinivasan as the “science friend” who adds her own expertise about different topics in each episode, but also asks more questions.

A Netflix show where two women talk about science provides a nice buffer to science series like Bill Nye Saves the World and Adam Ruins Everything , and popular YouTube science shows like Vsauce and AsapSCIENCE. But Srinivasan says it goes even deeper than that. “In the STEM and STEAM fields, there’s a lack of representation of women, and we’re hoping that shows like this will inspire young women to go into science fields,” she says. “But also, people of color and Indian women, too. I’ve had people reach out to me on Instagram and say, ‘It’s really cool to see representation and to see myself on the screen.’ Also for acting, too. Not just science.”

Srinivasan also does standup comedy, and the series benefits from her delivery. She says she had freedom to add her ideas in the writing and editing process, to ensure it was authentic and felt like her voice. (The creators brought in researchers to make sure the science part was legit, too.) 

But Srinivasan also had to keep audience in mind. While adults will find something to engage with in Brainchild , the target demo comprises teens and preteens.  “It is a challenge to write comedy that doesn’t involve inappropriate content because it’s so easy to revert to that,” she says. “I think if you’re able to do that sometimes it’s even funnier, classier.”

Srinivasan’s favorite episode is “Space”—she also gets to act opposite a puppet in the “Oceans” episode—but quite a few parents seem to be tweeting about the show’s first episode, “Social Media,” which deconstructs the forced perspective of selfies, humblebrags, and cyberbullying. She says they were careful not to talk down to kids, instead asking them to get involved and come to their own conclusions.

“We don’t think of [social media] as science, but there is a lot of science involved in why we like things,” she says. “We don’t really promote it as ‘social media is bad.’ We kind of explore the pros and cons. I know a lot of kids would be turned off if it was like, ‘You shouldn’t do anything with social media,’ because it’s also good.”

Brainchild is also compatible with the classroom, and curriculum from each episode can be downloaded on its site for middle and elementary schools. The show doesn’t tackle any controversial topics, and certain interactive challenges and bits will definitely engage kids more than adults. But it does evoke that sense of wonder that might have been extinguished by the rigors of adult life.   

Still not sure what to watch tonight? Here are our guides for the absolute  best movies on Netflix , must-see  Netflix original series ,  documentaries ,  docuseries , and  movies .

Need more ideas? Here are our Netflix guides for the  best war movies ,  documentaries ,  anime ,  indie flicks ,  true crime ,  food shows ,  gangster movies ,  Westerns , and  movies based on true stories  streaming right now. There are also  sad movies  guaranteed to make you cry,  weird movies  to melt your brain, and  standup specials  when you really need to laugh. Or check out  Flixable , a search engine for Netflix.

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Audra Schroeder was a senior entertainment writer at the Daily Dot, focusing on streaming, comedy, and music. Her work has previously appeared in the Austin Chronicle, the Dallas Observer, NPR, ESPN, Bitch, and the Village Voice.

The Cruel Social Experiment of Reality TV

The new Hulu film about an atrocious moment in ’90s television is shocking, but revelatory.

M ore than a decade after watching it, I still get twitchy thinking about “White Bear,” an early episode of Black Mirror that stands as one of the most discomfiting installments of television I’ve seen. A woman (played by Lenora Crichlow) groggily wakes up in a strange house whose television sets are broadcasting the same mysterious symbol. When she goes outside, the people she encounters silently film her on their phones or menacingly wield shotguns and chainsaws. Eventually, trapped in a deserted building, the woman seizes a gun and shoots one of her tormentors, but the weapon surprises her by firing confetti instead of bullets. The walls around her suddenly swing open; she’s revealed to be the star of a sadistic live event devised to punish her repeatedly for a crime she once committed but can’t remember. “In case you haven’t guessed … you aren’t very popular,” the show’s host tells the terrified woman, as the audience roars its approval. “But I’ll tell you what you are, though. You’re famous.”

“White Bear” indelibly digs into a number of troublesome 21st-century media phenomena: a populace numbed into passive consumption of cruel spectacle, the fetishistic rituals of public shaming, the punitive nature of many “reality” shows. The episode’s grand reveal, a television staple by the time it premiered in 2013, is its own kind of punishment: The extravagant theatrics serve as a reminder that everything that’s happened to the woman has been a deliberate construction—a series of manipulations in service of other people’s entertainment.

The contrast between the aghast subject and the gleeful audience, clapping like seals, is almost too jarring to bear. And yet a version of this moment really happened, as seen about an hour into The Contestant , Hulu’s dumbfounding documentary about a late-’90s Japanese TV experiment. For 15 months, a wannabe comedian called Tomoaki Hamatsu (nicknamed “Nasubi,” or “eggplant,” in reference to the length of his head) has been confined, naked, to a single room filled with magazines, and tasked with surviving—and winning his way out, if he could hit a certain monetary target—by entering competitions to win prizes. The entire time, without his knowledge or consent, he’s also been broadcast on a variety show called Susunu! Denpa Shōnen .

Before he’s freed, Nasubi is blindfolded, dressed for travel, transported to a new location, and led into a small room that resembles the one he’s been living in. Wearily, accepting that he’s not being freed but merely moved, he takes off his clothes as if to return to his status quo. Then, the walls collapse around him to reveal the studio, the audience, the stage, the cameras. Confetti flutters through the air. Nasubi immediately grabs a pillow to conceal his genitals. “My house fell down,” he says, in shock. The audience cackles at his confusion. “Why are they laughing?” he asks. They laugh even harder.

Since The Contestant debuted earlier this month, reviews and responses have homed in on how outlandish its subject matter is, dubbing it a study of the “most evil reality show ever” and “a terrifying and bizarre true story.” The documentary focuses intently on Nasubi’s experience, contrasting his innocence and sweetness with the producer who tormented him, a Machiavellian trickster named Toshio Tsuchiya. Left unstudied, though, is the era the series emerged from. The late ’90s embodied an anything-goes age of television: In the United States, series such as Totally Hidden Video and Shocking Behavior Caught on Tape drew millions of viewers by humiliating people caught doing dastardly things on camera. But Tsuchiya explains that he had a more anthropological mission in mind. “We were trying to show the most basic primitive form of human being,” he tells The Contestant ’s director. Nasubi was Tsuchiya’s grand human experiment.

The cruelty with which Nasubi was treated seems horrifying now, and outrageously unethical. Before he started winning contests, he got by on a handful of crackers fed to him by the producers, then fiber jelly (one of his first successful prizes), then dog food. His frame is whittled down in front of our eyes. “If he hadn’t won rice, he would have died,” a producer says, casually. The question of why Nasubi didn’t just leave the room hangs in the air, urgent and mostly unexamined. “Staying put, not causing trouble is the safest option,” Nasubi explains in the documentary. “It’s a strange psychological state. You lose the will to escape.”

But the timing of his confinement also offers a clue about why he might have stayed: 1998, when the comedian was first confined, was a moment in flux, caught between the technological innovations that were rapidly changing mass culture and the historical atrocities of the 20th century. Enabled by the internet, lifecasters such as Jennifer Ringley were exposing their unfiltered lives online as a kind of immersive sociological experiment. Webcams allowed exhibitionists and curious early adopters to present themselves for observation as novel subjects in a human zoo. Even before the release of The Truman Show , which came out in the U.S. a few months after Nasubi was first put on camera, a handful of provocateur producers were brainstorming new formats for unscripted television , egged on by the uninhibited bravado and excess of ’90s media. These creators acted as all-seeing, all-knowing authorities whose word was absolute . And their subjects, not yet familiar with the “rules” of an emerging genre, often didn’t know what they were allowed to contest. Of Tsuchiya, Nasubi remembers, “It was almost like I was worshipping a god.”

In his manipulation of Nasubi, Tsuchiya was helping pioneer a new kind of art form, one that would lead to the voyeurism of 2000s series such as Big Brother and Survivor , not to mention more recent shows such Married at First Sight and Love Is Blind . But the spectacle of Nasubi’s confinement also represented a hypothesis that had long preoccupied creators and psychologists alike, and that reality television has never really moved on from. If you manufacture absurd, monstrous situations with which to torment unwitting dupes, what will they do? What will we learn? And, most vital to the people in charge, how many viewers will be compelled to watch?

S ome popular-culture historians consider the first reality show to be MTV’s The Real World , a 1992 series that deliberately provoked conflict by putting strangers together in an unfamiliar environment. Others cite PBS’s 1973 documentary series An American Family , which filmed a supposedly prototypical California household over several months, in a conceit that the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard called the “dissolution of TV in life, dissolution of life in TV.”

But the origins of what happened to Nasubi seem to lie most directly in a series that ran on and off from 1948 to 2014: Candid Camera . Its creator, Allen Funt, was a radio operator in the Army Signal Corps during World War II; while stationed in Oklahoma, he set up a “gripe booth” for soldiers to record their complaints about military service. Knowing they were being taped, the subjects held back, which led Funt to record people secretly in hopes of capturing more honest reactions. His first creative effort was The Candid Microphone , a radio show. The series put its subjects in perplexing situations to see how they’d respond: Funt gave strangers exploding cigarettes, asked a baker to make a “disgusting” birthday cake, and even chained his secretary to his desk and hired a locksmith to “free” her for her lunch break. “With the candid microphone, we are at the beginning of the Age of the Involuntary Amateur,” one critic wrote in 1947. “The possibilities are limitless; the prospect is horrifying.” Sure enough, a TV series soon followed.

For all that critic’s revulsion, Funt was earnest about the potentially revelatory power of his shows. He was seemingly influenced by two parallel trends. One was a sociological school of thought that was trying urgently to analyze human nature following a wave of real barbarities: the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin’s great purges. The other was an interest in art that captured the contours of real life, in an outgrowth of the naturalist movement that had come out of the late 19th century. Émile Zola, one of its practitioners, argued in The Experimental Novel that fiction writers were essentially omnipotent forces dropping characters into realistic situations to consider how they might respond. Literature, he argued, was “a real experiment that a novelist makes on man.”

The invention of television, as the academic Tony E. Jackson has argued , offered a more literal and scientific medium within which creators could manipulate real human subjects. This was where Candid Camera came into play. Funt’s practical jokes—setting up a subject in an elevator in which every other person suddenly turns their back to him—tended to consider the nature of compliance, and what humans will go along with rather than be outliers. Candid Camera was considered so rich a work that Funt was asked to donate episodes to Cornell University’s psychology department for further study.

Funt was also highly influential to Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist who turned his Yale studies on conformity into a documentary titled Obedience . The Milgram experiment, conducted in 1961, asked members of the public to inflict fellow subjects with electric shocks—faked, unknown to them—when ordered to do so by an authority figure. Inspired by the 1961 trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, and the experience of his own family members who’d survived concentration camps, Milgram tweaked the Candid Camera model to more explicitly study how far people would follow orders before they objected. As the film professor Anna McCarthy has written , Milgram paid particular attention to the theatrical elements of his work. He even considered using recordings of humans screaming in real, rather than simulated, pain to maximize the authenticity of the subject’s experience. “It is possible that the kind of understanding of man I seek is an amalgam of science and art,” Milgram wrote in 1962. “It is sure to be rejected by the scientists as well as the artists, but for me it carries significance.”

This studied interest in human nature continued in PBS’s An American Family ; its presentation of ordinary life up close, the anthropologist Margaret Mead once argued, was “as important for our time as were the invention of the drama and the novel for earlier generations—a new way for people to understand themselves.” Throughout the later decades of the 20th century, television was similarly fixated on exposure, although shock value quickly took priority over genuine curiosity and analysis. During the ’90s, on talk shows such as The Jerry Springer Show and Maury , people confessed their most damning secrets to anyone who cared to watch. Series including Cops and America’s Most Wanted offered a more lurid, voyeuristic look at crime and the darkness of human nature.

Read: The paranoid style in American entertainment

By the time Tsuchiya had the idea to confine a man to a single apartment to see whether he could survive the ordeal, the concept of humiliation-as-revelation was well established. “I told [Nasubi] that most of it would never be aired,” the producer explains in The Contestant . “When someone hears that, they stop paying attention to the camera. That’s when you can really capture a lot.” As an organizing principle for how to get the most interesting footage, it seems to stem right from Funt’s secret recordings of people in the 1940s. Tsuchiya appeared to be motivated by his desire to observe behavior that had never been seen before on film—“to capture something amazing … an aspect of humanity that only I, only this show, could capture.” And extremity, to him, was necessary, because it was the only way to provoke responses that would be new, and thus thrilling to witness.

The reality-show boom of the early 2000s was intimately informed by this same intention. When Big Brother debuted in Holland in 1999, it was broadly advertised as a social experiment in which audiences could observe contestants under constant surveillance like rats in a lab; the show was compared by one Dutch psychologist to the Stanford prison experiment . (Another called the show’s design “the wet dream of a psychological researcher.”) The 2002 British show The Experiment even directly imitated both the Stanford setup and Milgram’s work on obedience. But although such early series may have had honest intentions, their willingness to find dramatic fodder in moments of human calamity was exploited by a barrage of crueler series that would follow. The 2004 series There’s Something About Miriam had six men compete for the affections of a 21-year-old model from Mexico, who was revealed in the finale to be transgender—an obscene gotcha moment that mimics the structure of Candid Camera . Without a dramatic conclusion, a nonfiction series is just a filmed record of events. But with a last-act revelation, it’s a drama.

Contemporary audiences, blessedly, have a more informed understanding of ethics, of entrapment, and of the duty of care TV creators have to their subjects. In 2018, the British show Love Island spawned a national debate about gaslighting after one contestant was deemed to be manipulating another. There’s no question that what happened to Nasubi would trigger a mass outcry today. But reality TV is still built on the same ideological imperatives—the desire to see people set up in manifestly absurd scenarios for our entertainment. The Emmy-nominated 2023 series Jury Duty is essentially a kinder episode of Candid Camera extended into a whole season, and the internet creator known as MrBeast, the purveyor of ridiculous challenges and stunts, has the second most-subscribed channel on all of YouTube. What’s most remarkable about The Contestant now is how its subject managed to regain his faith in human nature, despite everything he endured. But the ultimate goal of so many contemporary shows is still largely the same as it was 25 years ago: to manufacture a novel kind of social conflict, sit back, and watch what happens.

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While the whole point of reality television is to portray real stories, few series have been able to legitimately disturb their audiences with the harsh realities on display. Many try; they put contestants through terrifying experiences or staged atrocities to elicit fear from the players and, hopefully, those watching at home. Countless shows have attempted this, but only one has genuinely accomplished creating a thoroughly unnerving viewing experience: Netflix's Outlast . Created by Jason Bateman , it may confuse non-watchers by how effectively this survival series scares its many viewers.

With a basic premise of challenging a group of outdoorsy people to try and survive the Alaskan wilderness, it seems more akin to other digestible "survival" shows rather than a legitimately frightening program. It's a simple concept — which is why it works so perfectly. The creators understood how true reality doesn't come from gimmicks or challenges thrown at a group of strangers, it comes from leaving folks to their own devices. By stripping away the genre's trademark flair and pushing contestants to rely on nothing but themselves, the show creates genuine moments of triumph and utterly relatable scenes of despair. It makes a scary yet endlessly interesting series, cementing Outlast as one of the truest reality shows out there and something completely unique in this genre.

Could You Survive These Reality Shows?

Outlast definitely isn't the first reality show whose main challenge is the harsh elements. From historic series like Survivor to more irreverent approaches like Naked and Afraid , the core of all these programs is a fear of nature and what your average person would do when ripped away from modern society. While these series' inclusion of intense challenges and interpersonal strategy does create complex gameplay, too often this distracts from the legitimate unease of viewers wondering what they'd do if they were deserted like that . Sure, they can still empathize with players struggling to live in vast forests or arid beaches, but before they can really consider how dangerous those settings can be there's some social drama or food reward challenge to remind watchers that these people aren't alone out there. To provide more exciting games, these series reduce the extremes of their environments and fail to capitalize on the inherent fear of trying to survive in a natural world ready to hurt you at every turn.

Outlast , initially, appears just like another version of these shows; the series' main premise revolves around dropping a group of 16 people in the Alaskan wilderness and having them build shelters and find food to get through the winter. There are some extra rules surrounding things like team size and the option to vote each other out, as well as some unclear restrictions on their ability to steal from one another, but these are optional and largely a thematic afterthought. The show isn't trying to engineer social conflict outside what would naturally arise, keeping its primary challenge straightforward and simple — which is what makes it so hauntingly effective. Because audiences learn quickly that the Alaskan wilderness is one of the hardest places to survive in the entire world. That the winters there can be a death sentence that only the most adept survivalists can make it through. There's no need for challenges or gimmicks because of what a monumental challenge this setting is in itself. And by refusing to complicate players' experiences, allowing them to act however this intense situation calls them to, the series becomes one of the most effective (and haunting) reality shows ever.

Only the Strongest Can 'Outlast' These Horrors

Unaware viewers quickly learn that Outlast is one of the most challenging (and potentially deadly) reality shows airing. They hear from narration and the people themselves about the immense number of dangers of the Alaskan forest. The series describes in great detail how things like unsafe drinking water, roving animals, and cold weather could inflict lasting pain on someone — if not kill them altogether. It showcases aspects of nature that audiences are aware of but are never forced to reckon with on other shows. This means that while its players are never directly forced to try and backstab and outmaneuver one another, the series is still filled with intensity as they strategize not only how they can "outlast" one another for the grand prize but how they can persist physically in such a bleak environment . It leads to many jaw-dropping moments of drama befitting any other reality series, these people resorting to shocking arguments and sabotaging one another in the pursuit of $1,000,000. It's a riveting display of true human interaction, seeing what people become when pushed to their absolute limit as they try to make their ongoing suffering actually worth something — and that doesn't even include how terrifying their new home can be.

Hearing about a person struggling with hypothermia is one thing. It's completely different for viewers to get an intimate look into just how many natural ailments like this completely ravage someone's body and mind. Outlast's horror doesn't come from some tact by the producer's, but rather the actual premise of this show and its honestly terrifying showcase of legitimate survival. Reality series like Running Wild With Bear Grylls display the dangers of the wilderness through a warmer lens, with hosts like our titular outdoorsman turning it into an educational experience for the audience and assuring them that no matter the situation, there's always a way to triumph — Outlast doesn't do that. Instead, audiences can only watch in shock as things like drinking from the wrong pond or slipping on a rock can put these people who desperately need the grand prize through various terrible ordeals. And this doesn't even include the many maladies brought on by the cold itself, with the scenes of these folks trying to stay warm in freezing temperatures clarifying just how deadly this situation is (even with a whole production crew around). It paints survivalism as the horror that it can be , the cold of this setting reaching through the screen and making viewers understand just how real what they're watching truly is.

Could You Outlast This?

Even though it has a different, entertainingly dreadful approach, Outlast definitely has its issues. The series has been called out for its men's blatant misogyny, something that is addressed explicitly in season two by its women contestants and that could be partially addressed by a balanced gender divide among the cast. It has also been critiqued for its confusing rules, ones that allow for rampant looting and destruction while never really giving players the ability to defend themselves from such attacks. There are many issues that the show needs to address in a hopeful season three, because it's undeniable that while flawed, Outlast's "simple" premise makes it one of the most interesting reality shows ever.

The way it highlights the dangers of the natural world is a grave reminder that permeates the entire program, making each episode more and more riveting as audiences understand the actual reality of these situations and how amazing the players are for getting through them. It creates a scary reality show like no other, one that draws on the realities of surviving nature to sculpt its every scene and refuses to create some televised narrative to alleviate the audience's stress. It has issues, but if it takes time to address them and become a setting where truly anyone can show their skills, it may just become one of the best reality survival shows of all time.

Outlast is Available to Stream on Netflix in the U.S.

Outlast (2023)

Outlast is a 2023 reality TV show where 16 survivalists are dropped into the Alaskan wilderness with one rule: they must work in teams to win. As they face harsh conditions and challenging terrain, tensions rise and alliances shift, revealing the true nature of survival in the wild where cooperation and competition collide.

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Social Messaging in Soap Operas Can Prevent Violence and Intergroup Conflict

Soap operas are known for outrageous schemes and scandalous affairs, but an NYU researcher finds that they can also serve as effective interventions for preventing intergroup violence in conflict-ridden areas by shaping social norms, promoting understanding of different perspectives, and encouraging people to create change.

In an analysis of research on narrative interventions, author Rezarta Bilali , associate professor of psychology at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, outlines strategies used in fictional storytelling to prevent violence in countries including Rwanda, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Her findings are published in   European Review of Social Psychology.

Getty images/RapidEye

“We have only recently started to understand the power of narrative interventions to address intergroup conflict and violence, and the different ways in which narratives can influence conflict-related behaviors, social norms, and attitudes,” says Bilali. 

She identifies seven strategies (known as psychological mechanisms) for individual and social change: 

• Social norms—showing desired behaviors in a community
• Role modeling—using characters to encourage or discourage behavior
• Moral exemplars—characters demonstrating exceptional behavior (e.g, heroism)
• Awareness-raising and critical reflection—highlighting important social issues
• Perspective-taking and empathy—exposing audiences to counternarratives
• Parasocial contact—showing fictional encounters with “outsiders”
• Group malleability beliefs—promoting the perception that groups can change over time

Bilali notes that in narratives, these strategies are often interconnected and difficult to disentangle, but through her research and analyses of the interventions she found links between isolated mechanisms and distinct outcomes.

Interventions around the world

Rwanda In post-genocide Rwanda, two experimental studies explored the impact of a radio soap opera titled Musekeweya that depicted a violent land dispute and eventual reconciliation between two villages. The studies found that the drama increased intergroup trust.

Democratic Republic of the Congo In a field experiment, Bilali and colleagues created two versions of the radio drama Kumbuka Kesho . Listeners were either exposed to an episode in which characters (role models) addressed community issues such as corruption and intergroup conflict, or an episode in which characters did not take action. The participants who heard the role-modeling episode were more willing to address grievances and had greater belief in collective ability to effect change.

Burkina Faso In a field experiment in the Sahel region in Burkina Faso, participants in different villages were exposed to a 12-week radio drama that had the goal of countering violent extremism. Compared to those who were not exposed to the radio drama, listeners exhibited lower justification of violence and higher intentions to collaborate with security forces. They were also more likely to prioritize violent extremism as a critical issue that needs to be addressed in the country.

While narrative interventions yielded positive outcomes in many cases, some studies revealed pitfalls. Bilali found that narratives in post-conflict settings can be more effective than narratives during conflicts because depictions of war and trauma may exacerbate real-life stress for participants.

“There are some socio-political contexts related to societal expectations, prevalent norms, and policies that can make interventions more or less effective in conflict settings,” says Bilali. “Overall, narrative interventions have shown to have a beneficial impact and should continue to be used as a tool for forging positive pathways forward among groups in conflict," says Bilali. 

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Anna Sawai Shares First Emmy Win With "Women Who Expect Nothing and Continue to Be an Example for Everyone"

The 'Shōgun' star made history at the Emmys as the first Asian woman to win Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Anna Sawai 's breakout performance as Mariko made millions of Shōgun viewers weep. At the 2024 Emmys , she continued to provoke tears and cried herself as she made history at the award show.

The Japanese actress, who became the first Asian performer to win the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, was already emotional as she took to the stage and then gave one of the most heartfelt speeches of the night.

"I was crying before my name was announced. I'm a mess today," she began. "Thank you to The Academy for naming me alongside my fellow nominees whose work I grew up watching and love."

She continued by showing her gratitude to the team behind the hit period piece based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell. "Thank you to John Landgraf and the whole FX team for believing in our story. Thank you, Justin [Marks] and Rachel [Kondo] for believing in me and giving me this role of a lifetime. Thank you to every single one of the crew and cast led by [Hiroyuki Sanada]—Hiro’s over there," she said while gesturing to her costar who also took home an award for his performance. "He really has open doors and continues to open doors for people like me. Thank you so much. Cosmo [Jarvis], you are the most honest and truthful and no BS actor I know and you made me give my 120 percent."

Anna Sawai is in tears as she makes her way up to the stage, at the 2024 Emmys.

She concluded her speech with a tearful shout-out to her loved ones, and the women who inspire her.

"Lastly, thank you to my team and thank you to my family. Mom, I love you. You are the reason I'm here. You showed me stoicism and that's how I was able to portray Mariko," said the star. "This is to all the women who expect nothing and continue to be an example for everyone. Thank you so much."

Earlier in the evening, Sawai arrived at the 2024 Emmys in the "dress of her dreams," a bright-red strapless gown custom-made by Vera Wang. She opted for a natural makeup look topped off with red blush, paired with an elegant low bun.

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Anna Sawai poses on the red carpet at the 2024 Emmys.

Shōgun had already made Emmys history before tonight's primetime ceremony began; last weekend, the FX show picked up 14 wins at the Creative Arts Emmys, becoming the most honored single season of television in the awards' 76 years. The show won several more honors at the Primetime Emmys, most notably for lead performers in the drama category for both Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada, as well as Outstanding Drama Series.

“[ Shōgun ] was an East-meets-West dream project, with respect,” Sanada said during his acceptance speech. “ Shōgun taught me that when people work together, we can make a miracle. We can create a better future together. Thank you so much!”

Quinci is a Culture Writer who covers all aspects of pop culture, including TV, movies, music, books, and theater. She contributes interviews with talent, as well as SEO content, features, and trend stories. She fell in love with storytelling at a young age, and eventually discovered her love for cultural criticism and amplifying awareness for underrepresented storytellers across the arts. She previously served as a weekend editor for Harper’s Bazaar , where she covered breaking news and live events for the brand’s website, and helped run the brand’s social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Her freelance writing has also appeared in outlets including HuffPost , The A.V. Club , Elle , Vulture , Salon , Teen Vogue , and others. Quinci earned her degree in English and Psychology from The University of New Mexico. She was a 2021 Eugene O’Neill Critics Institute fellow, and she is a member of the Television Critics Association. She is currently based in her hometown of Los Angeles. When she isn't writing or checking Twitter way too often, you can find her studying Korean while watching the latest K-drama , recommending her favorite shows and films to family and friends, or giving a concert performance while sitting in L.A. traffic.

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