I’m done with reality TV. As someone who is 100 per cent confident they could survive a shipwreck with the knowledge they have gained from both “Survivor” and Bear Grylls, this is a big call. And I know the detachment from reality is why we all watch, but I’ve watched my last scripted and sculpted 30 minutes.

It was “MasterChef” that did me in, funnily enough. They were given beef, carrots, and spices and made sous-vide beef rump cap with carrot purée and carrot shavings with dukkah. Those are rissole ingredients, you cowards. I miss “Ready Steady Cook”.

Here is a list of reality TV shows we want, nay, need in 2026:

“The Bachelorette”: but it’s just a tired woman in her 40s swiping through the Tinder offerings in Orange. After spotting her ex on there with the wild claim that he is “fun and loves the outdoors” despite not leaving the couch for 48 hours straight on the weekend, she goes to the pound and adopts a cat.

“MasterChef”: but it’s just a group of parents in their 30s trying to feed toddlers and an eight-year-old with a budget of $275 a week and only two (2) working hotplates on their stoves. Welcome to rissole town, mate.

“The Block”: but they don’t renovate, build, or have to pretend to be a villain. They simply buy a run-down apartment block in Mount Druitt with rising damp and half a roof, do nothing for 12 weeks, then sell it at a $1.2 billion profit because property prices don’t make sense. Scott Cam still wears hi-vis but is clearly phoning it in at this point.

“Renovation Rescue” (Anko edition): but it’s an absolutely gorgeously colourful house, full of personality and life, that takes on the muted beige of the 2026 Kmart range. Grandma’s couch that has survived three moves and one traumatic share house is traded in for the most uncomfortable seating ever designed as everyone gasps at the beauty of it all.

“Renovation Rescue”: but it’s just a bunch of weary mental health professionals and one (1) organisational expert trying to sort out my train wreck of a life.

“The Mole”: but it’s just your weekly staff meeting, and you have to try to figure out if it’s brown-nosing Scott from accounts or Brenda from the admin team who ratted you out to HR last week for your peanut butter/jam joke during the third round of Friday drinks.

“The Amazing Race”: but it’s just six (6) families trying to get out the door by 8.37am on a Tuesday. They have to navigate homework packing, teeth brushing, work report prep, watering the seedlings they planted three weeks ago and keep neglecting, and figuring out how to get everyone where they need to be on time, while keeping petrol usage to the bare minimum. Surprise Roadblock! An email received at 8.23am reminds everyone it’s Wear Purple Day and each child needs a gold coin.

“The Traitors”: but it’s just a stock-standard P&C meeting.

“Australian Idol”: but it’s your four-year-old singing ‘Let It Go’ (again), wearing an Elsa wig. You pretend to video them (again), but really you just Google to check if Guy Sebastian is still married. That Plan B is looking mighty inviting these days.

“Love Island”: but it’s a retreat for perimenopausal women who are unlearning how to please society and relearning how to love themselves. There’s a swim-up bar, non-stop ’80s bangers on the dance floor, and everyone wears a bikini because they love the feeling of water on their skin that they are now comfortable in.

“Gardening Australia”: but it’s just Costa having the breakdown he deserves after watching the gentrification of suburbs with artificial lawns and matching hedges.

“The Apprentice”: but it’s just the new round of first-year sparkies trying to balance P plates on their utes, VB, a girlfriend named Ashleeighee, and fronting up to work on Monday hungover. The winner is the apprentice with the lowest number of electric shocks. Unfortunately, it’s Jaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiden, mostly because nobody has let him near a live wire since February.

Lastly, “Big Brother”: but it’s just a standard house equipped with 37 security cameras because it’s on Diamond Drive, and the footage reveals a mum hiding in the toilet while three kids, one husband, one elderly father, two dogs, and one escaped lizard take turns knocking on the door. Her prize is three-ply toilet paper bought on sale at Costco, and enough time alone to complete Wordle and text her sister.