Jack Quaid Gushes About The 'Champagne' Of Reality Shows | Sorry Not Sorry
The Boys might have finished, but those worrying about what star Jack Quaid is going to do with his time should stop fretting.
The actor, who played Hughie for five seasons of the hit Prime Video show, has gotten into a long-standing reality series that will keep him busy, as there are over 700 episodes to catch up on.
WATCH: Jack Quaid GUSHES About The "Champagne" of Reality Shows! 👀🍾 #theboys #shorts
Speaking to JustWatch during one of the final red carpet events for The Boys, Jack Quaid shared an unexpected love for an American reality television show titan: Survivor. Quaid’s enjoyment of the show is so strong that his actual wording was, “I think it’s the champagne of reality shows,” a very bold statement.
Jack Quaid Is Determined To Catch Up On All Seasons Of Survivor
Survivor may have begun in the year 2000, but somehow it completely passed the Hollywood actor by.
“I just got into Survivor,” Quaid admitted. “I never really watched it before.” Now that he has found Survivor, he appears to have committed himself to catching up: “I started watching old seasons, and I wanted to catch up as best I could for the current season, Season 50, and I’m obsessed with it.”
50 seasons of a reality competition show is a lot, so what is it that has American audiences hooked? The premise of Survivor sees a group of contestants abandoned in a remote location with limited resources. There they must work both with and against each other to become the lone survivor. The prize is a life-changing sum of money, but to get to it, the contestants must survive the wilderness and each other, as each week at least one player is voted out.
Why Survivor 50 Has Inspired Jack Quaid’s Catch-up Binge
The Survivor format originated in Sweden with the show Expedition: Robinson, which began in 1997 and is still going strong today. Despite this, the world is far more familiar with the US variant. Survivor is so well known that Sam Raimi even built the show into his latest movie, Send Help. The plot finds the timid Linda stranded on an island with her horrible boss, Bradley. While he is hopeless at fending for himself, Linda thrives, thanks in no small part to her lifelong ambition of competing on Survivor.
The most recent season of Survivor places three tribes of eight returning contestants against one another, making it a ‘Best of the Best’ style competition that has fans glued to their TV screens. That all of the latest contestants are returning players makes Jack Quaid’s mission to rewatch the older seasons more understandable. Coming fresh to the show, he won’t understand any pre-existing controversies, rivalries, or other contestant details, and this way he can be as informed as those who have committed to the show for the last 25 years.
UK Shows Like Survivor
The immediate popularity of Survivor in the US, coupled with Big Brother performing so well, meant that the UK did get its own version of Survivor. Disappointingly, the show only lasted for two series. However, where Survivor tried and died in the UK, Shipwrecked was standard post-night-out viewing for Millennials on a Sunday morning.
Also beginning in 2000, Shipwrecked ran for a total of eight seasons, ending in 2012. The format for the first three seasons was that it was a simple social and psychological experiment to see what would happen if a group of twentysomethings was stranded on a desert island. From the fourth season on, a competitive element and an extra island were added. Each week, new castaways would arrive and spend time on each island, then at the end of their time, they would choose an island to call home. The island with the most castaways at the end was the winner. Far more laid back than Survivor, Shipwrecked was exceptional student TV programming.
If you prefer your survival shows to place celebrities in peril, then Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls is a solid choice. Following on from his The Island with Bear Grylls, which was basically a more grown-up version of Shipwrecked, the star-packed version placed a raft of familiar faces on a nightmarish island upon which they have to live for four weeks. Celebrities included Breaking Bad’s R.J. Mitte, reality show regular Pete Wicks, and Hollywood actor Eric Roberts.
