What Non-Fiction Show Would You Like To Be In?

The reason we love The Apprentice is because we secretly (or not so secretly) think they’re mostly idiots and we could do better. We’d probably all win Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Jeopardy in our heads. Certainly the Made In Chelsea gang would embrace us, and we could do with a flirty Gordon Ramsey to come and sort out our business, or someone to do up the house or the garden or the car, and storage hunters looks fun… But not that many of us could actually be arsed to apply.

So imagine a fantasy world where you can appear in a non-fiction show without any of the faff, totally by your rules in any capacity you like. Want to be on The Traitors? You can be Claudia Winkleman if you like! Want to travel the world with Travel Man – pick your destination and your traveling companion as you wish. Want to be on Top Gear? Get in that reasonably priced car! You could even be Clarkson if you’re an agent of chaos.

Here’s what the staff picked. Let us know your choice in the comments.

Richard Osman’s House of Games

This may sound like a bit of an unambitious request when I could be in the Caribbean with Steven Mangan for Fortune Hotel, on some boat (I assume) for Below Deck, or winning the big bucks on a big bucks show. But I want to be on House of Games. I want to win at least one day and I want the wheelie suitcase. Ideally I’d win the week so I could come back for champions’ week but that’s not a deal breaker. In this scenario I am a minor celebrity you haven’t heard of (I don’t want to go on with real people like some pleb!), but the other celebrities have heard of me, so if you’re watching you have to Google me, but all four of us are really chummy. I’m good at the Highbrow Lowbrow round (sometimes), the Roonerspisms, and crucially, Answersmash, but am horrible at I’m Terrible at Dating and Where is Kazakhstan. I am extremely competitive and have no poker face, so hopefully Richard would tease me mercilessly, but all in good fun. Even if I lose (this is my fantasy, I’m not going to lose), I can’t imagine a happier, warmer, more Britishy experience than duking it out with stand-ups, athletes and weather presenters for a pair of salt and pepper shakers. – Rosie Fletcher

Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

When given the opportunity to enter into any non-fiction show, I’m choosing the series that will get me off the couch and onto a plane to experience the culture of many faraway lands. No travel show has done a better job of depicting the world in all its messy glory than CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.

Even before his signature series premiered in 2013, Bourdain was known as a prolific traveler thanks to his earlier shows like No Reservations and The Layover. But Parts Unknown’s 104 episodes have the really good stuff from Koreatown, Los Angeles to Singapore and beyond. Since we tragically lost Bourdain in 2018, living in Parts Unknown means I will be confined to only the limited time frame in which episodes were filmed. Still, I’ll take that drawback if it means I get to explore new places with the beloved chef and traveler. – Alec Bojalad

Queer Eye (in the Bobby Berk era, apologies to Jeremiah)

I want Bobby Berk to redo my living room.

I also want Tan France to throw away all my jeans and turn me into someone who not only owns an iron, but uses it, and for Karamo Brown to teach me how to charm strangers and negotiate a pay rise, and for Jonathan Van Ness to rub flax seeds into my scalp and recommend me a redness-reducing face cream that doesn’t make me look like I’m dialing into Zoom calls from the Earth’s molten core. I don’t mind if Antoni Porowski wants to slice an avocado or heat up some tacos in my microwave, as long as he’s having fun.

But mostly, I want Bobby Berk to redo my living room. I need his canny storage solutions and chic accent colors. I need houseplants and organic wool rugs and a velvet sofa. Or a wicker sofa. Or a sofa sewn from the skin of the Real Housewives – whatever Bobby thinks is best. My life in Bobby’s strong, capable hands is what I want. Louisa Mellor

Fixer Upper

As a physical media enthusiast, I bring exactly three types of things into the house I share with my wife and children: lots of movies, lots of books, and lots of Star Trek toys. My wife not only tolerates the loads of stuff I continue to bring home but has actually integrated them into our living room, somehow making the space feel comfortable and pleasing while still letting me keep easy access to books and movies.

That said, I know she would love for us to be on a fix-up show, so someone else could foot the bill to make the space even better. So if we could get on an HGTV show or a Chip and Joanna Gaines show, the house would get an upgrade, I could still have all my books and movies and Trek toys, and my family would be happy. Because it’s going well now, but when I add my 3000th DVD to the collection, I might need to pick Divorce Court for my reality show appearance. – Joe George

Critical Role’s 4-Sided Dive

As much as I’d love to live in the shoes of any member of the Critical Role cast for a day, I think it would be even more fun to be a guest host for their roundtable talk/variety show 4-Sided Dive. This show typically features four cast members, and occasionally an outside guest host, in an intimate armchair setting where they answer questions about their characters and the fantasy world of Exandria at large. They also play games in the later portion, which lends itself to some pretty interesting shenanigans.

It’s one thing to interview people in a professional capacity over zoom or in person, but it’s something entirely different to be able to ask them questions and talk about their work while having the freedom to just be a group of people hanging out and chatting about a thing we all love. The cast of Critical Role are a huge creative inspiration for me, especially as a newcomer to D&D and TTRPGS, so being able to geek out with the cast and lorekeeper Dani Carr in person on this show would be a dream. There’s also a non-zero chance that I would get to meet Critical Role’s unofficial mascot and best boy Omar, the corgi, so I call that a win-win. – Brynna Arens

Legends of the Hidden Temple

I would have gone with The Traitors, but the producers of that show are intent on packing its roster with reality show stars and pseudo-celebrities. The only time you’re going to find me in a house with reality show stars and pseudo-celebrities is if you visit me in Hell. So, I’m going back in time and trying my luck at Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Arguably the best children’s game show in Nickelodeon’s golden age lineup of children’s game shows (due respect to GUTS and Double Dare), Legends of the Hidden Temple featured an ideal combination of aesthetics and format. Even if I wasn’t chosen to join my beloved Red Jaguars, I’d still be able to participate in adventure-themed acts of dream playground activities, trivia, and that iconic temple that is, in retrospect, essentially the greatest escape room ever built. That’s honestly how many Brooklyn adults aspire to spend their weekends now at a combination of businesses designed to offer grown-up versions of childhood activities.

Do I worry that my randomly chosen partner may get walloped by a Swinging Sandbag or be abducted by one of those Temple Guards with questionable background checks? Naturally, but that’s the price you pay if you want to claim Da Vinci’s pencil or whatever the artifact du jour may be. – Matthew Byrd

VH1 Behind the Music

For the readers out there who might be too young to remember, VH1’s Behind the Music was an institution back in the early and mid 2000s. They were the one-stop shop for PR-approved documentaries for celebs before Netflix got in the game of tailoring an entire series (or at least a three-part film) around your talent’s preferred self-image. So if you were a musician big enough to get on MTV in the ‘90s, chances are you were then watching your dirty laundry folded carefully and neatly the music channel’s sister network. Heck, they even would scrub out the stains.

All of which is a long wind up to admit that I personally never harbored dreams of rock or pop stardom, nor can I play a single instrument unless you count those funky recorders we got stuck with in middle school. Nonetheless, if I was on Behind the Music, it means I would be currently in the third act of the Walk Hard: A Dewey Cox story trajectory: having lived a life of debauchery, success, wealth, and crossovers with the Beatles, I’d have just recently gotten out of rehab long enough to appear as a talking head on VH1. I’d probably even be spouting platitudes right now about second chances and finding my Lord and Savior at the Betty Ford Clinic. Sounds fun. – David Crow