The weirdest and wildest reality TV of 2023: ‘Naked Attraction’

Truth is stranger than fiction. 

Reality TV is often a wild ride, but it can range from tame dating shows and game shows, to concepts that are so out-there that you wonder how the series ever got on the air. 

During 2023, as many scripted shows were put on pause during the now-resolved writers and actors strikes, the year offered up a slew of reality TV. 

Some of it, such as ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor,” was buzzy, but otherwise not too strange.

But other shows were so bonkers, they had to be seen to be believed. 

Here are the weirdest and wildest reality TV shows of 2023. 

“Naked Attraction,” Max 

In September, the British reality series “Naked Attraction” was quietly added to Max, and soon became No. 1 on the streamer’s top 10 list. There’s a reason audiences couldn’t resist tuning in: the concept is outrageous. (Technically, it came out seven years ago overseas, but it counts as a 2023 show, since it landed on Max and became popular in the U.S. this year).

The NSFW show follows contestants as they date “in reverse” by only seeing their potential suitors’ nude bodies, and eliminate each other based on their physical appearance. One person on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, said that the show “might just be the greatest reality show of all time.”

“My fkn sister just put me on to this ‘naked attraction’ show and this is the craziest s–t i EVER watched on tv,” another viewer commented.

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos even discussed the show on “Live with Kelly and Mark.”

Ripa noted that while they “saw a lot” on the show, the “bits and pieces” on women “all looked the same,” but there was a clear distinction with their “different grooming habits.”

“But with the men, it’s all there on display,” she said. “And I will say, when it goes wrong, it goes all the way wrong. I don’t care how nervous you are, there’s no coming back from that.”

“Squid Game: The Challenge,” Netflix

The original Korean show “Squid Game” was a sleeper hit about a contest where poor and desperate players compete in brutal deadly games for a chance to win millions. It was a drama series, and a biting social commentary about class, capitalism and wealth inequality. So, when a real reality series came out this year – where real people compete for money, in challenges based on “Squid Game” — viewers rightfully called out why “Squid Game: The Challenge” was a bonkers reality show. 

“Squid game was a satire of game shows being exploitative to the average person and how far they would go for the money, the challenge missed the point in that to make a irl game show 2 years after it lost relevancy,” one viewer complained. “The excellent anti-capitalist Squid Game has been undercut by the super capitalist Squid Game The Challenge, filled with deluded attention seeking contestants who clearly missed the point of the show,” another person slammed the show. Contestants themselves called it “cruel.”

“The Traitors,” Peacock 

On the surface, “The Traitors” is another show in a similar vein to “Big Brother” and “Survivor.” Hosted by Alan Cumming, the premise is that reality TV stars live together in a Scottish castle, participate in various challenges, and eliminate each other until one person is left standing.

However, the devil was in the details to make this show especially wild. While half the cast included reality TV stars from previous shows, such as Brandi Glanville (“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”), Cirie Fields (“Survivor”), Cody Calafiore (“Big Brother”), and disgraced former Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, the other half of the cast involved regular people who were new to TV. And, they had no idea that they’d be mingling with celebs. Challenges were especially out-there, such as getting buried alive, and on the show, participants conspire to “murder” each other. 

“Milf Manor,” TLC 

At first, this seemed like a relatively normal dating show: Single women between 40 and 60 seek love with single men in their 20s at a retreat in Mexico. So far, not so weird. Hulu had a dating show, “Back in the Groove,” with a similar concept.

However, TLC’s “Milf Manor” gave it a deranged twist: the women’s dating pool consisted of each other’s sons. To make it extra creepy and Oedipal, the women had to do challenges such as touch the men’s chests while blindfolded and identify which man was her son. The mother / son pairs also shared rooms.

News of the show caused a stir on social media, where users with long memories couldn’t help but recall the 2008 episode of NBC’s “30 Rock” featuring a parody dating show called “MILF Island.” (The tagline: “20 super hot moms, 50 eighth-grade boys, no rules.”) 

As the show aired, it featured moments such as real estate broker and fitness coach Kelle Mortensen, 51, saying, “I’m so excited to meet these other guys … sorry ladies I might be sleeping with your son.”

“I need to erase the last 30 seconds from my memory please,” one viewer commented about the show.

“(Sigmund) Freud would have loved this,” wrote another.

“Zombieverse,” Netflix

In this Korean reality show, a group of contestants work to survive what they think is a zombie apocalypse. Seemingly, these Korean minor celebs (such as comedian Park Na-rae and actor Lee Si-young) thought they were participating in a different dating reality series called “Love Hunter,” until zombies started popping up.

It’s hard to tell if the participants actually buy this premise — they keep laughing, which suggests that they know they’re not really in the zombie apocalypse. Nevertheless, this whole scenario was an out-there idea for a reality show.

“Farmer Wants a Wife,” Fox 

We’ve seen plenty of real estate agents, self-described “content creators,” and fitness instructors find love on shows like “The Bachelor” and “Love is Blind.” But the show “Farmer Wants a Wife” put a spotlight on a more unusual profession and their dating habits.

This series has other incarnations abroad in other countries, including Britain and Australia, but the American version made its debut this year. The show’s premise is described in its blunt title. It’s essentially the reality TV version of a Hallmark Christmas movie, where women from the big city learn the meaning of Christmas — or in this case, life — through salt-of-the-earth rural men. 

Contestant Sydney Groom, 22, told The Post that her doctor raised their eyebrows at some of the wavers she had to sign for the show. “My doctor was like, ‘I don’t feel comfortable signing a form saying you could potentially ride a bull,’” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I feel comfortable with that, either!’”

Similar to “Milf Manor,” the show’s title sounds like a fictional parody reality show that might have appeared on “30 Rock,” but this Fox series was very real.

“Jury Duty,” Amazon Freevee 

This is debatable whether it’s a reality show. In the Emmys and Golden Globes, it was nominated in the “Comedy Series” categories. Plus, James Marsden got Emmys and Golden Globes nods in the “acting” categories. But for series star Ronald Gladden, “Jury Duty” was a reality show. 

The show’s concept was off-the-wall: it selected Gladden, a regular Joe, and essentially put him through a real-life “Truman Show.” He thought he was participating in a regular trial by jury that was being filmed for educational purposes, and he had no idea that the whole thing was fake, and everyone around him was an actor. 

“I am not an actor,” Gladden, 30, told The Post. “This was an ad that I came upon on Craigslist…I thought it was a small local production. I didn’t think a lot of people were going to see this.” 

Marsden, 50, told The Post that he would be “freaking out” if he was in Gladden’s shoes. 

“What I wasn’t prepared for was Ronald, the wild card element of the whole thing,” Marsden said. “He came in, and all of these realizations started to wash over me. I was like ‘Of course, he doesn’t know that this is all fake!’ I started panicking, like, ‘I don’t know if this is a good thing to be doing, I don’t know who this guy is.’ [After the show]. I was texting him like, ‘How are you feeling?’ I don’t know that [this situation] has even happened to anybody before.”

Although Amazon Freevee is opaque about its viewership numbers, clips of the show have gone viral with millions of TikTok views.

“Jury Duty” also has many celeb fans – including “Barbie” stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who voiced his worry about whether Gladden “is okay.”