Shealyn Scott is a Senior Writer at Screen Rant. She has been writing for the site since 2024, focused on network, reality, streaming, and classic television.
A creative writer, journalist, and lover of the written word in all its forms, Shealyn enjoys deconstructing scenes from her favorite shows, using context clues and historical precedent to predict major plot points (which, due to her successful track record, has sparked rumors of clairvoyance).
As an award-winning student journalist, Shealyn spent her college years advocating for the humanities while studying English Literature. Her love of storytelling propelled her to expand her degree with minors in Writing and History, believing life to be a mere collection of stories that can be framed in as many ways as a movie scene.
As a Senior member of the TV Team, Shealyn treats the series she covers like books, analyzing every line, camera angle, and lighting choice. Thankfully, her personal mission statement lines up perfectly with Screen Rant: every creative work deserves just as much thought from the viewer as it received from its creator.

America's Next Top Model was one of the most successful reality competition shows of all time, but the genre has plenty of equally entertaining and less controversial options. For over a decade, America's Next Top Model dominated the television landscape, with the COVID-19 lockdown inspiring an unexpected renaissance for the wildly bingeable reality TV show.

What many fondly remember as a campy modeling competition, in retrospect, is unfortunately marred by executive producer Tyra Banks' controversial actions. Certain boundary-pushing photoshoots and unsavory scenes already put a bad taste in viewers' mouths, but Netflix's 2026 America's Next Top Model documentary further proved that reality TV fans deserve more. Luckily, better options already exist.

Skin Wars

A Deep Dive Into The Colorful World Of Body Painting

Despite only airing three seasons in the 2010s, Skin Wars is a bona fide cult classic that deserves more attention. The Games Show Network hidden gem followed a crew of body painting artists undergoing episodic challenges and presenting their work to an esteemed— if not unexpected— panel of judges: RuPaul Charles, Robin Slonina, and Craig Tracy.

From camouflaging models in a supermarket to creating multi-body optical illusions, Skin Wars put its artists through the wringer and forced them to earn their spot each week. The short-lived series even ended with its own iconic elimination sequence akin to Top Model's fade-out. In Skin Wars, the eliminated artist leaves while their model dramatically washes off their work.

Big Brother

Over A Dozen Strangers Spend A Summer In The Same Chaotic House

Big Brother is one of the most recognizable ongoing reality competition shows, but its format has changed drastically since the July 2000 series premiere. Nevertheless, the basic premise remains the same: each summer, a rag-tag group of strangers enter one house and battle to the end via a mix of competition wins, immunity challenges, and social strategy.

Big Brother has just as much drama as America's Next Top Model, but most of it unfolds organically and of the contestants' own accord. There have been countless unforgettable fights, betrayals, and shocking evictions that leave the audience divided. Of course, there's no such thing as heroes or villains in the Big Brother house— only winners and losers.

Glow Up

This British Gem Focuses On Up-And-Coming Makeup Artists

Whereas America's Next Top Model ran on cleverly-edited toxicity, Glow Up celebrates its contestants and their art. There remains, unsurprisingly, high stakes and drama caused by the very nature of competition, but the viewer never feels as though it's coming from a place of true animosity.

Without the forced rivalries and petty squabbles, it's a joy to watch Glow Up's artists at work. Each episode, the contestants undergo multiple trials, hoping to evade the dangerous Face Off, wherein two artists compete head-to-head in a makeup challenge. The eliminations are emotional, the makeup is fierce, and— most importantly— the camaraderie is palpable throughout the show's seven seasons.

The Devil's Plan

A High-Octane Battle Of Wits Hailing From South Korea

Reality competition shows in North America tend to put a heavy emphasis on physical challenges, pushing contestants' bodies to the limit as proof of their determination. Conversely, The Devil's Plan is a welcome reprieve for intellectuals who prefer a riddle to a 5K run. Over the course of a week, the South Korean sensation tests brain over brawn.

Each day, the contestants have to fire on all neurons to avoid being eliminated, but discord and division encourage factions to form and unofficially compete against each other. The smartest player of all knows how to leverage the social aspect just as much as their wits alone, but The Devil's Plan's upcoming season 3 will surely only up the ante.

Survivor

Castaways Battle And Navigate Tribal Lines To Be The Sole Survivor

Over the past 26 years, Survivor has built an indomitable legacy as one of the most important reality TV shows of all time. Amidst cliché themes and imbalanced advantages, Survivor's basis is an invaluable social experiment: stranded on a Fijian beach, a group of diverse castaways must find common ground in the name of survival.

The most legendary Survivor players of all time embody the show's tagline: outwit, outplay, outlast. Furthermore, while the contestants on America's Next Top Model were often surprised by terrifying and occasionally dangerous challenges, castaways on Survivor fully understand what they're signing up for when they join the show, from the grueling challenges to the squalid living conditions.

Face Off

A Peek Behind The Curtain Of The Prosthetic Makeup Industry

Movie makeup is criminally overlooked, but the prosthetics worn by an actor hold the power to make or break a film. Face Off delves into the painstaking process of designing, creating, and applying the prosthetic looks viewers can so easily take for granted.

Hosted by McKenzie Westmore and judged by icons like Glenn Hetrick, Ve Neill, and Neville Page, Face Off is one of the most impressive reality competition shows ever made. Each season, the contestants miraculously craft camera-ready work within days. Their ability to create art out of nothing but a loose theme is endlessly impressive and just as compelling to watch.

RuPaul’s Drag Race

A Delightfully Vivid Celebration Of Queer Culture

Long before RuPaul judged Skin Wars, the self-proclaimed Queen of Drag created RuPaul's Drag Race, a truly one-of-a-kind reality competition show. Since 2009, RuPaul's Drag Race has introduced numerous drag queens who went on to become full-fledged celebrities, with Trixie Mattel, Katya, Bob the Drag Queen, and more being catapulted into superstardom following their seasons.

With RuPaul's Drag Race's record-breaking history, each season is more extravagant than the last. In typical competition format, queens compete in episodic challenges and the bottom two lip sync for their life— sometimes resulting in double shantays (both contestants stay) or double sashays (both contestants are eliminated). Despite its shady sound effects, there's no denying the show's ongoing cultural impact.

Project Runway

A True Institution Of Reality TV's Fashion Niche

When it comes to fashion-forward reality competition shows, Project Runway has always had the edge on America's Next Top Model. The original run began as a typical design show, with each episode showcasing garments for an intimate audience of industry experts. As time went on, however, the people modeling the contestants' designs became more prominent.

Alongside host Heidi Klum and mentor Tim Gunn, the models on Project Runway slowly got to reveal more of themselves, with the model paired with the winning designer earning her own prize at the end of the season. Project Runway even succeeded where America's Next Top Model failed by incorporating models of all races, shapes, and sizes.