Imagine waking up one morning and finding out you missed the collapse of a celebrity marriage, a major Supreme Court ruling, and some billionaire trying to colonize Mars—”and” that it all happened in just three months. Well, that’s exactly the high-concept, high-absurdity premise behind Fox Nation’s new reality series, ““What Did I Miss?”” And yes, it’s as chaotic as it sounds.
So here’s the setup: four regular folks—Allegra, Mark, Mike, and Sunny—ditch their devices, ditch the news, and ditch modern life altogether for 90 days in a remote Hudson Valley home. No phones. No screens. No updates. Not even a headline about your local town’s zoning board drama. Why? To see what it feels like to “totally unplug” from the daily avalanche of news—and to try and win $50,000 in the process.
Now enter Greg Gutfeld, the razor-tongued Fox News host who anchors this experiment with a heavy dose of sarcasm and not-so-subtle jabs. He’s joined by Kat Timpf and Jamie Lissow, who play good cop/bad cop in the contestants’ ears as they try to determine which of the world’s wild headlines are real… and which are cooked up by the show’s producers.
It’s part game show, part social experiment, and part satire—and it delivers that particular brand of Fox Nation flair that’s not afraid to wade chest-deep into culture war waters.
Let’s be honest, the show thrives on its gimmick. The real juice here isn’t the prize money—it’s watching people try to reenter a world that never stopped spinning while they were out building snowmen and journaling with crayons. And yes, some of the headlines they’re confronted with are “wild”.
Think Trump, Fauci, transgender athletes, plastic straws, and—yes—even Zuckerberg and Bezos’ love lives. The commentary is sharp-edged and occasionally tone-deaf, peppered with jokes that range from cringey to eyebrow-raising, depending on your sense of humor (or tolerance).
But behind the one-liners and political potshots is a thread of something real: news fatigue. Burnout. That hollow feeling after scrolling through 30 tabs and realizing you’ve learned absolutely nothing—except maybe that you’re overwhelmed and vaguely annoyed.
The show teases at that message but doesn’t dig in. There’s no deep dive into how modern media consumption warps our brains, just a wink and a nudge that “maybe” we’re all a little too plugged in.
Still, it’s fun to watch the contestants wake up from their media hibernation and try to piece the world back together like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces upside down. And when Mark admits he missed his nephews more than his phone? That right there is the tiny emotional win tucked into all the madness.
Is “What Did I Miss?” a profound social commentary or just another Fox-flavored spectacle? Well… maybe it’s a bit of both. Either way, it’s one heck of a ride back into reality.
