Emmys: The Reality Roundtable

4:57 PM PDT 6/20/2011 by Matt Belloni, Stacey Wilson

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Six of the genre's biggest names swap war stories about weight fluctuation, the reality programs that drive them nuts and the biggest mistakes they've made on their shows.

Producers, judges and hosts of reality shows don't have it easy, or so we learned at THR's annual Emmy Reality Roundtable. There's the weight gain, weight loss, sleep deprivation, the occasional flatulent judge and, for one, a night spent in a holding cell in Ukraine.

But this crop of talent -- Eli Holzman (Undercover Boss), Phil Keoghan (The Amazing Race), Padma Lakshmi (Top Chef), Nigel Lythgoe (American Idol), Drew Pinsky (Celebrity Rehab) and J.D. Roth (The Biggest Loser) -- also say their genre has never been more relevant and can actually be a force for good, so long as it's not the one show on cable that Lythgoe says "drives me crazy."