‘Our lead actor doesn’t know he’s in a television show!’ The return of an unbelievable TV hoax

A big part of why the show was great was because how much of a good guy the main guy was. And according to this article, it's the same thing with the new target. I really liked that it was a prank that made the target look really good as it happened, unlike other prank shows who make people look silly.

The scene in the courtroom when the incompetent lawyer shows his video re-enactment of the crime scene. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Everyone needs to watch this show.

They need to tighten up what they pad the show with. I get that it’s probably really hard to edit a cohesive story after the fact with the footage they got but the storyline they did with the nerd guy and the s*** lady was not funny at best and atrociously uncomfortable at worst.

I think a corporate retreat would be far better. S1 it felt like they struggled to give them plausible reasons to hang out.

> a lot of comedy prank shows and TikToks (that aren’t staged 🙄) There's this fantastic old show by British illusionist Derren Brown called *Trick Or Treat* which actually brought this up. Each episode, someone comes in and they draw one of two cards - trick, which is something nasty, or treat, where they get to take part in a fun illusion. Well, one episode was based around susceptibility where a woman is brought in and told if she hits a button, a kitten *will* get electrocuted to death. The idea of the episode is showing how susceptible people are to subconscious control triggers which Brown used on her throughout the episode, with the narration explaining how it all works. >!She hit the button at the last second and was immediately overcome with guilt, horrified she actually gave in. Derren explained how the whole thing worked and no, the kitten was never in any danger.!< Edit: Also, this was a major part of his later series, *The Experiments* where under the pretense of teaching another person how to better use hypnotic techniques to learn how to better meditate, he programmed someone to commit an assassination based on rumors related to the JFK assassination. The subject went along with a lot of his later tricks since it was considered "behind-the-scenes" moments and he was just hanging out with Derren when he believed they weren't filming. This led to the major crux of the show - taking shots at Stephen Fry at one of his own shows - before he learned the truth about what happened and was deprogrammed from his hypnosis.

It was delightful and very silly.

Amazon is has been releasing the first season on their YT page with 2 episodes every day leading up to the new season https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz2DO39R-NUOdaqgxnOyCei7JcLsE0Or

The documentary about that show is so fucked up.

That scene of him there stunned from the audience and the cameras confused and seemingly frightened is still burned in my mind

Pre-SNL Kristen Wiig as well!

Where did this air?

It started strong and then they eliminated every entertaining character and by the end it was just a normal reality show that was staged

It's my understanding that Jury Duty was created by the same person. It's Joe Schmo amped to higher degree. The lead they found for the first season was kind of in the same mold as Joe Schmo. I think that's the kind of person you need for it to work.

He said something like- it was easier to imagine I was surrounded by weirdos than my entire reality was a lie. Very true.

Jokes on you — I'm autistic, I know I'm terrible at reading people.

Yes even a short evening would mess with your head. 3 whole weeks 24/7 (And truly, much longer than that because he had to apply, audition ect.) is kind of diabolical.

Damn I forgot about Improv Everywhere

I found the whole case shockingly underwhelming. I was waiting for much more clever things to happen. The way the show edited and presented it made it seem hard to believe someone could believe it’s a real case.

That sort of thing has lead to violent crimes of passion agains the girl in question before.

I do think there is a difference between being told you may be filmed at any moment (the assumption would be by the camera crew) and cameras literally hidden in telephone booths and tables.

They did in the early 2000’s called the Joe Schmo show

I mean it says he was a temp hired via Craig’s list specifically for the retreat so it seems he always knew he was hired for an event as opposed to a long term contract.

They gave the guy a $100,000 cash prize at the end of the first season at least, and I think it’s supposed to be a temp position in the new season

*The Adjustment Bureau* based on *the Adjustment Team* *The Bourne* series.. *The Truman Show* *Dark City* *Great Expectations* We've explored the concept enough in fiction I am confident to claim it is likely social manipulations have existed for quite some time to varying degrees and we are simply horrified by the purest commodification of them, so far.

Pearl clutching intensifies

You know they end up getting money, right? Like a lot more than his yearly salary would’ve been for 2 weeks. He also gets free exposure to thousands of employers…

Dude gets $150,000 at the end. I doubt he gives a shit.

Yeah. It's manipulative and fucked up

They copied something that has been done 4 times already, one season of which is one of the best seasons of all reality TV.

Are you going to cry and have a breakdown about it like the other guy?