Earlier this spring, TBS announced that it had ordered a new season of The Joe Schmo Show, the format in which a single ordinary person found themselves in the middle of what they thought was an unscripted series, only to eventually discover that everybody around them was actually a comedian attempting to bamboozle that one Joe Schmo.
On one hand, it was a somewhat unlikely resurrection for the quirky reality-comedy hybrid, which originally debuted on Spike TV — remember Spike TV? — back in 2003, aired a second season in 2004, went into hibernation until a third season in 2013, and then returned to sleep for another decade.
On the other hand, bringing back The Joe Schmo Show became an oddly obvious choice after a year in which the lines between scripted comedy and reality became more blurry than ever before, or at least more blurry than any point since that mid-’00s moment when The Joe Schmo Show and Joe Millionaire and even forgotten oddities like FX’s Todd TV — this TV critic remembers Todd TV so you don’t have to — proliferated.
For Emmy voters, shows like HBO’s The Rehearsal, Peacock’s Paul T. Goldman and Freevee’s Jury Duty present a very specific challenge: What are they? Reality? Comedy? Limited? Variety? But for viewers, shows like The Rehearsal, Paul T. Goldman and Jury Duty present a very different and far more complicated dilemma: Are they ethical? Are they exploitative? If they’re funny, why are they funny? If they’re provocative, what do they provoke? There’s a built-in friction that comes from watching these shows, which could be either part of the pleasure or part of the polarizing disconnect; one person’s brilliant subversion of conventions could be another person’s reinforcement of traditional power structures.
Again, it comes down to questions, even if the answers are subjective.
Who is the hero?
In The Rehearsal, you think the heroes are the regular folks who enlist Nathan Fielder to stage elaborate re-creations — or “pre-creations,” really — of life events as a means of battling social anxiety, except that Fielder is actually the hero, as he delves deeper and deeper into his own insecurities and his own displacement in a world of his own making.
In Paul T. Goldman — whose Emmy submission as a documentary series was rejected, forcing it to resubmit in the limited-series category — you think the hero is the brokenhearted, dweeby Goldman (real name Paul Finkelman), who was betrayed by a grifting woman and uncovered a sex trafficking ring, except that the hero is actually director Jason Woliner, who uses a six-episode television series to expose an unsuspecting Goldman’s delusions and underlying misogyny.
In Jury Duty, you think the hero is Ronald Gladden, an innocent juror who retains a healthy sense of decency while a group of comedians stage increasingly heightened antics in the hope of making him break, except that the hero is actually James Marsden, rather hilariously playing self-important Sonic the Hedgehog star James Marsden.
What is the joke and why is it uncomfortable?
In The Rehearsal, the joke is about post-COVID alienation and the illusion of control, with Fielder’s own trademark nebbishy neurosis at the center. As with Nathan for You, Fielder mixes actual service, slightly mocking exposure and full-on self-laceration, though usually with some compassion for the human condition. That can generate mortification, though what really concerned people was the role children played in Fielder’s staged antics, which oddly didn’t make people examine the way all child actors are used in any entertainment, which it probably should have.
In Paul T. Goldman, the joke is that Goldman was starved for fame and attention and the show gave it to him, making him the punchline to every joke, all in the name of teaching him valuable lessons about not being gross and realizing that your perspective isn’t always the truth. Some people might find that icky.
In Jury Duty? Well, the joke was supposed to be on Ronald and his reactions to the outlandish things — misinterpreted racial slurs, elaborately planted fake poop, collaborative sex — being done around him. Instead, Ronald proved to be such an amiable and inoffensive protagonist that the show almost could have come with the disclaimer “No Ordinary People Were Harmed in This Experience.”
Is the show punching down or up?
In The Rehearsal, Fielder punches himself in the face, but otherwise his target is the genre and what we believe it capable of doing, so that comes close to punching up. Plus, he gets in some jokes about how he’s using HBO’s money.
Paul T. Goldman only punches down. The more provocative issue is whether Goldman deserves the punchline and/or whether the examination forced by Woliner’s process of placating reenactments and truth ambushes is relatable enough to make the audience look inward.
And Jury Duty? Ronald is ultimately well compensated and treated as a hero. Over a full season, he does nothing to feel embarrassed about, though he may have trust issues going forward. Only James Marsden truly takes a beating, and it’s so happily self-effacing that he can take it. So no punches are thrown, which may or may not be a good thing.
The original Joe Schmo Show was a direct takeoff on the proliferation of reality competition and dating formats. It will be interesting to see if the latest iteration is able to serve as a takeoff on this new wave of ordinary people as the targets of faux documentary shows or if the level of cumulative postmodern discomfiture causes our televisions to collectively melt — or if an Emmy showdown between The Rehearsal, Paul T. Goldman and Jury Duty will already have that effect.
This story first appeared in the June 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Source: Hollywood
