“WATCH JURY DUTY.” Said two friends of mine.
“It’s on FreeVee.” I complained. “FreeVee is stupid, and I am a platform snob.”
“Yes, we know.” They said.
“It’s owned by Amazon.” I said. “Can you imagine the dildo that actually came up with that terrible name? Can you imagine someone saying “it’s not TV, it’s FREEVee? And then idiots around the room all nodded in unison like they had stumbled on something great? Then they spent millions of dollars building it and marketing it and bothering human beings in their living rooms all across the globe with it? Can you imagine all that?”
“Yes.” They said. “That is very likely what happened.”
“And you still want me to watch some show on it?”
“Not some show. Jury Duty. It’s fantastic.”
“But…FreeVee has commercials. I never watch commercials.”
“They vanish after the first one or two episodes.” They rebutted.
“And it’s worth it? I asked.
“It’s worth it.” They assured me.
So, armed with that surety, I dove into Jury Duty. And it was very good. Mostly. But here’s the thing that kind of threw me:
The premise. Right from the outset.
They tell you right out of the gate that this is a show about the American judicial system, and that under normal circumstances, jurors would be barred from discussing an active case, but that in this case the cameras have been given unprecedented access. Before fifty seconds have passed, they drop the big bomb: this case is fake and everyone involved from the judge to the defendant and plaintiff to the various underpaid court workers are, in fact, actors. They’re all in on it.
Except for this dude.
Ronald Gladden. He’s just some regular jamoke who has no idea about what’s going on. Luckily for all involved, Ronald Gladden happens to be the best dude in the universe and is anything but some average schlep. He’s fucking wonderful, and that — and only that — is why the show ultimately works.
But out of the gate, I felt a bit cheated. Because right away you’re seeing talking heads. You’re getting character intros, and I was fully checked out because I was like “this is a person acting weird. This is not a weird person.” By calling out the very fact that the show was all actors, instead of just letting it roll and saving the reveal for the end, the producers do two things: they allow you to be in on the joke from the get-go, and they risk losing you.
To be clear: all scripted shows feature actors. That’s the whole enchilada. Just because they don’t specifically tell you that you’re watching actors when you tune in to Blue Bloods or Severance or Bluey doesn’t mean they’re not actors. TV is chock full of actors! But they don’t call it out. They don’t make it a feature. You just sit down, suspend disbelief, and enjoy.
But with Jury Duty, in calling out the actors, they run the risk of losing viewers from the jump. It was a bigger obstacle than I had imagined, and had my friends not assured me the show was worth it, I probably would have bailed, because it felt like the show was building to a satisfying outing, but would the juice be worth the squeeze?
In the end, the premise is what this show is all about. If I remember correctly, Ronald Gladden was their third patsy. The first sniffed out the ruse within a few days and they had to scrap the production. The second was, I think, a dud or a miss of some kind. Only when the show stumbled on the sweetness and kindness and all-American apple pie goodness of Ronald Gladden did the whole thing come together.
So: have you watched Jury Duty? Did the strategy of revealing the premise throw you, or was it something that you shrugged and accepted?
