Moment of Truth

I can get past the fact that the format is sleaze. Invasion of privacy for the purpose of highlighting human flaws – the grotesque moments of a person’s history – is vintage Fox trash TV, but it might also have some artistic value. All catharsis is based on the audience being able to relate to the darkness that Man has in his soul.

I’ll allow “Moment of Truth” to test the bonds of relationships. If a contestant gets a divorce because of this show it’s their own fault; not just because they knew what they were getting in to, or some vague concept of morality that says they shouldn’t have sinned in the first place, but because all healthy relationships should be based on open communication and trust.

I can even ignore that the bad acting of these people (likely prompted by the director) is both cheesy and insincere. React to the questions, sure, but don’t pretend like the softball round is emotionally taxing.

“Have you ever looked through someone’s things?”

“Oh, gee, this is tough. What will people think? Will I get fired if I admit it? How will I muster up the courage to reveal this dark secret?”

We can forgive the contestants for this. They are being told to drag this stuff out. And they aren’t professional actors (presumably) so it’s unfair to expect them to be convincing.

The problem with Fox’s new game show is the format, the production. You see these sins committed in every game show out there; producers have an hour slot to fill, so they stretch every answer out. Look, “Moment of Truth” asks twenty-one questions. The absolute longest time that it should take to ask twenty-one questions is half an hour. The game “Twenty Questions” doesn’t even take thirty minutes, and you have to think about those questions.

You might think that drawing out the questions creates suspense, but all it does is make the show boring. Long pauses in between answers with intense, moody music aren’t thrown in because of the creative vision of the producers; they’re crammed in because the producers don’t want to pay more contestants. Put in twice as many players and the show is going to have to pay out twice as much.

The cost is quality programming. I think “Moment of Truth” had a chance to be entertaining. Skip through the b.s. questions and get to the stuff that’s going to cause someone’s divorce tomorrow. Suspense will come from the questions getting harder – it just cheapens it when every question gets fifteen minutes of build up. “Millionaire” did it, and it ticked me off then.

“Which of the following is an ocean? A… The Mississippi River? B… Lake Erie? C… The Atlantic? Or D… bacon.”

“Um… can I use my life line?”

Even “Wheel of Fortune” had a format designed to eat up time. Next turn, okay, let’s spin this wheel for fifteen seconds. The difference is that at least with “Wheel of Fortune” you got to look at a mesmerizing disc of color while you crossed your fingers that someone went bankrupt (or hit it big, to each their own.)

I’m a big fan of “Jeopardy,” because it teaches you something, but Trabeck should have never lost the mustache.

But back to “Moment of Truth,” does anybody actually buy this stuff? I’ve got to hope that the market will show Fox that they can’t get away with putting on half a show, but you know that enough people will watch that producers will start working on “Who Wants to Get Cattle Prodded?” and “American Pariah.”

Again, I’ll emphasize that I have nothing wrong with the idea of humiliating people and ruining families for our entertainment. My problem is it’s a bad show. The banter between host Mark Wahlberg and the contestants is contrived and transparent. The repetition of the rules is pointless and insulting; there are three rules, and two of them are self-explanatory – you might get confused by the button next to the “friends of” couch. And the gaps between the player’s answer and the “official” answer are unnecessarily long.

Think this out logically: if you have been asked an uncomfortable question to which you answered, “Yes I did that,” why would you now be lying about it? Is there any possibility that the disembodied woman’s voice is going to come back with “No, actually he’s not a pedophile, he just said that he was”?

It comes back to the producers knowingly killing time. I just hope that enough people will feel the same way as to boycott the show. Fox isn’t going to up its game unless it knows where it’s screwing up. “Fifth Grader” does the same thing; it’s got Foxworthy so the people who are watching aren’t likely to stop because of a little thing like quality.

I’ll leave you with this: the Japanese have game shows that could cause players to go sterile or blind, and the prize is free tickets to the Spongebob Squarepants movie. Wouldn’t you like to be able to enjoy programming like that?