From the start of its first episode, The Joe Schmo Show had many terrific moments, but really, it exists to show us one thing: when the schmo is told that he or she is a schmo, and has been lied to for months and months by producers and by people he or she trusted. That… continue reading
Joe Schmo: The Full Bounty
Joe Schmo is as good as the original, despite having too much anxiety
Nostalgia is dangerous in reality television. So much of our relationship to great shows over the past 13 years–or 21 years–has been because a show has been new and surprising, and hit all the right notes for that moment. That was definitely the case with The Joe Schmo Show, which had a brilliant first season… continue reading
How Joe Schmo’s cast and crew pulled it off
Joe Schmo: The Full Bounty is surprising because it has managed to be almost as good as the original 10 years ago, and because the show’s producers and cast were able to pull off the same prank 10 years later. How did they do it? I talked to the show’s executive producers, John Stevens and… continue reading
Can Joe Schmo: The Full Bounty live up to the original’s greatness?
After nearly a decade since the debut of its first season, The Joe Schmo Show returns for its third season on Spike tonight. The original introduced us to Kristen Wiig and to a format that simultaneously parodied the worst of reality television and embodied the best kind of reality TV–a high bar to reach. While… continue reading
Joe Schmo Show will return next year
A decade after The Joe Schmo Show, the Truman Show-style reality series in which everyone except one person is an actor performing as part of a scripted narrative, will return to Spike in 2013. Titled Joe Schmo: The Full Bounty, it will feature a man who thinks he’s auditioning to be “America’s next bounty hunter.”… continue reading