Ronald Gladden, a solar energy contractor, responded to a web of classified ads to participate in a documentary about popular juries. The producers told him that they had permission to record during a legal process and Gladden appeared at the court they had indicated to him to see if he was fit to participate in a jury. He found out yes. On the jury was even the actor James Marsden, annoyed at being kidnapped by the judicial system. The catch was that Gladden was actually the unwitting victim of the most innovative format on American television.
The courtroom was a courtroom that had been inactive for a decade after a budget cut, there was a control room in the same building and all those present were actors following the directions of writers and producers, except for Gladden, who spent three weeks isolated from society and focused on a case that was false. It’s Jury Duty, the revolutionary format nominated for an Emmy for Best Comedy.
The creators of Jury Duty, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky came up with one of the most elaborate jokes in living memory: an entire production with millions of budgets and hundreds of workers centered on an ordinary citizen who was unaware of being in a sitcom. They couldn’t guarantee that Gladden would last three weeks without discovering the truth.
“We thought that every week we would be found out,” director Jake Szymanski told The Town podcast, and “we had alternative plans like, for example, that the series would end up being about how we could not carry it out.” On the third day, in fact, Gladden told Marsden that he felt like he was on a reality show and, using the excuse of going to the bathroom, Marsden went to the control room to report that the subject was suspicious. That day he had to lower the humor of the dialogues and give priority to the boringness of the judicial process.
Among the difficulties that the project presented was carrying out a joke for three weeks and without cracks; that the actors could improvise their interactions with the protagonist without ever screwing up; having to change scripts at the last minute and sell hilarious situations without arousing suspicion; that the result was entertaining; and, if they wanted the experiment to be positive, to keep Gladden from getting angry when he found out the truth.
The result is a sitcom halfway between reality and fiction reminiscent of The office and Parks and recreation. The touch of The Truman Show, which is its essence, makes it an unclassifiable treasure that also serves as a reflection on the figure of the straight man in comedy, that class of less histrionic characters that contribute to exalt others and anchor the tone.
Amazon, which financed the madness, has not yet released Jury Duty in Spain, since in the United States it reserved the content for Freevee, its ad-supported platform, which does not exist here.