Only Fox could manage to put together a show this evil. In “The Moment of Truth“, only the most deeply immoral people are hooked up to a lie detector, sitting in front of their parents, friends, and spouses. They must answer questions “true” or “false”.

The brilliant (an horrible) thing about this show, however, is that unlike past reality lie detector shows, the questions aren’t designed to embarass you; they are built to destroy and painfully humiliate your loved ones instead- while you earn money on their shattered hearts. Diabolical! 

Questions like “Would you be happy if you looked like you mother at her age”(no), “Do you see yourself being faithful to just one person, ever?” (no), “Do you ever regret marrying your husband?” (yes),  “Would you respect your spouse more if me made more money” (yes) and “Would you leave your husband and go back to your ex if he wanted to get back together?” (yes) are standard.

The most famous episode, starring a woman named Lauren Cleri, might be the most uncomfortable moment in TV history. They had to put up a disclaimer about how awful it was before airing the episode (although that obvs only make me want to watch it more). In it, she admitted to such things as committing adultry and that she believed she was supposed to be with her ex boyfriend instead, all in front of her husband, parents, siblings, friends (her ex also came out to ask if she’d be willing to leave her husband for him, but her friend hit the safety buzzer to keep her from answering). But the most amazing, flaming salt in the wound moment was where after all of these questions, the lie detector asked her if she thought she was a good person. She answered yes, it came out false, and she lost all her money– right after destroying her marriage and losing the respect of everyone she loved, too, for it.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because yesterday I saw a commercial for next week, in which they advertised “Not since Lauren Cleri has a person been so willing to ruin her marriage for $500,000.” Cut to a shot of a sassy brunette smiling at her heartbroken husband’s face. They saved it as the season finalle - it’s going to be painful and meant for rubbernecking. Enjoying this show is so profoundly wrong, I think it might make me a bad person that I do?

Anyway, you can watch full episodes and sign up to be on the show (don’t do it!) here.

* Do not watch with loved ones unless you’re prepared to be thrown in the hot seat yourself.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under Randomizer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.