Back in ’03, the renaissance of reality TV was in its infant stages. Seemed like every station was starting to cash in on the craze. The respectable networks paved the way with hits like Survivor, Big Brother, The Bachelorette and Queer Eye. Then there was FOX, they too entered the arena, but sunk a little lower (to murky depths) than their competitors. Airing gems like Who wants to marry a Multi-Millionaire, Temptation Island and Joe Millionaire. My personal favorite reality show (at the time) came out of the fledging network Spike TV. Another Joe called The Joe Schmo Show. The basic premise was that contestants competed (in Big Brother style games) for $100,000. Here’s the catch – every person on the show was an actor except for one, Matt Gould. He was told the show he was on was called The Lap of Luxury. As far as Matt knew, contestants were randomly being eliminated each week. Little did he know the whole thing was scripted. The actor’s played typical reality-show characters – the messy jerk, the rich bitch, the brainiac and a fashion sensed homosexual. What really took this show to the next level was Matt himself. No one counted on him being such an honest, all around good guy, ready to do the right thing. He was a total genuine individual that bought every line fed to him. And the stuff the writers cooked up was absolutely insane. Though true to charcter, Matt was always the stand up guy. It got to the point that the actors started to get emotional and really wanted to reveal their true selves to Matt. All of which adds to the surprising twists and turns all season long. This is totally a show for reality junkies and the people that share the couch with them. Get your fix on Netflix now.
