The puzzle is this: why is nobody watching one of the best shows of the year? I have been trying to figure this out ever since Jury Duty dropped in April, on Amazon Freevee (it’s like Prime but it’s free-with-adverts, so if you have Prime it’s just free, and if you don’t have Prime it’s free-with-adverts. Perhaps we have already peeled one layer of onion skin away from this problem).
Maybe it is the unassuming name of it: Jury Duty, like Couples Therapy before it, a title so straightforwardly descriptive dissimulates the jewel hidden within. Maybe it’s because it got bad reviews, like this one in the Guardian. I say this as a critic: we really must stop listening to critics. There is another problem, I think: there is just so much TV these days, across a huge number of platforms and sub-platforms, and no one on Earth can watch all of them at once. Jury Duty – deeply unfairly, I think – seems to have fallen victim to that.
That said I am tired of asking people, “Have you seen Jury Duty yet?!”, in that little excited voice I do, and getting nothing but a blank expression in return, so the re-education starts here: Jury Duty is a mockumentary where a fake trial, completely undertaken by actors, is enacted in an LA municipal court. The lawyers are actors, the defendants are actors, the jury are actors, the judge is an actor. The actor James Marsden is an actor, acting as himself. Then, in the middle of it, one person, who doesn’t know: Ronald Gladden.
Ronald Gladden, I fear, might be the nicest man alive, and that’s what this series hinges on. There are so many logistical hurdles this show had to overcome during its eight-episode run – a tight-rope of knowing just how far you can push the fantastical elements of what is essentially an extended prank without the person at the centre of it catching on, handled with a perfect light-touch throughout – but the central non-actor being as pure and open of heart as Ronald is the glue that holds everything together. There’s a moment early on, when juror Todd – the biohacking-obsessed nerd one, basically – struggles to integrate with the wider group after an embarrassing incident involving his robotic chair trousers. And what does Ronald do? He knocks on his hotel door after hours and shows him A Bug’s Life, where the main character comes up against similar cynicism from his colony. It is insane how much I would have not done that if I was thrust into the same situation (I, of course, would have figured it was a prank immediately. You will smugly feel the same).
I am on my third re-watch of Jury Duty now, and each time I notice new, beautiful little details that make me gasp at the sheer logistical thrill of them pulling this off (a similar feeling came from watching Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal last year, but people actually watched The Rehearsal): the entire hidden-camera Margeritaville episode; the group trip to the factory where members of the jury ever-so-carefully nudge Ronald towards discovering his own evidence; the Korean board game in episode six. It feels like James Marsden (pitch-perfectly lampooning himself and the actor’s ego throughout) is due a Marsdenaissance after this, especially after the episode where he subjects Ronald to self-tape practice – each take more subtly bananas than the last – for hours and hours and hours.
But, mostly, it makes you reconsider your ideas about the root goodness inherent in your fellow man. (Since finding out they were all actors, Ronald has been trying hard to make it to all their improv sets and plays!) It does not feel like there is an appropriate award category for this show, because it bends so many genres – prank, documentary, heartwarming, hilarious – into one, so I am going to have to demand that Hollywood invent one. But to help with that: can you just go and watch this show, please? It really is far more worth your time than who kissed who on Ted Lasso this week.
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