Have You Been Watching...? Jury Duty (2023)

 

One of the “phenomena” that has taken off on the internet is that of the “social experiment”. This involves “influencers” setting up situations with the public and then posting the films online. Think a less-funny Beadle’s About (if you were watching me say this, I'd be doing little air quites for those terms...). Most of these simply serve to promote their content creators rather than be genuine social experiments. TV has had a go too, with programmes such as Big Brother looking at everyday folk under the microscope of TV cameras. None of these come anywhere close to Jury Duty.

When I first heard of Jury Duty, an Amazon Freevee Original first broadcast in early 2023, it was compared to The Office. With not being a fan of The Office, I gave it a miss as that type of Docu-comedy doesn’t appeal to me. What a mistake that was. The series came up on one of those recommended images that appear, and for some reason, I gave it a chance.

What I’m about to write now is NOT a spoiler. In fact, it appears right at the very beginning of the first episode. The series is about a documentary being made around the jury at a trial in an American court. Except it’s fake. All of it is. The trial, the officers and the jury are all actors. Except one: 29 year old Solar Panel contractor Ronald Gladden, and he has no idea. As a member of the public, Ronald answered an advert for potential jurors to take part in the programme all the while believing it to be real. The crew are being given “unprecedented” access behind the scenes of a trial in court, documenting everything from the selection of the jury through the trial itself, to the verdict. But it is all dramatized. The only thing that is not planned is Ronald and his reactions to the developing situations. This requires the production team to be 100% switched on to change things at a moment’s notice in case the game is given away. The team have no way of predicting how Ronald will react, and if he guesses, the entire scheme is over.

What follows is one of the most wholesome and joyful programmes that I have ever sat through. From the selection process, the jury is made up of a group of the most bizarre and yet still believable people and the viewer watches as Ronald tries to fathom how to work with these people and the workings of a genuine trial. The series also features Hollywood star James Marsden (Enchanted, X-Men, Hairspray and many more) as a truly exaggerated version of himself. Despite everything that’s thrown at him, Ronald remains the bastion of common sense and normality amongst all the chaos around him and he comes across as a likeable, and very genuine young man. I defy any of you to watch the final episode without a lump in your throat or tears in your eyes.

The series drifts from each bizarre situation to the next all built around the trial Yes, indeed, the cast and crew sat through hours of a fake trial every single day. Thankfully, the trial itself takes second place to the jury and the show doesn’t linger on the courtroom dramas too much beyond what you need to know to understand the dilemmas the jury finds itself in.

Each episode lasts approximately 25-30 minutes and there are 8 episodes in total (although on Freevee, there are way more than that listed as the last batch are behind the scenes episodes). This makes binge watching very easy but it’s much more fun to spread them out.

I enjoyed the series immensely. The cast are fantastic and don’t let their guard down at all (how they do this is revealed in the behind the scenes and they all deserve awards for their commitment!). For a star like James Marsden to agree to send himself up in the way he does is also commendable and he is hilarious throughout. It’s also very easy to forget, as you’re watching, that this is meticulously planned so a huge credit to the crew for being able to commit to and produce such a feat of television. The writers, the camera crew, the production team and everyone has pulled together to create this masterpiece. It’s no surprise to find it nominated for 4 Emmy awards. As enjoyable as the programme is, the sad thing (while also being a good thing), is that this can be the only series. With the cat out of the bag, anything else can only ever be a retreat or inferior copy as any unsuspecting stooge will hope to promote themselves in the way that Ronald inadvertently did. I hope you do look in on this series as I believe you will enjoy it as much as I.

Year – 2023

Series count – 1

Episode count – 8

Availability – currently streaming on Amazon Freevee

Have You Been Watching...? Maneater (2022)

 

There are movies that are good, and there are movies that are bad. Maneater, a recent entry into the “Sharks are bad, m’kay” category, is a whole new category all of it’s own. 

I enjoy creature feature movies, where there’s a monster wiping people out left, right and centre. 1975’s seminal entry “Jaws” took this very subject and turned it into one of the most frightening and intense movies ever. Even though, shockingly, the antagonist only appears in the film for a total of about 5 minutes, the rest of the film is taken up with an increasing sense of dread. But that's a different movie...

Maneater follows Jaws' opening scene with the first death happening quickly, although in Maneater’s case, it’s within seconds of the film starting. Thus begins one of the strangest movie experiences I have ever had. 

The cast is led by ex-Neighbours cast member Nicky Whelan (Pepper Steiger, when she trod Ramsay Street in the early 2000s), as Jessie a woman whose wedding is cancelled but goes off on the honeymoon anyway with a bunch of her pals. Interestingly, while they all act like kids on spring break (and at one point Jessie herself is even called “kid”) none of them look under 40 (Whelan is actually 41) which makes the decisions and actions of the characters unbelievable. Even suspending belief, although we are told various things about their backgrounds, none of the cast act anything more than bland and one-dimensional. 

Unfortunately for the movie, the budget appears to have been non-existent, and the shark appears in terrible CGI and rubber form. In one scene the cast are gathered on the boat, with it’s crew, discussing the various sea life they can observe. Sadly for the viewer, the camera remains on the cast throughout the scene. Whether this is scripted this way or not, it results in the viewer hearing what’s being seen by them, but not getting that experience. Not only that, the scene drags on and becomes somewhat uncomfortable and painful to watch.

As our shark starts gnawing its way through our cast, it’s quite easy to tell who is going to be next and there are no surprises. In fact, the best and only surprises are the deaths of our cast that DON’T happen by being shark treats. One of them, a character whose hands tend to flap a lot, is dispatched in such a way that I found myself laughing out loud at how hilariously funny it was. Another disoatched body makes a fleeting re-appearance, but our cast do NOTHING to assist, even CPR. One of the cast survives it’s encounter with the shark only to be tended to by the worst first-aid in history, that I expected the character to beg the shark to come back and finish the job. It would be quicker and better.

Needless to say, the movie ends with sharky meeting a sticky end. However, that’s not the end of our movie. Oh no, not only have we endured 90 minutes of this, our movie ends with the promise, or rather threat, of a sequel in a scene so forced it feels like it was made simply to bump up the runtime.

So, while some movies are good, and some are bad, Maneater falls into that rare category of being neither. It firmly belongs in the “ridiculous” category. After 90 minutes, I didn’t love it, yet I don’t hate it. 

It just….exists.

Year: 2022

Availability: to buy or rent from digital retailers

Rating: 2/10