I mean really. What else would you call this?
Fox’s president of alternative entertainment is referring to "The Moment of Truth," the network’s sure-to-be controversial game show in which contestants are asked a series of highly personal questions while connected to a polygraph machine.
The show’s international format first gained notice Stateside in August when Fox ordered a pilot. Last month, a popular Colombian version of the series (called "Nothing But the Truth") made headlines when a contestant confessed to hiring a hit-man to murder her husband (an attempt that failed). The show was, at least temporarily, taken off the air.
Fox’s version works like this: Before the show is taped, a contestant is given a polygraph test and asked 75 questions. Samples include: "Do you really care about the starving children in Africa?" "Are you sexually attracted to one of your wife’s friends?" "Do fat people repulse you?" and "Do you think you’ll still be with your husband five years from now?" Unlike the Colombian version, the show avoids asking about felony-level activities and sticks to revealing family secrets and unearthing private opinions.
The contestant’s responses are determined to be truthful or untruthful by a certified polygraph examiner, but the contestant is not told the results. Within a couple of days after the test, the contestant appears on the show, where he is again asked 21 of their previous questions before a live audience, including family and friends.
"This is the first game show where you technically know all the questions and you know all the answers," Mr. Darnell said. "And yet this is the hardest game show I’ve ever been a part of in my entire life."
All the player has to do to win, goes the pitch, is tell the truth. If his answer matches what the polygraph says is true, he advances to the next round. The top prize is $500,000. The contestant can stop at any time, but once a question is asked, he must answer.
The only way I’d watch this is if they put the entire Bush Crime Family on. And I know just what I’d be questioning THEM about:
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan caused quite a ruckus Tuesday with the startling (but certainly not surprising) revelation that his former bosses instructed him to outright lie to the American public over the Valerie Plame CIA leak case.
In his book “What Happened,” due out in April, McClellan accuses the Busheviks of orchestrating a campaign of lies and deception over the Plame case. Consider this explosive excerpt:
“I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby,” McClellan wrote. “There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.” At the time, the chief of staff was Andy Card.
Well, that should be a nice all-star roster of contestants: Karl Rove, Scooty-Scoots Libby, Andy Card, the Big Dick, and Dubya. I think that for them, we might even up the ante by giving them a shot of sodium pentothal before they’re hooked up to the polygraph. Should make things really interesting…
But that’s one piece of reality I don’t expect to see on any laughably-named “reality TV” show anytime EVER, never mind soon.
