May 15, 2008
FOX is the final network to have its upfronts this week. As far as upfront weeks go, it hasn't been the most exciting. In this Internet age we live in, secrets are almost impossible to keep – we all knew which shows were being canceled and which weren't. We knew which new series were going to be picked up. The one thing that networks can keep secret, however, are their final schedules. FOX released two schedules today, one for Fall and one for the Spring. Below, you will find the Fall schedule, followed by a look at the new series and some commentary.
April 2, 2008
Last week, viewers witnessed the first half of the two-part season finale of The Moment of Truth. The episode featured 23-year-old fight promoter Paul Schon from San Diego, California as he answered a bunch of increasingly personal questions truthfully in front of his girlfriend Maria, his mother Karen, his sister Jackie, his father Enrique, and his good friend Federico in attempt to win a large sum of money. “Have you ever been paid for sex?” and “Have you ever had sex with someone and kept her underwear as a trophy?” were just some of the intriguing questions that were thrown at him, to which he both answered yes candidly. In the end, he ended up walking away a hundred grand richer. Subsequently, the show featured 27-year-old interior designer Angela Ciemny, who continues her journey to get to the top of the money ladder in tonight's episode of The Moment of Truth.
March 10, 2008
Last week, we reported on how her 15 minutes of fame has apparently cost The Moment of Truth contestant, Lauren Cleri, her marriage. In its most notorious episode to date, The Moment of Truth's show a couple of weeks back showcased New Yorker Cleri, admitting on national television that she had cheated on her husband, Frank. To add insult to injury, not only did she announce to all and sundry that she loved another besides Frank, she went on to lose their community-property prize money by saying she believed herself a good person, when the all-knowing dreaded polygraph thought otherwise.
As home-wrecking as that revelation was on The Moment of Truth, the broadcast was surprisingly the lowest-rating in the history of the FOX reality show.
March 3, 2008
On last Monday's broadcast of FOX's The Moment of Truth, viewers watched as Lauren Cleri admitted to not only having cheated on her husband Frank Cleri, but also to feeling she should have married another guy. Unfortunately, she ended up going home empty-handed. Now, things have taken a turn for the worse, as she claims her marriage is seemingly over.
"We're kind of up in the air right now,” Lauren told the New York Post from the couple's apartment in Piermont. “I want to [get back together], but I don't think he does.
February 20, 2008
Early this month, FOX announced it was ordering 13 additional episodes of the new and controversial game show, The Moment of Truth. The pick-up is not surprising, given the show's outstanding performance so far.
Fans of The Moment of Truth, however, will have to wait until the summer to catch the additional installments, as the network said yesterday that the show will take a short break after its April 2 broadcast, which will serve as a spring finale.
February 13, 2008
The Moment of Truth has become one of the most explosive and controversial reality shows in recent history, and for good reason. The contestants on Moment of Truth take lie detector tests and regularly admit to embarrassing and damning behavior or beliefs in front of their loved ones and a national television audience. FOX has come under fire from some for the sheer audacity they've shown by just giving The Moment of Truth a slot in prime time. But, I suppose you can't argue with the millions of viewers each episode has received. Given this success (which was to be expected, especially since American Idol is its lead-in), I thought it'd be fun to play a little game. Let's pretend that The Moment of Truth becomes a national phenomenon, even more so than it is now. Let's say that a high-profile contestant goes on (a criminal, a murderer, an embarrassed politician) and they sway the public in their favor by taking the lie detector and absolving themselves of whatever affront they'd been presumed to have committed. And, let's pretend that this event triggers a wave of public figures to also appear on The Moment of Truth in search of similar redemption. Wouldn't that be something?