June 10, 2008
Ever since The Moment of Truth premiered on January 23, the show has become one of the most talked about programs in world of reality TV, attracting spectators with its unusual premise that puts participants to the lie detector test to reveal whether or not they are telling the truth for a chance to win half a million dollars. Now, host Mark Walberg is fed up with all the labels and bad reputation the show is getting for destroying the lives of contestants who are willing to publicly divulge secrets for a shot at cash.
"Quite honestly, the wrecking-your-family, evildoing rap the show gets, I think it's crap," Walberg said in a conference call promoting The Moment of Truth's May 27 return. "No family gets wrecked unless they're wrecking it anyway. And of all the people that have been on the show, only one couple that I know of that was married has decided to separate. And they were already on the rocks well before they got to us, by their own admission."
June 5, 2008
FOX is the most creative network around. You might hate some of the shows it produces (cough The Moment of Truth cough), but you have to give FOX props for the way it creates its schedule. If there is a new series the network is proud of, FOX promotes the hell out of it, and often premiere it after a veteran, highly rated series for good measure. Thanks to American Idol, FOX constructs two very distinct Fall and Winter/Spring seasons, dodging the inclination to air most of its big shows year-round. FOX has embraced the idea of airing its serial dramas with little or no breaks. Today, FOX released the schedule for their Fall premieres. There are a handful of two-hour premieres planned, including one for the most highly-anticipated new series of the Fall, the J.J. Abrams produced Fringe.
May 29, 2008
The Moment of Truth kicked off its second season Tuesday, helping FOX win the night in the ratings. If you bear with me for a second, I'll tell you why this is good news for Survivor. The Moment of Truth, which debuted to monster numbers in its first season earlier this year, is expected to be one of the higher rated series of the summer. Also, FOX, at their recent upfronts for the 2008-2009 season, placed The Moment of Truth on their Fall schedule on Thursdays at 8pm. When pressed about The Moment of Truth's fall scheduling, in regards to Survivor, which will be a time slot competitor, FOX entertainment chairman Peter Liguori said:"Look, it's eroding. It's an older show. Its eventually going to give up and we're trying to accelerate that." With FOX taking direct aim at CBS's long-running reality series, the question was this: Would The Moment of Truth retain its Winter/Spring audience, or would it regress without its incomparable American Idol lead-in? Thankfully for Survivor, it looks like it's the former.
May 27, 2008
The Moment of Truth returns to FOX tonight for the premiere of its second season. The controversial reality show has drawn the ire of critics and reasonable humans since its first season debuted at mid-season for FOX, but this was not a deterrent for audiences. The Moment of Truth, which has contestants hooked up to a lie detector as they answer a series of increasingly personal questions for an escalating amount of prize money, was the highest rated new series of the 2007-2008 television season. This likely had more to do with its initial pairing with TV juggernaut American Idol than the quality of the series itself, but it is impressive (depressing?) nonetheless. The second season premieres at 8pm tonight.
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.