TV is the New Reading

New FOX game show

may mark the downfall

of Western civilization

Nice to meet you. Come in, sit down. Relax. Get comfortable.

So, do you have a gambling addiction? Ever stuffed anything down your shorts to make yourself look more well-endowed? Say, have you done anything that could cause your wife not to trust you? Have you put off having children because your marriage might not last? How about when you’re in the shower – ever take a peek at the other guys?

Excuse me ... do I know you?

Most of these questions would be worth a punch in the mouth throughout polite society. They’re not only intrusive. They’re deeply personal. They’re frankly rude. Honestly, about whether you’re putting off having kids because you’re afraid your marriage might not last, that’s the kind of stuff you barely want to ask yourself.

Yet on “The Moment of Truth,” a new “game show” on FOX – yes, of course, FOX – this is one of the less intrusive questions in store for any stray hapless idiot lured in by the prospect of easy money.

Contestants are strapped to a lie-detector and asked 50 questions. The results are recorded and kept hidden from the contestant.

The contestant then meets for a delightful chat with Satan, in his current guise of host Mark Walberg. Friends, family and coworkers are hustled in for a front row seat to share the spectacle with a national audience and a live studio audience – who, judging from its reactions, is chiefly comprised of howler monkeys.

The contestant is then asked questions he’d answered before while strapped to the lie-detector, and in front of God and everyone, is made to answer. And a machine chimes in several seconds of fake suspense later with whether that answer is true or not.

The friends and family get to hit a button if they don’t want to hear the answer to any given question. Most of them don’t hit it because they’re curious to hear the answers themselves, although if the situation were reversed – if it were them in the hotseat – you just know they’d be wishing someone would hit that button.

And the contestant can leave any time he likes, although he risks losing any money he’d already won from the already deeply personal and demeaning questions he’d already answered.

There’s something truly horrifying about this show. In the pilot episode, no prize money was given out. The first contestant was caught in a lie, although there’s every reason to believe he thought he was telling the truth. And the second contestant came back for another night.

But if a contestant ever does win the possible $500,000, he or she will need it to start a brand new life someplace new with all new friends and family, because no one’s relationships will survive this “game.”

And if the producers can avoid paying out any prize money, they will have more to set aside for the civil suits that seem inevitable in the wake of the lives this show seems bent on destroying.

This latest bellwether on the downfall of Western civilization airs 8 p.m. Wednesdays on FOX.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

Back Back to Shows Back to Main Page Next