JOE SCHMO: THE FULL BOUNTY
Spike, 10:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: This isn’t a recommendation, necessarily, but the return of this reality-series improv-comedy hybrid certainly is worth noting. The original The Joe Schmo Show, also televised by Spike TV, was, like many cheaply made series in the reality-TV-obsessed world of 2003, a ripoff of such close-quarters competition shows as Survivor and Big Brother. The difference here was that everyone, save for one hapless contestant cast for his good nature and gullibility, was an actor playing a role – seeing just how far they could push, fool and tweak the poor “Joe Schmo” who wasn’t in on the joke. The initial run of this show, a decade ago, included one then-unknown comedienne who played a “quack” doctor – Kristen Wiig (seen in this credits photo from the 2003 edition). Wiig joined Saturday Night Live two years later, so it might be interesting to see if the current cast of this Joe Schmo reboot contains any similar future stars. At any rate, apparently it’s time enough to bring the show back without fear of having the prank exposed. Reality TV shows, like locusts, may be a plague capable of resurfacing every 10 years or so.