The unexpected success of Jury Duty in 2023 did something television rarely accomplishes: it created a new format that streamers now want to replicate. The show earned four Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series, and bagged a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 96%. But what exactly sparked such devotion, and why are networks scrambling to make their own versions?
The answer lies in what Jury Duty changed about how we watch prank television. The series is based entirely on an elaborate prank played out over multiple days, featuring a detailed script, dozens of hidden cameras, and a carefully selected slate of paid actors. Ronald Gladden serves as a juror who is unaware of the hoax. But unlike earlier hidden-camera shows, the format avoids the contempt embedded in traditional prank comedy. There's no real mean-spiritedness towards the character who's not in on the joke, and he's not made to be the fall guy for the stunts and plot events that happen.
A new breed of cringe comedy
Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, which arrives on Prime Video March 20, features a new unsuspecting star named Anthony at the centre of an elaborate hidden-camera social experiment set inside a fictional hot sauce company. The follow-up greatly expands the scope and hilarity of its predecessor by staging a long-form hoax on an unsuspecting hero hired to be a temporary assistant at a company's annual retreat.
That same impulse toward elaborate, empathy-driven comedy is reshaping how networks approach the format. From Oscar and Emmy winner Riz Ahmed comes Bait, a comedy about Shah Latif, a struggling actor whose last chance to hit it big comes in the form of an audition of a lifetime. Rather than a hidden camera prank in the traditional sense, Bait leans into the cringe of a fictional character auditioning for James Bond, with Jury Duty's creators' DNA clearly visible in the willingness to sit with uncomfortable moments for comedic effect.
Why does this matter? The older prank-show tradition, epitomised by Punk'd, often relied on celebrity comeuppance. But Jury Duty flipped the formula by making the ordinary person the hero, not the fool. The core idea is not rooted in exploitation, and while there is an inevitable reveal, it's much more of a celebration than the manipulative "gotcha" moment seen in other popular prank shows such as Punk'd.
The format's appeal runs deeper than just novelty. Audiences tired of schadenfreude-based reality television seem hungry for stories where the real person at the centre of a carefully orchestrated scenario responds with kindness, confusion, and genuine emotion. Jury Duty worked because Ronald Gladden was fundamentally likeable, and his warmth anchored the chaos. Now networks are betting that similar frameworks, whether set in a courtroom or a corporate offsite, can succeed again.
Whether that gamble pays off depends on casting the right "hero" and resisting the urge to exploit that person's vulnerability. The shows that follow in Jury Duty's footsteps will need to remember that the audience's goodwill depends on the sense that everyone on screen, even the unknowing participant, is ultimately in on a gentle joke rather than the victim of a cruel one.