The Joe Schmo Show

Our Review

The greatest prank in television history, played out over an entire season. One regular guy, Matt Kennedy Gould, believes he is competing on a reality show called The Lap of Luxury. Everyone else, every single contestant, host, and crew member, is an actor performing scripted reality TV cliches at him. The catch: the show’s real subject is how long one nice man keeps being nice while reality TV loses its mind around him.

Season one is the classic, powered by the incomparable David Hornsby as smarmy host Roger Van Dyken-lite and Ralph Garman in a different disguise every season. The evictions are absurd, the challenges are secretly kind, and the emotional beats feel more honest than any real reality show because the actors genuinely grow fond of the mark. Season two flipped to a woman who figured it out too fast, and season three, The Full Bounty, brought it back with a schlock action movie premise.

Its DNA is all over modern prank and meta comedy, and nothing since has matched season one’s perfect slow reveal. Funny is the whole point here, and it is very, very funny.

Our take: 8.5/10.