If ever there was a TV show that you\u2019d think should be left at a single season, it would be Jury Duty.<\/p>\n
The Amazon series became a slow-burning, word-of-mouth hit through 2023 for pulling off a frankly unbelievable stunt: successfully convincing one man, Ronald Gladden, that he was taking part in an LA courtroom documentary when, actually, everything about the process was staged and he was the only participant who was not an actor.<\/p>\n
Despite the continual escalations from the cast (including the actor James Marsden, playing an arrogant parody of himself roped into jury service) and the ever-present risk of Gladden cottoning on and toppling the entire production, somehow the makers manage to maintain the ruse for long enough for the \u201cjury\u201d to return a verdict.<\/p>\n
Not only was 30-year-old Gladden not even a little bit peeved when the deception was revealed; the resulting comedy also managed to be warm, kind and genuinely funny. Jury Duty even won a Peabody award for proving that reality television could \u201cbring out the best\u201d in people.<\/p>\n
So when a second season was announced, the response \u2013 even from fans \u2013 was one of trepidation. Jury Duty had been a critical and commercial success, making the hoax extremely hard to restage. Even if it were possible, surely you couldn\u2019t hope to find a second solid-gold gem like Ronald Gladden?<\/p>\n
Even the makers had their doubts, says director Jake Szymanski over Zoom. \u201cWe did not know if it could be done again \u2026 It is a lot of work, and there\u2019s a lot of risk.\u201d But, somehow, they\u2019ve pulled it off.<\/p>\n
Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat follows 25-year-old Anthony Norman from Nashville, a temp worker hired (like Gladden) via Craigslist to support a family-owned hot sauce company on its annual retreat.<\/p>\n
When his manager abruptly takes flight, Norman is thrown in at the deep end, tasked with being \u201cCaptain Fun\u201d to his new and eccentric co-workers. If that wasn\u2019t enough, the company\u2019s founder is preparing to step down; Norman finds himself responsible for not just the smooth running of the retreat, but also saving the business \u2013 all the while believing he is taking part in a documentary about the company at a transitional moment in its history.<\/p>\n
Anthony Norman (far right) tasked with being \u2018Captain Fun\u2019. Photograph: Courtesy of Prime<\/p>\n
Executive producer David Bernad says the seed for season two was a \u201cDavid v Goliath story\u201d, pitting an unassuming hero against big business interests. \u201cThe aspiration wasn\u2019t trying to beat or match or top Jury Duty \u2013 it was to create something that was unique and worked on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Company Retreat doesn\u2019t just repeat Jury Duty\u2019s success; it raises the stakes with a more elaborate hoax, a bigger site and more cameras, filming for longer \u2013 meaning more danger of being found out. There is even another celebrity cameo, brilliantly pitched so as to just be believable.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeason two is way more ambitious, in terms of the storytelling,\u201d Bernad agrees. In season one, Gladden was dropped in the middle of 12 Angry Men; the confined setting and generally opaque workings of the legal system were also on the production\u2019s side. This time, Bernad says, \u201cwe didn\u2019t have the conceit of a jury trial, where the audience knows the beats \u2026 This is a completely created story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hurdles were also higher for production, with 48 cameras filming across a 300,000 sq ft site, 10 times the size of the courtroom. Entire structures had to be built to conceal cameras and accommodate the 80-person-strong crew. The props team even had to develop a range of hot sauces.<\/p>\n
And where Gladden\u2019s fellow jurors had no prior connections, Norman was joining close-knit co-workers with decades of shared history and in-jokes. All that lore had to be developed and committed to heart by the actors to ensure they gave consistent accounts.<\/p>\n
double quotation markIf something goes wrong, you could end up without a TV show, which is terrifying<\/p>\n
The preparation went far beyond what shows in the final cut, Szymanski says \u2013 down to details like where the characters went to college and whether they lived in houses with back yards. \u201cIf you\u2019re real people who\u2019ve known each other for over a decade, and all of a sudden you don\u2019t know something basic about each other, it could break the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the celebrity had to fit in with the production\u2019s requirements for their cameo, as opposed to the other way around, \u201cto make it seem real\u201d, says Szymanski. \u201cNothing about the show is casual at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result, Company Retreat often plays like a scripted workplace comedy, satirising its absurdities while also celebrating the genuine relationships forged there. You can forget Norman isn\u2019t in on the joke until you see him trying to suppress a laugh at what he believes is yet another non sequitur or outburst from one of his kooky colleagues.<\/p>\n
In fact, some were wearing earpieces and being fed lines or notes from the control room \u2013 and all leaned on improv, to keep Norman on course. If he turned left when producers had expected him to turn right, or decided to eat lunch outside instead of inside, it could spoil a scene or planned story beat, Szymanski explains. \u201cThis is going to play as an eight-episode TV show; we\u2019ve still got to hit these moments. How do we best do that when our lead actor doesn\u2019t know he\u2019s in a TV show?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer was months of writing, world-building and rehearsals before filming began, preparing for every possible scenario. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit like building a Jenga tower,\u201d says executive producer Nicholas Hatton: every move risks tipping off \u201cthe hero\u201d, as Norman and Gladden were designated behind the scenes. \u201cYou can\u2019t have another take, you can\u2019t reset, you can\u2019t pause \u2026 and if anything goes wrong, you can end up without a TV show, which is a terrifying prospect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Season one did come perilously close to collapse when the supposed bailiff called one of the jurors by her real name rather then her character\u2019s, in Gladden\u2019s presence, requiring a cover-up to be improvised on the fly. There was another similarly heart-stopping moment on the last day of shooting on season two, mere hours before the big reveal. Hatton winces at the memory: \u201cYou can see just how close we get to ruining the entire thing \u2026 I think we\u2019ve been fortunate, both seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
For viewers, Bernad suggests, the element of risk only adds to the thrill of the high-wire act. \u201cThe hope is, as audiences are watching this season, that the ending is unpredictable \u2026 Do we get through it? And how do we get through it? That\u2019s part of the fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for the team tasked with delivering it, the pressure is immense. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like the stress of making Jury Duty: there\u2019s so much that\u2019s unknown, and so much that\u2019s unpredictable,\u201d says Bernad, also an executive producer on The White Lotus. On that show, he says, there is next to no chance of it all falling over on the last day of filming. On Jury Duty, \u201cthe deeper you get into the production, the more the stakes rise\u201d.<\/p>\n
Leaning on improv \u2026 Alex Bonifer as Dougie Jr and Jerry Hauck as Doug. Photograph: Amazon Content Services LLC\/PA<\/p>\n
Though success can never be guaranteed, the odds increase with the correct casting of the hero, who serves as not just the heart of the show but its reason for being. \u201cThey\u2019re number one on the callsheet \u2013 they just don\u2019t realise it fully,\u201d says Hatton.<\/p>\n
More than 10,000 people responded to the production\u2019s post on Craigslist last year, advertising a two-week-long temp gig. Applicants were vetted for character traits like kindness, empathy, compassion, sense of humour and a \u201ccertain degree of charisma\u201d, Hatton says.<\/p>\n
There were also practical concerns, like whether the hero was likely to have seen the first season or in danger of recognising any of the cast. But, for Szymanski, the most important factor was that, once the jig was up, whether they were likely to have appreciated taking part in the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it\u2019s kind of the only thing that makes it worth it \u2026 it has to be positive and uplifting, not only to the audience, but to the person experiencing it,\u201d he says. \u201cOtherwise it\u2019s not worth the risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cash prize ($150,000 in season two) likely helps soften the blow. Szymanski says there is \u201cabsolutely\u201d professional aftercare offered to the hero after the reveal; the documentary conceit also allowed Norman to be offered support through filming, without giving the game away.<\/p>\n
But, Szymanski adds, it was sometimes tough on the cast, building real connections with him under false pretences. (James Marsden has spoken of his relief at being able to finally reveal to Gladden, after the season one finale, that he wasn\u2019t actually a self-involved moron.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I tell them \u2013 which is true \u2013 is that we have to view this as if we are throwing Anthony a big surprise party,\u201d says Szymanski. \u201cYou have to lie, and to keep some secrets, but if we do it right \u2026 he\u2019s excited, and loves it, and feels like it was all worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat premieres on Prime Video on 20 March with three episodes, followed by two episodes on 27 March, and a three-episode finale on 3 April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If ever there was a TV show that you\u2019d think should be left at a single season, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-347586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}