I will now look at life as if someone might be pranking me one day if I ever get asked to participate in a documentary series. Jury Duty follows a jury, mainly Ronald Gladden, as they have to take part in a court case, only everyone is an actor except for Ronald Gladden who is essentially being pranked.
Jury Duty, by producers of The Office Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, is a fantastic surprisingly good comedy show. If you like the town hall scenes from Parks and Recreation, this is for you.
The comedy show’s cast all melds together really well and the first episode’s choosing of the jury almost makes you wish that some characters would’ve stayed on. The character or person who stands out the most is James Marsden which is also the reason why he stands out in the actual events of the show as well. James Marsden plays himself and wants to get out of jury duty because he has a big upcoming movie to prepare for and him in the background preparing for it are little snippets of gold.
What the show lacks in a typical storyline, because this is meant to be like real events, the show makes up for its randomness. It is clear that the show has a script for the rest of the cast but then moments are set up by Ronald which helps the show to be a little more unpredictable.
One of my favourite moments is Ronald watching Marsden’s films and Marsden complaining he watched it in a way that meant he didn’t get any royalties from it. Or Ronald showing the weird guy A Bugs Life to tell him it’s alright to be weird and so the next day he is even weirder.
The first four episodes of Jury Duty are out on Amazon Prime with four more out next week. Jury Duty is a show that I happily found out about recently and I’m glad I did as I have been craving some original comedy, something different and Jury Duty is that. Something to just sit and laugh about this intriguing situation and think about how you yourself would react to these people in this situation.
Jury Duty is masterfully put together and serves to show what can happen when you put together a group of people from all over with different lives and backgrounds. As Ronald puts it in the first episode “I’m just looking forward to getting to know everyone”. Oh, Ronald, you’re lucky (you got to hang out with James Marsden) and an unlucky person.
Score: 4/5 Jurors.