Spy TV Premiers with Yawns, Screams, and Few Laughs

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. The webmaster of another reality TV site had e-mailed me with her opinion of Spy TV before I had a chance to watch it on tape. She summed it up in one word: “Yawn.” Still, I persisted. After all, that’s what I’m here for.

For most of the show, I tend to agree with her. But I have to say that it did have its moments. Several times I found myself laughing (or at least snickering) in spite of myself. More often I found myself wondering just how corny the host, Michael Ian Black, could be. Just when I thought he’d hit the heights, he did another spot between segments in which he managed to go even further.

The tone was set at the beginning of the show, when he said that he was with an “elite team” of “highly trained operatives” inside the Spy TV mobile headquarters (read: an RV). C’mon, Mike, this isn’t Her Majesty’s Secret Service and you aren’t James Bond.

The point of the show, in case you didn’t already know, is to set up practical jokes that catch an unsuspecting victim in a bizarre situation. Then, copying Candid Camera right down to the punchline, they jump out and say, “You’re on Spy TV.

Both the first and last of the segments involve “revenge” against individuals, and I get the impression this will be part of the show’s ongoing theme. For example, the first dealt with Sean, whose friends say he drives too fast and out of control. So they set him up by telling him about somebody selling a car. In fact, the seller in question is a Hollywood stunt driver, and the whole neighborhood is filled with other Spy TV “operatives” and cameras.

As soon as Sean gets into the car, the stunt man takes off. At first, Sean is impressed as they do a quick spin. But Sean quickly gets rather scared as the driver almost hits a bicyclist, another car, and finally a police car. The “cop” (actually another Spy TV employee) tries to pull them over, but the driver takes Sean on a wild police chase. Sean goes nuts, begging and screaming for the driver to let him out. Part of this situation could have gotten out of hand quite quickly for this new show, because Sean took off his seat belt and was trying to open the car door. Imagine the news headline: “Man Killed as New Reality Show Prank Gets Out of Hand.” Luckily, that didn’t happen, but I sure hope the producers use it as a lesson for the future.

In any event, the driver eventually pulls over and ducks into a house, leaving poor Sean to take the rap. The “cop” has him put his hands on his head and walks him over to a van, where he says he has witnesses who will say whether Sean was driving or just a passenger. The back door of the van opens to find his friends and the Spy TV cameras. Sean is visibly relieved (wouldn’t you be?) and so ends the first segment of this new show.

The next segment is a much shorter one that is not aimed at any one particular person, but rather shows that trying to help will end up getting you made fun of on national television. There’s a message we want to tell the kids! It involved an apparently severely injured man in a remote-controlled wheelchair. The control (which actually doesn’t control anything) drops and various people try to help him. In fact, he directs it via hidden controls, so whenever somebody tries to help, he sends himself shooting and spinning off in random directions. This was one of the places I laughed in spite of myself. I’m sorry, but it really was pretty funny. In any event, at least nobody almost flung themselves out of a speeding car.

The following segment also made helpful people the target of a prank. The set-up is that a local supermarket is giving away a million dollars to their millionth customer. In two different cases, we see a young guy ask to go in front of an older (like 40s or 50s) man who has a lot of stuff to buy. The younger man asks to hop in front of the older because he just has one item and has a dog waiting in the car. The older man kindly obliges. But then the streamers shoot out and sirens ring as the younger guy is the millionth customer. A “reporter” comes out to give him his giant million-dollar check, while the man who let him go ahead stares incredulously (in both cases).

Also in both cases, the “winner” denies he cut in front. One of the men suggests they go settle it outside while the other says he’s going to sue for half. Before any violence can be commenced or lawyers called, the reporter announces that they are on Spy TV. Yippee. This was definitely not one where I laughed – it was just plain dull.

The final segment involved a husband, Nate, getting revenge on his wife, Keisha, for racking up over $1000 in psychic hotline calls. Keisha is a self-professed fanatic for anything supernatural, and they managed to get her to go to their “psychic,” Mistress Devin. Nate had provided her with information ahead of time so Keisha would fully believe in Devin’s powers (though from the looks of it, Keisha would have believed in pretty much anything anyway). Then, Devin tells Keisha that she can feel the power in Keisha as well. She asks Keisha to use the power to read her, and then agrees with everything Keisha says. Then she urges Keisha to use her mental abilities to move a candle sitting on a wall ledge behind Devin. Unbeknownst to Keisha, there is a Spy TV operative behind the wall, ready to move various objects with a powerful magnet.

Keisha looks very serious, like she’s straining herself to move the candle. Suddenly, it moves. She keeps moving that and other items, talking about how the effort is “draining” her. I admit that I laughed – if only at the ridiculous faces and statements this True Believer was making.

When Devin leaves the room for a minute, things start going nuts. Items move all over the place, and Keisha flees in panic. Devin brings her back to try to get rid of the negative energy. She has Keisha wear a ridiculous hat and say magic words while the lights flicker and items fly off shelves. Keisha again tries to run, but Devin brings her back.

Eventually, she has Keisha repeat magic words including, “You’re…on…Spy…TV.” It takes a few repetitions for Keisha to get it (after all, Spy TV is not exactly a household name like Candid Camera was), but when Nate walks in, she finally figures out she’s been had.

In closing, we find that Keisha has stopped making as many calls to psychic hotlines, but still sneaks a few in now and then. Nate was trying to teach her a lesson, but I’m not really sure what that lesson was. If you want to show somebody that psychic hotlines are bunk, pulling a prank on them is not the most effective way to do it – at least, not pulling a prank like this. All it showed her is that lots of people can get together to do these things – it doesn’t show that it only takes one non-psychic on the other end of a phone line to con her out of her money.

And what did the show, overall, tell the viewer? Well, I didn’t quite yawn throughout like the other webmaster did, but there were definitely some uninteresting and, well, stupid portions. Yes, there were a few laughs, but they couldn’t make up for the overall tone and the moronic overacting of the host. Spy TV might make it through the summer, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find it missing from the fall schedule.

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