In order to actually function, the series Jury Duty/Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat sets up the idea that a crew is shooting a documentary – which not only explains the presence of cameras to the unknowing "hero," but also opens the door to them self-recording and share their thoughts on everything that's going on. That being said, the whole experiment wouldn't be nearly as fun/interesting if the show's subject was aware of constantly being filmed, and the lengths taken for the camerapeople to stay hidden during the shoot were definitely impressive.
Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur, who audiences have got to know as P.J. Green on Jury Duty Presents: Corporate Retreat, shared the details of the cast's interaction with the crew with CinemaBlend during a virtual interview last month, and the work is definitely impressive in retrospect. Out of fear that Anthony Norman might discover what was going on and potentially ruining the show, the castmates only had limited personal interactions throughout the experience, and he explained how meetings were held before the crew went into hiding:
When we got to the retreat, we were all just living together. So they would send him on little errands in the morning and in the evening. And that's when we'd have our powwow with production. And then they'd hide in trees and trash and trucks and trucks, and then we would do the day, and then they'd send them on to get dinner, and then we they'd come back out and then they'd leave, and we had to stay and just have dinner with him and be friends and like, do like activities, like sound bath and candle making. It was truly a family thing.
As noted in the Jury Duty Presents: Corporate Retreat finale (now available to stream with an Amazon Prime subscription), the new season was a much more ambitious effort than the first season, as the campus on which the cast and crew were shooting was much larger. In retrospect, it's impressive that they were able to cover so much ground, get every bit of material they needed, and not let the big secret get out before the final reveal, and one has to love the dedication of the crewperson posted up in a trash can.
It's obviously amazing that the whole show worked out, and the end of Jury Duty Presents: Corporate Retreat is both funny and emotional – but after two successful runs of the televised experiment, there's a part of me that wants to see what would happen if everything went wrong. It would be a pretty killer twist if there was a moment in a season three the "hero" peers into a group of trees and spots a camera secretly recording them.
While the future of Jury Duty/Jury Duty Presents isn't clear at the moment, fans of the show have more to enjoy coming later this week. In addition to the eight episodes currently streaming, two specials will be uploaded to watch this Friday, April 10: a meeting between Anthony Norman and Ronald Gladden from Jury Duty Season 1, and a reunion special hosted by James Marsden.
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