If you caught last night’s episode of the new game show, Moment of Truth then you surely saw what happened when contestant Lauren was asked some questions about her marriage. Things didn’t go so well for her (or her husband) and tonight, Access Hollywood spoke with Moment of Truth host, Mark L. Walberg about the episode.
Before we get to that though, let’s recap for those of you who missed the episode: The way Moment of Truth works is, before sitting across from the host on stage the contestant answers a bunch of questions while hooked up to a polygraph. Then Walberg asks the contestant whatever questions the producers selected of the questions the contestant was asked. The contestant will answer yes or no to the questions and if their answer matches what the polygraph determined, they advance further in the game. If they refuse to answer a question or their answer conflicts with what the polygraph determined, they get nothing.
Oftentimes the contestant’s family is present while the questions are being asked and on occasion, someone the contestant knows will ask the actual question, thus heightening the intensity of the show. There’s a lot of build-up with intense music and dramatic pauses thrown in to keep the rounds interesting. After watching an episode or two of this show, I decided that it made me feel more uncomfortable than entertained so I gave it up.
Anyway, apparently on last night’s episode, Lauren, a married twenty-something, was asked a couple of questions regarding her feelings about her ex-boyfriend and her faithfulness to her husband, who was sitting nearby watching as the show was being taped. Not only did Lauren admit some things that surely put her marriage in jeopardy, but she also ended up not winning any money because one of her answers conflicted with the polygraph.
Here’s part of the episode:
When Walberg talked to Access Hollywood about it tonight, he made mention of the fact that the contestants know the questions before they get onto the stage, so it’s not like they’re surprised by the questions. But he seemed to have a hard time understanding why Lauren went forward with the questions, saying, “I don’t have any problem of the fairness aspect of it. I have a problem with her judgment of then choosing to do it.” Walberg went on to say, “I know people are going to think I was BS-ing but the truth is, I was begging her to stop.”
Here’s the thing. The show is designed to be a trainwreck, right? I mean they’re not going to have contestants on there that have nothing to hide. After a quick peek at Wikipedia’s Moment of Truth page, I noted that in the first handful of episodes that have aired, no one’s gotten past the $100,000 mark. The grand prize is $500,000. So if the questions are already getting into seriously life-altering territory at the $100k mark, what kinds of questions are being saved for the final round? And if Walberg was telling the truth when he said he wanted Lauren to stop, how’s he going to manage it when a contestant does inevitably make it to that final round?
What do you think about Moment of Truth? Are you totally hooked on it or does the series make you feel too uncomfortable to be entertained?
