Time Bomb

The concept for Unan1mous is crude: lock nine people in an underground bunker and make them decide which one should receive a $1.5 million jackpot. The catch? Only one can win the money, and the decision must be… that’s right, unanimous. If anyone wants out, the prize is instantly divided in half.

Fox, the network who brought us My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé and sister network FX’s Black. White., is at it again: “social experimentation” with a vengeance. Unan1mous would have us believe we are looking at “everyday” people placed in an incredibly peculiar situation. But the participants are the most unusual thing about the show.

The demographically micromanaged Unan1mous, like most any “reality game” show worth the designation, rigs the contest with people poised to pick on each other. Competing with stories to sound “most deserving” are jocks and dorks, geeks and freaks, each with some obvious confrontational comportment. Gay Jameson takes an immediate dislike to religious zealot Kelly: from the start, their exchanges sounding like a Fox News Channel debate. But while our Jesus worshipper says she is only speaking “the truth,” what we hear sounds like bits of carefully edited emotional entrapment.

Other “storylines” are equally staged. A smarmy real estate salesman named Jonathan pretends to have testicular cancer so he can gain the group’s sympathy (and everyone appears to believe him). Steve, a loveable lunk of a truck driver, describes his destitute family in an accent that drips with deep-fried-cheesy poverty, while Richard, a 40-year-old temp, proclaims that, because he’s made the least of his life over the last couple of decades, no one deserves the money more than he does.

If such stories sound canned, the format certainly underlines the extensive preparation that goes into such a series. This includes screening for scandalous backgrounds (a process reportedly expanded across the network boards since CBS discovered one of the Big Brother participants had a hidden criminal record). Perversely, Unan1mous, makes the possibility of a contestant’s lying part of the “tension,” establishing early on that “horrible secrets” from the past will be one means of reducing the pool. Near the end of the opening episode, the players learned of an unethical bankruptcy filing, someone’s stint in a mental ward, and another who was detained numerous times for carrying live ammunition. They were then asked to debate which of these was the worst infraction, and disqualify the bearer of that humiliation.

Unan1mous participants are all potentially phonies, apparently reflecting the broader population, including viewers. It’s true that most of us hide or repress the less flattering aspects of our histories, and avoid those who want to expose such details about us. Because all Unan1mous players want to win money, the exposed secret-holders sway the conversation while the others register a kind of shocked schaedenfreude. But as we presume they all have dirty laundry that might be aired, the “there before the grace of God” looks on their faces suggest two things at once: relief that they’ve escaped this week, and dread that their own horrors will eventually come to light.

Like The Real World, Survivor, and their many imitators, this show pits “players” against and with one another: the contestants must manage new living arrangements, exist without the usual mental pit stops (clocks, music, TV, etc.) and create “alliances” to help find a means to the monetary ends. Since Fox has labeled it a “continuing” series—meaning the network won’t say when it ends—we may be stuck with these money-grubbing moles for weeks to come.

As the final seconds of the first episode ticked by, the players were told of the final “twist” in the game. After the first vote, the amount of the prize is reduced for every second that passes by without a decision. The only “enjoyment” we might derive is a burgeoning sense of superiority, as we realize that contestants will stoop ever lower in order to win an ever dwindling windfall. Here’s hoping they never agree and so get exactly what they deserve: nothing.