<\/p>\n
The creators of \u201cJury Duty\u201d performed nothing short of a miracle when a few short years ago, they successfully pitched and produced a reality-comedy hoax series that featured virtually zero marketable qualities \u2014 no guaranteed longevity, no IP-driven content, no low-budget structure. In fact, the project, whose premise depended on sustaining a false reality for one unknowing star, inherently risked self-destruction. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the only television shows that has ever been greenlit, that there\u2019s a very real prospect of it actually not reaching the end,\u201d co-creator Lee Eisenberg said. <\/p>\n
Eisenberg and his team breathed a massive sigh of relief when Ronald Gladden<\/a>, the everyman at the center of \u201cJury Duty,\u201d made it to the courtroom mockumentary\u2019s scripted final reveal: There was no trial, all of his fellow \u201cjurors\u201d were actually actors and the documentary Gladden believed was being filmed about the judicial process was actually a \u201cTruman Show\u201d-style TV experiment. (Don\u2019t worry, Gladden\u2019s $100,000 cash prize cushioned the blow of James Marsden\u2019s<\/a> betrayal.)<\/p>\n Then they struck lightning again. <\/p>\n \u201cJury Duty Presents: Company Retreat,\u201d premiering Friday with three episodes, takes the original show\u2019s staged reality premise to a new setting: a family-owned hot sauce company\u2019s annual retreat. Following an unwitting temp worker as he attempts to hold this splintering small business together, the new installment offers all the belly laughs of \u201cJury Duty\u201d \u2014 Eisenberg and his co-creator Gene Stupnitsky\u2019s writing credits on a pair of cult-favorite \u201cThe Office\u201d episodes, \u201cDinner Party\u201d and \u201cScott\u2019s Tots,\u201d help explain the top-tier comedy \u2014 but ups the ante with a set 10 times the size of its predecessor, a shuttered courthouse, and an ensemble cast charged with playing convincing longtime co-workers. <\/p>\n \u201cWe really wanted it to feel more cinematic, and then alongside that, we had to create so many backstories,\u201d Eisenberg said. \u201cPeople had to know each other\u2019s histories. They needed to know who got promoted instead of this person, and what someone does on the weekends, whereas in \u2018Jury Duty,\u2019 you\u2019re meeting a bunch of strangers. So it was a different type of lift.\u201d<\/p>\n With so much left to chance and improvisation, \u201cevery day, it could fall apart,\u201d Eisenberg said. <\/p>\n But that\u2019s also why it\u2019s exciting for producer Todd Schulman, who said that after working on these highly improvised shows, \u201cIt feels like cheating if both actors know what they\u2019re gonna say in a scene.\u201d <\/p>\n Below, Eisenberg and Schulman answer some of the biggest questions surrounding \u201cCompany Retreat.\u201d <\/p>\n The obvious answer to this question would be that, were the \u201cJury Duty\u201d creators to repeat the courtroom premise, their \u201chero\u201d would be far more likely to clock the ruse. But Schulman said inventing a new scenario wasn\u2019t so much about protecting their gambit as it was about inventing something new \u2014 and raising the stakes. <\/p>\n \u201cWe just felt like creatively, we had explored that terrain already,\u201d Schulman said. \u201cIt was more exciting, the idea of taking this same kind of conceit of a real person in a sitcom-like environment, and putting it in other worlds.\u201d<\/p>\nWhy is this season not \u2018Jury Duty\u2019 as we remember it?<\/h2>\n
Who is the \u2018hero,\u2019 the person who is not in on the ruse?<\/h2>\n