Fox Executive Is Thrilled That ‘Moment of Truth’ Is So Lousy

Like we told you yesterday, Wednesday night’s premiere of Fox’s new lie-detecting reality show The Moment of Truth earned huge ratings, scoring 23 million viewers, many of whom presumably fell asleep during American Idol and forgot to turn off their televisions. Unfortunately, a few critics (and Vulture!) stayed awake long enough to see it, and pretty much all penned savage reviews. Still, Mike Darnell, Fox’s VP of alternative programming, is undeterred: “They thought [Moment] was everything from boring, to vile, to boring and vile,” he told TV Week. “But generally speaking, if you have a critically acclaimed reality show, it’s not a big hit … [Moment] did not get good reviews, and I would have thought I had done something wrong if it did.”

He probably has a point about crappy reality TV being the only kind that gets ratings — last time we checked, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? was in no danger of cancellation — but Truth was so boring (and not nearly vile enough) that we actually started cleaning our apartment while it was on. And in March, if it lasts that long, it’s being moved to Wednesdays at 8 p.m. where it won’t have the benefit of Idol’s lead-in audience. We expect ratings to drop steadily until producers finally relent and give us the Moment of Truth: Celebrity Edition that we demand.

Fox’s Darnell Relieved Critics Dislike ‘Moment’ [TV Week]
Earlier: ‘The Moment of Truth’: We’d Be Lying If We Said We Enjoyed It