--- description: Amazon Freevee's delightful new mockumentary series turns an everyday American experience into a hilarious reality TV experiment. title: Why You Should Be Watching 'Jury Duty' image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1fca78a36aac62e/698a3c47d075337595e6df47/The-cast-of-22Jury-Duty.22.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Television](/tag/television/) ## Television Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Why _Jury Duty_ Is the Show You Should Watch Right Now  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Apr 26, 2023 7:29 PM CUT  The cast of Jury Duty The cast of Jury DutyAmazon Freevee  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Apr 26, 2023 7:29 PM CUT If you haven’t yet tuned in to _Jury Duty_, this is your sign to start watching the delightful new [Amazon](https://time.com/6273659/dead-ringers-amazon-prime-rachel-weisz/ "undefined") Freevee show. Created by producers of _Bad Trip_ and [_The Office_](https://time.com/5763852/best-the-office-memes/ "undefined"), the eight-episode mockumentary series turns an everyday American experience into a hilarious [reality TV](https://time.com/6201090/how-we-chose-the-50-most-influential-reality-tv-seasons-of-all-time/ "undefined") experiment. _Jury Duty_ explores the progression of a [civil trial](https://time.com/6196754/text-messages-evidence-court-privacy/ "undefined") in California through the eyes of one very special juror, Ronald Gladden. While filming for 17 days in 2021, Gladden believed he was serving on a sequestered jury, while participating in a documentary. Little did he know that everyone else involved in the process, from his fellow jurors to the bailiff to the judge, were actors, all performing a series of partly-scripted, partly-improvised antics. Gladden turns out to be the perfect subject for the comedy docuseries. An easygoing, genuine, and amenable participant simply doing his best to be a good citizen, he bonds with his fellow jurors, including a range of people from a narcissistic, self-involved version of James Marsden (played by Marsden himself) to Todd Gregory (David Brown), a lovable oddball who, in one of the series’ best moments, Gladden decides would [benefit from watching Pixar’s _A Bug’s Life_.](https://twitter.com/SydneyBattle/status/1648031049417654272 "undefined")  Ronald Gladden and James Marsden in Jury Duty Amazon Freevee “One of the things we talked about from the beginning was we wanted a show that never felt like it was punching down and felt optimistic, that had the tropes and the tone of something like _The Office_ but really had a warmth and an optimism to it as well,” series co-creator Lee Eisenberg told [_Vulture_](https://www.vulture.com/article/jury-duty-interview.html "undefined"). “When we saw Ronald’s tape, we couldn’t believe it. He’s such a nice guy. He’s funny, he’s charming, he’s witty. That’s what we had hoped for.” Executive producer Todd Schulman went on to explain how they found Gladden by putting out a Craigslist ad. “We went with Craigslist because it is a kind of democratic process,” he told _Vulture_. “If you go through casting, you’re going to find a lot of actors. We wanted to get people who were genuine human beings living in the real world, not people in the Hollywood ecosystem.” Gladden—who found out what was really going on while shooting the end of the show—even had a little trouble getting back to his real life after learning he had been secretly filmed. “After everything was revealed and then after I came home for the weekend, I started getting paranoid,” he told [_TV Guide_](https://www.tvguide.com/news/jury-dutys-ronald-gladden-thought-he-was-still-being-filmed-after-the-show-ended/ "undefined"). “I started freaking out and I was like, ‘I feel like I’m being followed,’ so I was texting James \[Marsden\] and I was telling him this. James just being the wonderful person that he is, he called me up. We talked on the phone for like 30-45 minutes and he just helped me accept reality, accept fate. He reassured me there were no cameras following me around and he really helped me start working through those emotions.” Since premiering on April 7, _Jury Duty_ has blown up on TikTok, with fans of the series creating [fancam edits](https://www.tiktok.com/@jus.zoe/video/7225340049259253035?%5Fr=1&%5Ft=8bp67Zfgsyg "undefined") of Gladden and the hashtag #JuryDutyOnFreevee garnering over 206 million views on the platform. “This is not even an ad I’m just urging u to watch bc it’s a hilarious show,” one user captioned a [popular TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@keshascastle/video/7219733026379418922?is%5Ffrom%5Fwebapp=1&sender%5Fdevice=pc&web%5Fid=7154097921939998251 "undefined") that has received more than 3.2 million likes. Gladden himself now has over 94 thousand followers on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/sunnyg%5Fsd/ "undefined"), a development that’s apparently come as a shock to him. “I really didn’t think a lot of people were gonna see this,” he told [_GQ_](https://www.gq.com/story/ronald-gladden-jury-duty?utm%5Fsocial-type=owned&utm%5Fmedium=social&mbid=social%5Ftwitter&utm%5Fbrand=gq&utm%5Fsource=twitter "undefined"). “That’s one of the reasons I was okay with doing this. And then while we were doing it, once I realized that James was gonna be in it, I was like, ‘Okay, maybe a few million people might end up seeing this because we’ve got a Hollywood superstar now.’ But I never, I never imagined it’d be like this.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6274702/jury-duty-show-amazon-freevee/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6274702/jury-duty-show-amazon-freevee/"},"headline":"Why Jury Duty Is the Show You Should Watch Right Now","datePublished":"2023-04-26T19:29:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:53:19.616Z","description":"Amazon Freevee's delightful new mockumentary series turns an everyday American experience into a hilarious reality TV experiment.","url":"https://time.com/6274702/jury-duty-show-amazon-freevee/","keywords":["Television","Explainer","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1fca78a36aac62e/698a3c47d075337595e6df47/The-cast-of-22Jury-Duty.22.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1fca78a36aac62e/698a3c47d075337595e6df47/The-cast-of-22Jury-Duty.22.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Jury-Duty-Cast","caption":"The cast of 'Jury Duty'","creditText":"Amazon Freevee","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6274702/jury-duty-show-amazon-freevee/","name":"Why Jury Duty Is the Show You Should Watch Right Now"}}]}] ```