CRINGE-inducing televi sion takes a big jump tonight when Fox debuts the controversial new quiz show “The Moment of Truth.”
The show, an international sensation that began in 2006 on South American TV, puts a contestant in the hot seat to answer highly personal and probing questions.
The catch?
Contestants know every answer, having already gone through all the questions earlier, while hooked up to a lie detector. For every question they answer truthfully, they win more money. As much as $500,000.
Get just one wrong, and they go home empty-handed. “It’s much more than a game,” says host Mark Walberg. “The attention that we give these topics and the emotions they evoke could easily be on ‘Jerry Springer‘ or ‘Oprah Winfrey‘,” he says. “We try and give it the sensitivity and thoroughness that it deserves.”
Last year, Colombian TV yanked the show off the air after a woman admitted she wanted to hire a hit-man to kill her husband. Public outcry forced authorities to reinstate it several weeks later.
Promos airing on Fox have revealed contestants wrestling with questions like: “Do you find any of your wife’s best friends sexually attractive?” or “While at your current job, have you ever touched a female coworker inappropriately?”
Meanwhile, the network has elected not to give review copies of “The Moment of Truth” to critics, in hopes of building more suspense for the debut.
Instead, Walberg and lie detector pro Nick Savatano (“Meet My Folks,” “Temptation Island“) gave The Post an all-too-real taste of what it’s like to be on the hot seat.
According to Nick (who has administered the test to all the contestants on the show) and his spooky machine, I discovered that I believe I’m smarter than some of the people I grew up with – even the ones who went to Ivy League schools. (I didn’t.)
I scored some points very early on when I answered, truthfully, that I cared about the situation in Darfur. But just before the test I scanned the Internet and found a few methods that supposedly can help you beat a polygraph.
Some may have actually worked. And some didn’t.
For instance, Nick asked me if I would turn in a family member I knew was guilty of murder. I said I wouldn’t – but was caught in a lie.
“Overall, you’re a pretty truthful guy,” Nick said.