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Must Watch reviews: Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.
This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan Naga Munchetty to review the new Netflix series Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action.

The two-part series looks at the rise of The Jerry Springer Show and how it became one of the biggest and most controversial TV hits of the nineties.

But aside from the fame, this programme aims to lift the lid on what happened behind the scenes, and how the producers created the most unflinchingly outrageous television show of its time.

Hearing from the people who made it, as well as those who featured on the show - a murkier picture begins to emerge of the destruction it caused - raising questions about who was responsible, and how far things should go in the name of entertainment.

What do the Must Watch Reviewers think of Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action?

Scott Bryan and Hayley Campbell give their views on Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action

Naga: “It was so new and what’s fascinating is it was born out of desperation. Is it a Must Watch?”

I wish it had been made before Jerry Springer died”

Hayley: “This, for me, is a Must Watch.

“I grew up watching Jerry Springer. It was on daytime TV so if you’re home from school you got to watch Jerry Springer. I thought this was a great watch but, and I know this is an impossible criticism, I wish it had been made before Jerry Springer died, which was only a couple of years ago.

“It felt like it was lacking his voice. But, I had a fun time watching this. I wish they had Steve, the main security guy, as a talking head [on the series] because I also miss him.”

Netflix

Scott: “He was the person who, always quite late, used to split apart the fights. They would be fighting for 6 seconds!”

Someone on the documentary called it the modern version of the Roman Colosseum”

Hayley: “People would chant for Jerry but would also chant for Steve so it felt like the two main guys weren’t there.

“Someone on the documentary called it the modern version of the Roman Colosseum and what stood out was the talk about the aftercare in reality TV because this is something we talk about a lot these days.

"It was so absent in the nineties and the noughties with horrific consequences in lots of different shows.

“This one focuses mostly on a love triangle that ended in a murder a couple of months after they were on the show which the show never took responsibility for.

“They do this trick at the end of the documentary that raises questions about what we want as viewers. It doesn’t answer or give solutions but at the end, one of the producers on the show says ‘there would be no documentary on Netflix without the man who married his horse or the love triangle that ended in murder - those are the reasons you tune in’.

“You sit there and think: ‘yes, that is why I watch this’.”

Netflix

Scott: “I agree - I think this is a Must Watch as well. Quite a surprise really because it was a two-parter and usually my main criticism for Netflix documentary series’ is that they’re too long. But for me ironically, this could’ve been longer.

“It looks at how this show came to be, in of its growing controversy. And seeing how it beat Oprah [in the ratings charts] because Oprah was the biggest daytime talk show ever and the show just grew and grew.

“It’s fascinating now because whenever something happens with a YouTuber that is very controversial, there’s a lot of headlines about that person and it actually helps that person as it gives them limelight.

“This happened with Jerry Springer when he got lots of criticism and even some s pulled one of the episodes for a feature called ‘I Married a Horse’.

Netflix
[The producers would] argue with [guests] and poke the bear”

Scott continues: “Hayley highlighted it really well in of this shows the dark side of appearing on these programmes. They have a media critic on this documentary who said that many of the people had real problems and it does not help to go onto a national TV show.

“This is something that we now know as a society but back then they didn’t think about that. They also thought ‘who cares as long as we’re having good ratings’.”

Naga: “It was what was going on behind the scenes in of how the producers geed them up. They would actually argue with them and poke the bear so they were so geed up by the time they went on - it’s so unethical.”

Scott: “One thing that I wish this documentary went into more is how much was real and how much was fake because there’s certainly some allegations that a lot of the fights were fake. They said they had adequately screened everything, but some slipped through the cracks. You only have to watch ten minutes of Jerry Springer to think ‘did that really happen?’

Naga: “And also, the pressure on the producers to produce good guests.

Hayley: “And very little time to vet them.”

Netflix

Scott: Six days a week of work, 14 hours a day with 200 episodes a year - burnout. You have people talking about the detrimental effect on their mental health.

The show taps into how Jerry Springer changed the culture”

“I like that the show taps into how Jerry Springer changed the culture. The moment this series came out it was like nothing is too embarrassing anymore. The whole media has changed because you can now say provocative, shocking things and have fights on TV and I think you can still see the footprints of that.

“This show had massive influence - everything from Jeremy Kyle to the Kardashians and a lot of ‘downmarket’ television can be traced right back to this show."

Naga: “I agree it's a Must Watch, particularly if you didn’t watch Jerry Springer. But I think there should have been more than two episodes.

“It flew by and left me with a lot of questions but I do think it’s a Must Watch, maybe more so for an insight into what TV was like back then and how that genre was created then rather than ‘is it entertaining?’.”

Hayley: “I’m actually surprised that this isn’t a documentary that happened 5 years ago, when Jerry was around.”

As always, we like to include your reviews - on shows you love, loathe or lament.

Message @bbc5live on social media using the hashtag #bbcmustwatch or email [email protected].

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