Three years ago, the quasi-scripted comedy “Jury Duty,” an unassuming offering on the now defunct streaming service Freevee, became a social-media sensation through its particular brand of gentle brazenness. Its creators, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, Frankensteined the series by stitching together two moribund TV genres—the mockumentary sitcom and the prank show—to construct something new, if still lumbering. Cameras followed a handful of actors serving as the jurors in a fake trial alongside one unwitting civilian, a thirty-year-old solar contractor named Ronald Gladden, who believed that he was taking part in a straightforward documentary about the workings of the justice system. Surrounded by weirdos, losers, and a preening movie star (James Marsden, playing a fame-monster version of himself), Ronald spent three eventful weeks on his very own “Truman Show.” At one point, he came perilously close to the truth, declaring, “This literally feels like reality TV.”
Since the days of “Candid Camera,” a practical-joke program that began on the radio in 1947 and jumped to television the following year, prank shows have been critiqued for their exploitative dynamics. “Jury Duty” strives to reassure the audience by portraying its production as a fair trade: though the show deceives its main character, it also presents him in a favorable light, takes pains to minimize his distress, and insures that jokes are never at his expense. (Gladden also received a hundred thousand dollars and an over-all deal at Amazon for his trouble.) The series’ carefully curated feel-good vibes seemed to exceed even the novel premise as the primary source of its appeal: one review praised its “life-affirming joy.” But that very quality renders the follow-up, the awkwardly titled “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat,” unnecessary. Like so many sitcoms before it, it withers under the force of its own unrelenting sunniness.
The sophomore season, now streaming on Prime Video, features a whole new cast, who play the tight-knit employees of a Los Angeles-based hot-sauce company called Rockin’ Grandma’s. Ronald’s successor at the center of the story is Anthony Norman, another young man with an open face and an inviting disposition. Early on, Anthony is told by the company’s H.R. chief, Kevin (Ryan Perez), that he’s been hired as a temp to help out at the annual staff retreat—the last such event for the firm’s founder, Doug (Jerry Hauck), who plans to retire. Poised to take over is his thirtysomething son, Dougie (Alex Bonifer), a failed ska-E.D.M. musician with a mop of bleached hair to match, who intends to implement some changes to the family business.
Season 2’s grander ambitions are evident from the start. While the original “Jury Duty” largely took place in a courtroom and in a hotel where the jurors were sequestered, leaving the cast drably entrapped, “Company Retreat” feels less cloistered. The employees of Rockin’ Grandma’s roam the grounds of the retreat site, which boasts multiple structures, and are visited by a series of guest speakers whose lectures range from the merely dull to the truly Dada. After Dougie bombs a presentation and gets dressed down by his father, he flees into the nearby hills to lick his wounds. The actors’ hours-long commitment to the bit continues through meticulously choreographed stunts and persists even when they leave Anthony’s sight line.
These hyper-dedicated cast members are “Company Retreat” ’s greatest asset. Rockin’ Grandma’s is compared, without irony, to a family, and its “employees” feel more distinctive than the stock types who populated the first season. The most memorable include a warehouse manager named Jimmy (Jim Woods), who’s intent on reforming his boorish ways but still can’t help blurting out faux pas, as when he calls Martin Luther King, Jr., “the Tom Brady of civil rights.” A receptionist and aspiring snack-fluencer, PJ (Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur), who offers Anthony some octopus-wasabi chips on his first day, could be the most popular guy in any workplace. Even Dougie, an inveterate screwup, isn’t without hidden depths—and Anthony, a natural hype man for whoever’s around, takes his plea for emotional support seriously, quickly becoming invested in a twisty succession crisis.