Generally, when TV people venture out into the real world in search of content—like with those irritating “JayWalking” bits, that racist segment from Fox News last week, or that grossly manipulative What Would You Do? show on ABC—the goal is to make normal people look silly or self-involved for the benefit of the ostensibly non-silly/self-involved people at home. Now, though, NBC has come up with a way that keeps normal people involved without making them look bad and saves the network from having to pay too many of those greedy writers and actors. Titled Common Sense, this new comedy project seems to be based around the idea that regular people have a lot of interesting thoughts on today’s current events, and just because they’re not experienced TV hosts or comedians doesn’t make those thoughts any less valid. Clearly that’s absurd, but this is NBC we’re talking about.
According to Variety, Common Sense will send cameras into “workplaces, restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, and bars” to pick up on “candid, unfiltered opinions from a cast of recurring characters” about the hottest news of the week. We’re not sure what “recurring characters” means, as the Variety story specifically says “real people” multiple times, but maybe it just indicates that the unfiltered opinions offered up every episode will come from the same groups of people. That’s probably a reasonable decision, since simply taking a camera into a bar and asking questions would just get you a lot of jerks yelling, “Baba Booey.”
NBC hasn’t announced a premiere date or production start date for Common Sense, so maybe it’s waiting until this whole Donald Trump thing blows over before going out and asking people to talk about current events.