noteworthy wrote:
We are a mere step away from live-televised, ad-supported street-level drug busts, filmed Candid Camera style, with a goofy sidekick popping out of nowhere to exclaim, with hands on cheeks in mock shock, "Oops!" as the sucker is handcuffed and deposited into the back of the police cruiser. The show could be called "Live Raid", or simply "Busted". Think of it as Room Raiders meets Cops meets Deal or No Deal.
You could also do a riff on Elimidate, wherein four women are paired with a convicted offender, then simply let the cameras roll! (With a uniformed bust crew in tow, of course. Can't be too cautious ...) The twist here is that three of the women are confederates, and paid professional actors; the fourth woman is in the dark, and so she is the real contestant on the show. The viewer's challenge is to identify the contestant among the women before she learns the true identity of her 'date' and ruins the party. The actors' challenge is for each to be eliminated in turn, so that in the last stage, the contestant "wins"; but in doing so, they should not prematurely reveal themselves to the audience as confederates.
You could also do a "suspense" version where the viewers are "in" on the conspiracy, and the question is whether the contestant will learn the truth before the date is done.
For safety and insurance reasons, of course, you might want to just use an actor for the male role, too.
What I don't get is, if there isn't a real minor involved in these stings, what crime are they being accused of? They were convicted for soliciting sex from an adult who was using a minor for their profile. It would seem that both parties were guilty of using children as sexual objects.
