MTV has a reputation of airing inappropriate and over-dramatic TV shows, such as Jersey Shore. The hit new show Catfish: The TV Show, however, is nothing like the predictable, cheesy, and explicit shows on MTV.

      Catfish: The TV Show  is a show about Yaniv Schulman, Max Joseph, and their film crew helping people meet their internet friends or partners. The circumstances are always rather shady: the person the show follows has some sort of an online relationship, but the person has never met, video chatted with, or even spoken on the phone with the mysterious friend or partner.

      “The idea is that I will read an email that was sent to me, and I read it for the first time on the show. I will then call the person for the first time, and what I hear from them is what I will know and I won’t know anything different until we show up on the doorstep of the person we are going to meet,” Schulman said to I Am Rogue, or IAR. “So my reactions are also genuine and I’ll go through whatever surprise, or happiness, or sadness anybody else on the show is going through too.”

      The show always starts out with Schulman reading an email from the person being “catfished.” Then Schulman and Joseph fly out to the person to  begin investigating. The investigation is one of the most interesting parts. The two search the internet for the mystery friend’s name, contact anyone on the person’s Facebook page, call the places the person said they work at, and search for the pictures online, just to name a few of their methods.

      Schulman and Joseph tell the “catfished” person their findings, and then set up a meeting time and place with the mystery person, usually with much hesitation of the person. After that, the suspense is at an all time high while the audience waits to see whether or not the person was honest or a fake.

      “I’ll connect them for the first time in real life to discover, uncover, and reveal who they really are and have that essential face-to-face opportunity to be with one another for better or worse. My role will not only be as the facilitator of them meeting up, but more importantly a mediator, someone who is there to act as an in between should things get difficult or too emotional, to not take sides and judge but to just simply be there to offer advice,” Schulman said to IAR.

      Catfish: The TV Show came after Catfish: The Movie. The movie is a documentary about Schulman’s experience getting “catfished.” The movie and show are similar in format. Schulman fell for a girl on the internet, which he thought was Megan, a girl his age. When he went to her house, he found out Megan was actually Angela, a woman who was much older than him and turned out to be married. After the documentary received much attention, Schulman and Joseph started Catfish: The TV Show to help people who want to meet the person they have an online relationship with, like Schulman did.

      “I was starting to get emails from people. They were saying that they saw the movie and really enjoyed it, but more often than not they were from people who were really reaching out to me and saying, ‘Wow, your film moved me because I had a similar experience. I spent some time involved with someone over the Internet who I never met. I was close to meeting them but it never happened, and I never heard from them again,’” Schulman said to IAR.

      At the end of the episode, Schulman and Joseph Skype with both the “catfished” person and the mystery person to see where they are at in their lives. Sometimes, they both have  moved on, while other times, they are back to where they started. On some occasions, they stay together. It is exciting to see how things work out, especially after a relationship of lies, as was the case in a few episodes.

      The show is a good break from typical reality TV. It looks and feels genuine as well as unscripted. Both Schulman and Joseph are comical, which helps break up the tension every once in a while. They also incorporate the audience, which is different than a lot of reality shows. It feels as though you are part of the whole process. You find the evidence at the same rate they do, and you are just as suspicious of the online person.

      While Catfish is entertaining, it also teaches a lesson: don’t trust everything– or everyone– on the internet.