MTV Punk'd - The Complete First Season
MTV's guerilla version of television pranking makes sadistically compelling entertainment. Host, co-creator, and mastermind Ashton Kutcher's unprecedented attack on celebrity egos--via con jobs so elaborate they might have been lifted from episodes ofMission: Impossible--can certainly make one cringe and perhaps fret over the show's dubious ethics. But there's no question of a highway-accident appeal to many ofPunk'd's practical jokes, including the first season's assaults on actress Eliza Dushku (shattered after being set up to look like a shoplifter) and Justin Timberlake (devastated when he finds faux IRS agents confiscating his house, possessions, and pets). Stephen Dorff, on the other hand, won't put up with a falsified bar tab for $8,000, and Seth Green protests a fake vice cop's insinuation that the diminutive actor betrayed his friends. Less monstrous isPunk'd's 8-year-old confederate, Ryan, a spurious reporter who solicits hugs from the likes of Tori Amos and Christina Applegate.--Tom Keogh