Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous

Premise

Zach Stone, an 18-year-old high school graduate from Boston, opts to pursue his dream to reach the life of fame and stardom instead of attending college. Thanks to his saving income from his grocery store job over the last couple of years, he hires a camera crew from MTV to film him throughout his daily life as a part of his quest to become an over-night celebrity, even though he possesses no real talent. From Zach's attempts to become a celebrity chef or a ring-tone recording artist or purposely going missing, he will try any avenue he can to get noticed and stop at nothing until he reaches fame. He has the entire summer vacation to get noticed and to hang out with his friends before they all leave to go to college.

Background

The series was commissioned in September 2010 by MTV. Variety magazine reported that MTV had ordered a half-hour-long television "put pilot", from Burnham "about a kid fresh out of high school who's pursuing the new American dream of being a celebrity without having any talent." The show was inspired by a study that polled graduating high school seniors on their possible career paths, and 40% chose "famous" as opposed to extraordinarily low numbers for more realistic choices, such as "doctor". The pilot was filmed in 2011, while the rest of the season was filmed over the course of 2012. Burnham initially felt the show to be a dark, satirical comedy that slams the title character for having "shallow priorities," but grew to feel the character more a product of the culture surrounding him. The show was primarily inspired by the original British The Office, The Larry Sanders Show and The Comeback.

Cast and characters

Recurring

Themes

Zach Stone spoofs youth culture, celebrity and the pursuit of fame. Outwardly, the character of Zach Stone projects the image he feels will most make him famous and casts a thin layer over his true feelings. Stone, in reality, is completely insecure and the idea of fame presents a "fix-all" to him.

International broadcast

Ratings

Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous struggled in the ratings during its run. The series premiered to 650,000 viewers and saw its numbers decrease to half of that midway through its season. The show originally aired at 10:30 p.m. on Thursdays, but was moved to 11 p.m. in June 2013 to expand its dwindling audience. MTV scheduled its eighth and ninth episodes to air back to back, and burned off the following three the next week. MTV officially cancelled the series on June 26, 2013.

Critical response

Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous has received mixed reviews from television critics. Brian Lowry of Variety wrote, "While the concept is hardly original [...] the series still feels fresh and timely," adding, "this single-camera satire zeroes in on a burning, warped desire to be famous that MTV, as much as anyone, has stoked and exemplified. [...] Indeed, even MTV appears oddly oblivious to the ironies of this dichotomy." Entertainment Weekly called the pilot a "promising debut," positively reviewing Burnham's portrayal of the titular character: "Because there’s an inherent empathy to the character, it’s a delight watching him strive and fail to make the mundane ordinariness of his suburban reality sexy." While noting the premise of parodying reality shows covered no new ground, The New York Times did commend the show's attempt to aim "straight for the dark underbelly of all these fantasies. It’s one thing to put on a show; it’s another to do so to mask huge holes within."

Pilot Viruet of The A.V. Club noted that the character's "off-camera moments," such as his appeasement of girl-next-door Amy in the pilot, were more satisfying than watching "a completely abhorrent character do awful thing after awful thing. [...] It’s clear that the writers (and Zach) are so knowledgeable of this particular world that the end result is smarter than you’d expect the average reality show send-up to be." Newsday called the show "almost too clever, funny and ironic for MTV," also praising the show's softer moments: "Zach is both commentary and send-up of the ephemera that MTV and the Internet at large celebrate -- then instantly forget. [...] But there's a core gentleness here, too, and while Zach's frenetic attention span is extremely splintered, he still manages to be relatable."

In contrast, David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle felt that the show "is more noisy than funny," comparing it to Burnham's beginnings posting videos to YouTube from his bedroom: "His bedroom videos were weird, too, but funny-weird, not I-need-an-Excedrin weird." Hank Stuever of The Washington Post gave the series a scathing review, claiming that "this show is so bad, it’s beneath even MTV." Describing the series as irritating, he continues, "One thing about MTV’s so-called original programming is that it is often a safe refuge for the criminally unoriginal. I would like to point out that we can extradite Burnham back to reality and prosecute him as an adult."