Fridge / The Steve Wilkos Show

Fridge Brilliance

• Steve not allowing the accused to sit on his stage, essentially treating the guest as being "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" makes sense when you remember at his core Steve is a cop. Long story short: If you are asked to stand up from your chair, Steve no longer sees you as a guest being interviewed. You are now a suspect under his interrogation.

Fridge Horror

• The men who have been falsely accused of molestation and/or rape of their children, only for the show's lie detector test to prove that their ex-girlfriend/ex-wife made up the allegations in an act of revenge – simply because they couldn't accept that the relationship was over – could very well have had their lives irrevocably damaged because of their exes' scorn. Not only could they have lost contact with their children permanently, but they also could have been imprisoned for years, have had to register as sex offenders, and faced constant judgement by others for the rest of their lives for a crime they didn't even commit.
  • Not to mention how hard it would be to find a job if they did register as a sex offender.
• Lie detectors have been proven to be inaccurate in real life, meaning that those who have been "proven" to be guilty of pedophilia, rape, domestic abuse, and other things by Steve's lie detector tests might actually be innocent. There's usually some circumstantial evidence to suggest that the test results are probably accurate, but not always.
  • Inversely, there are people who are skilled enough to beat a lie detector test, meaning that people who told the truth and thus were shown to be innocent actually were guilty. It would be a small number, but it’s possible that a number of people on this show are indeed rapists, child molesters, and domestic abusers who got away clean on national television and continued their crime sprees.
  • The show's producers claim that their test is among the most accurate out there, and Dan's undoubtedly an experienced examiner; but even if it's 99% accurate, that's still one false result out of a hundred, which is not an insignificant number considering just how many tests have been administered.
• Shocking Molestation Accusations - Jessica was very quick to physically confront her brother Rubin, who she accused of molesting her son. But when it turns out that it wasn't Rubin but her friend Terrell who did so, while she is devastated, she doesn't even confront him, as the most she does is say that she's "done." Given that she brings up Rubin's "questionable" sexuality, it's possible that prejudice if not outright homophobia played a factor in her actions.
• Our 16-Year-Old Surrogate Stole Our Baby - While there were plenty of laughs in the episode (Mostly at the husband's expense), it doesn't change the fact that a homeless 16-year-old girl who was a single mother was essentially raped by coercion by a man at least twice her age and Steve and the audience were joking about her situation.