An avid tv watcher wins a contest and the following months in his life are chronicled by a camera crew, minute by minute. To begin with, video store clerk Ed welcomes the attention, and the show is saving the cable station that gambled on its success. But gradually, as his family and friends become celebrities too, Ed finds a downside to his fame. He becomes estranged from his brother, encounters the father who left his family years before, and rifts emerge between his mother and her husband.