30 Days, a six-part television sequel to Super Size Me, warps the line between documentary and reality TV even further as it weaves through American culture. Each episode stages an everydude's-eye view of topics ranging from tabloid fodder (binge drinking and anti-aging techniques) to the more provocative (Islam and homosexuality). In the riveting first episode, Spurlock and girlfriend Alex take a vacation in other people's misery, literally, by spending a month surviving on minimum wage. It feels like a retort to The Simple Life. Instead of forcing Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie to adjust to the limits and deprivations of working people, the producers of that show encouraged them to wreak havoc on their hosts' carefully budgeted lives and wrinkle their perky noses at the icky things folks do to get by. Whereas Morgan and Alex approach their task earnestly, only to be crushed by the enormity of it all. With no savings, they can't afford a deposit on a decent apartment and end up in an ant-infested place over a former crack den.
"Home sweet hovel," Alex mutters after a day busing tables at a coffee shop where nobody tips. Having walked home in order to save on bus fare, our frail vegan chef settles down to a nightly dinner of canned beans and crackers she's stolen from work. Morgan rises before dawn to get to construction jobs where the take-home pay is $44 for 11 hours of exertion. He can pass for a good old boy thanks to his trucker's mustache and down-home drawl, but really he's so unaccustomed to physical labor that he injures himself. And because the pair has no health insurance in this painfully realistic scenario, the medical bills threaten to capsize their fragile budget.
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In the other five episodes, Spurlock restricts himself to voice-over commentary while we watch other wholesome American guys play lab rat on his behalf. There's the 37-year-old dad who whacks out his body with a 30-day regime of steroids and anti-aging serums (with effects similar to those Spurlock suffered after a month on his McDonald's diet) and the devout Christian insurance salesman who agrees to live as a Muslim in a Detroit suburb. http://www.villagevoice.com/screens/0524,tv1,64886,28.htmlWednesday on FX at 10PM EST. The article says it started last week but I believe that is wrong. I looked for it last Wednesday but caught only an ad for it saying "Wednesdays at 10".