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A fascinating counterpart to his Academy Award nominated
feature film “Super Size Me” where writer/director/star
Morgan Spurlock gorged himself on McDonald’s fast food to
check the health benefits of America’s life style, “30 Days”
takes participants and allows them to experience other people’s
lives for a month. Generally I’m not a big fan of reality
shows—they’re designed to be cheap entertainment and all
too frequently live up to that definition. “30 Days” falls
into that category but also has a sociological aspect to
it as well elevating it beyond gimmick television into more
of the documentary arena. Featuring only the six episodes
that ran for the first season, “30 Days” is often gripping
if gimmicky ent ertainment that also poses lots of questions
for viewers and participants. ***
The pilot features Spurlock relocating to the Midwest
where he tries living on the National minimum wage. He finds
it nearly impossible and a struggle to stay alive on what
our government considers a “livable” wage. There are other
fascinating episodes including one where a straight man
must live as a gay man in the Mecca for homosexuality San
Francisco. One episode features a man in his middle aged
man who tries to regain his youthful demeanor by taking
injections of various chemicals and Testosterone. It takes
a physical toll much like what happened to director Spurlock
when he ate McDonald’s Happy Meal’s all the time. Even religion
isn’t off base as we also get one episode where a Christian
must learn the basics and essentials of living as a Muslim
making them appreciate the cultu ral and religious differences
that shape us every day. There’s also an episode where a
mom starts binge drinking to understand what it’s like for
her college age daughter. We see the impact it has on her
and the family as well as the daughter’s reaction. Her daughter
isn’t a casual drinker but someone that is on the road to
becoming an alcoholic.
Image & Sound:
The show was shot on video and often uses camcorders
for the daily video diaries kept by participants so doesn’t
always look top notch. That’s part of the look of the show
and keeps the authentic flavor of the series and concept
unlike “Survivor” and other series of that type. Overall
the look of the show is solid but again keep in mind this
isn’t supposed to look like “Survivor” and you’ll enjoy
the content much more if you’re less than critical about
the look. Audio is clear although again because some of
this is shot with camcorders, etc. the audio is occasionally
muffled. ---
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