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Andrew Dembina

30 Days

Director: Morgan Spurlock

The series: The premise in this FX TV channel reality show is to pluck people from their everyday world, set them a real-life challenge for 30 days and see how they bear up.

Why 30 days - Spurlock (below) honestly explains in episode one that this is how long he spent famously eating McDonald's fodder in his Academy Award-nominated 2004 documentary Super Size Me. So, no arbitrary time frame here but  one that plays on previous success, which can be easily cross-referenced for promotional use.

However, the scenarios, linked

by Spurlock's appearances to supply additional research on the variety of selected US social topics,

add up to slickly constructed, informative and entertaining viewing that needs little marketing - so much so that a second series is under way.

Most commonly, participants are chucked  into an alien context. There is the  practising Christian who is thrown into the home of a Muslim family in  an Islamic neighbourhood to learn about the faith. 30 Days' rules order him to wear full orthodox Islamic male attire from the start. Though Caucasian, in this garb his fellow white Americans - including immigration officials - treat him somewhat differently than he is used to.

In another programme, a small-town young homophobic gent is treated to the lifestyle afforded by a gay flatmate who resides in Castro, San Francisco's  gay quarter.  His stay kicks off with a daunting dinner with 12 of his flatmate's gay friends, in which he is  grilled about the absence of gayness in his life, that he gets  little chance to make lifestyle inquiries of

his own.

In a departure from jumping into another world, another instalment chronicles a podgy forty-something man trying to regain his old chiselled physique. Mood swings from hormone injections begin to cause marital problems.

Spurlock does not spare himself some hardship and even ropes in his fiancee, Alex Jamieson, who - despite the torments of Super Size Me - has stuck with him. The lucky girl  must live with Spurlock with no other money gained other than whatever the couple can muster from minimum-wage jobs (that pay some US$7 per hour). Can they make the month without falling

into debt? Not surprisingly, the misery soon sets  in. While Jamieson

lets herself get down, Spurlock's innate upbeat temperament saves both their descents into depression - perhaps he simply keeps the 30-day time frame in mind, hardly a permanent ordeal.

The extras: All but two of the six episodes have optional audio commentary tracks. All have video diaries kept by Spurlock.

The verdict: Presuming that no direction  was given to participants, much of this is as engaging as a reality show can get. Spurlock  is a natural, witty presenter; he takes on some interesting social topics but his right-on jibes  are a little predictable.



30 Days