Director Morgan Spurlock raised the ire of Ronald McDonald a couple of years back when he released his Academy Award nominated documentary, "Super Size Me." The documentary followed Spurlock, who at the time was pretty healthy guy, as he conducted an experiment into the eating habits Americans have developed because of the existence of fast food restaurants. For 30 days he ate a diet that consisted only of food bought at McDonald's. He would only 'Super Size' when asked, but otherwise stuck only to their menu. During the course of the experiment he continued going to his doctors, who would give him routine checkups to see how his health was holding up. Needless to say, over the course of the 30 days, he gained a lot of weight, felt like crap most of the time and ended up with a very fat-enriched liver.

The film was huge hit with audiences, who were being taught something they should have known all along, but brought the wrath of McDonald's down on his head. In the end however, the experiment proved his point (and quite possibly caused McDonald's to end its 'super sizing' program). Following the success of his documentary, Spurlock reinvented the idea and created the TV show "30 Days" for FX, which took on other issues with their own experiments.

The six episodes that made up the first season ran through a wide range of subjects including how difficult it is to live on minimum wage, how straight men view the gay lifestyle and the Muslim way of life in America. Spurlock and his fiancée were only directly involved in the first episode's experiment, where they set up Ohio to see if they can live off of a minimum wage paycheck ($5.15 and hour) for 30 days. The other episodes use other people as the subjects, for example in "Straight Man in a Gay World", a young homophobe is brought in to live as a gay man's roommate in a very trendy gay neighborhood. In "Muslims and America" a Christian lives and worships with a Muslim family. To say that these experiments are fascinating is an understatement.

Fox is releasing a 2-disc DVD set of "30 Days", and having seen the series already on TV, the best reason for checking it out are the extra features. The most interesting of these are 'lost diary-cams' that include additional footage for each episode, shot by the participants in the experiments. You'll also find commentaries by Spurlock, some of the producers and the participants on four of the episodes.

"30 Days" is one of the few 'reality shows' that I have actually taken the time to watch. In part because I can appreciate Spurlock's talent as a documentarian, as well as his choice of subjects.

Episodes:
Minimum Wage
Anti-Aging
Muslims and America
Straight Man in a Gay World
Off the Grid
Binge Drinking Mom

Starring: Morgan Spurlock
Extras: Commentaries on Selected Episodes, Lost Diary-Cams
Specifications: Full Screen
Studio: Fox
Release Date: 7/11/2006
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
:
We'll give 30 Days: Season 1 a B.