Customer Reviews

30 Days - Season 1

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is fantastic work. It's so well done and this is what reality tv should really be about. It's an honest look at various subjects and how society views certain situations etc.
What Morgan has done should give him some kind of award. He himself and his girlfriend showed America what it would be like (and is on a day to day basis) for people to live on minimum wage for 30 days. How there is no money for anything but essentials and even then that's scarce. A visit to the hospital could wipe someone out for weeks. Not only does the hospital visit cost money, but time away from work means no pay.
He also got other people to trade lives for 30 day periods. A homophobic lives in gay San Francisco, a redneck goes to Muslim America, a mother drinks as much as her college daughter does. It really opens your eyes to people who are different to you, how other people live and things we take for granted in our lives. I really recommend that everyone should see this because there is so much to learn from it.

I must admit that I am by no means an advocate of reality television. In my own opinion, a lot of what we view as reality television, I consider "crap-TV". There seems to be no relevence or importance to any of it, besides degradation or humiliation for financial gain. Now, someone has finally come along with "expose TV" where a subject "lives the life" for 30 days. Spawned from the highly publicized, controversial documentary "Super-Size Me", this show takes a weekly stab at controversial material and brings it to the light of day. Morgan Spurlock, in my book, is a genius. His down to earth approach to expose journalism is brilliant. Some of the subjects covered are living life of minimum wage, homophobia, American views of the Muslim religion, America's obsession with Anti-Aging, Binge drinking and more. Eye opening,shocking and sad commentary on where we are in our lives, but uplifting in the thought that....it makes you think. Best of reality TV! Highly recommended!

30 Days is a wonderful T.V. show that explores touchy subjects among Americans and gives you both sides of the story (Literally).
This show not only explores the differences between people, but it also opens your eyes to some things you may never have known before (Or things you didn't understand)

In one of the episodes, A white christian lives with a Muslim family for 30 days. He learns their customs, language, and learns about their religion. This episode particularly shows Americans that Muslims are not what people stereotype them to be.

30 Days is a pretty good reality show as well as an experiment combining different type of people, I HIGHLY recommend getting this DVD set. Although there are only 6 episodes, they are 45 minutes each and $20 is a pretty fair deal.

One of those shows that gets you right in the pit of your stomach, leaving you drained and unable to think of anything else. Our nation's lawmakers would do well to watch the "living on minimum wage" episode, and hopefully they will never view the "Living Off the Grid" one. (alternate title: Better Living Through Chemicals)

You'll think seriously about your relationship with God, and if the outer trappings really mean that much once you visit Michigan, which has many immigrants who practice the Muslm faith. Then you get to wonder why these gentle, learned people are so demonized, and if the "War on Terror" is merely another Crusade, ~500 yrs late.

You will meet the most patient person on Earth, Ed, who lives in the Castro District of San Francisco, who takes in a lovable, heterosexual Caveman for a houseguest. Surprisingly, both are changed at the end of the month (Ed less than Thor, of course). This episode, like most of the others, grabs your attention and doesn't let you go until the ride has come to a complete stop. You stumble through the exit and turn off the television, thinking about what the heck you've seen.

We saw all the episodes multiple times (Thank You, TIVO), and have pre-ordered the DVDs. Our hope is that the DVDs will add loads of new material and teasers for the coming season. But even if it doesn't, just getting to watch the episodes once more without commercials will be a real treat.

This television series is best for adults and older teens; parents of younger teens will have to decide on a case by case basis.

In so many ways our conglomerate media divides people in terms of race and class and so forth. Spurlock's "30 Days" brings together the "opposites" for them to discover their commonalities. Big, burly bikers spending time at an ecovillage, fundamentalist Christians living with Muslims, middle class people experiencing minimum wage - all these scenarios provide insights, many laughs, and opportunities to look upon the "other" with more compassionate eyes.

I'm glad the DVD includes Spanish subtitles, as I'm studying that language. And I'm looking forward to Season II, which includes an episode where a border-watching "Minuteman" spends a month in a village in Mexico, and becomes much more sympathetic regarding the plight of economic refugees from Latin America.

Spurlock's DVD "Super Size Me" is also worth purchasing, especially if you have people in your life that have been manipulated by the marketing of the fast food industry.

While most of these episodes of this fascinating show are centered around people from a white, middle-class background, the "Off The Grid" episode breaks this pattern. The episode shows two urban dwellers living on a commune in Missouri, and one of them is an African-American woman...

I thought this was a sleeper show, but it's back- I'm glad there's a second season.

This unscripted show beats all others. There are no contests; no blossoming stars; no forced hook-ups or group shower scenes. There are, however, real people in interesting and uncomfortable situations that make them take a long hard look at some of their closely held beliefs. The gay/straight episode is brilliant and the DVD offers it with a voice-over commentary from Morgan Spurlock, RJ Cutler, Ryan (straight) and Ed (gay). This episode won the GLADD award for Reality TV. It's Fantastic (but I'm biased)!

This series is one that will definitely cause you to stop and think about those beliefs that you hold most dear. It takes your theological/philosophical constructs and tests how they play out in the relationality of "real life." The premise of this series is simple: we are all sharing this planet, and we are all human beings with intrinsic value. But do we have the courage to enter into peaceful and meaningful relationships with those who hold different beliefs? For all of our sake's, I hope the answer is yes. You cannot watch this program without being personally challenged. I encourage you to buy and watch these programs.

Great, this is awsome viewing. The living on minimum wage was a reai eye opener for my wife and I. Everyone should watch this, Super size me was great too. You will like this, well worh the money.

I must admit, I am one of those viewers that was blown away by Morgan Spurlock's fascinating documentary entitled Super Size Me. While some will argue that it was a purely one sided debate, I thought it rivaled that of Michael Moore, causing America to look inward at an issue plaguing our communities. That is why I was very excited to learn that Morgan was not going to merely stop with the big McBusiness, but also focus more attention towards that growing, constantly changing, and always different community at large. With "30 Days" he uses his same technique patented in Super Size Me which consists of someone following a untypical path for thirty days in all hopes that they will experience and see a new facet of America. With each episode an hour long, creator Spurlock gives us the reality-based television that we all desire while also giving us a great glimpse of diversity, opinions, and a constantly changing society. From a binge drinking mother of a party-hard college freshman to that of a heterosexual farm boy living for 30 days in a homosexual community, Spurlock is not afraid to go into a new topic headfirst. We are given the chance to see if stubborn ideals do change, or if it were just an experiment gone bad. Just as Morgan introduces each program, we only learn within the course of "30 Days".

With a powerful jolt of energy and no-holds-bar honesty, Spurlock jumps directly into this series by focusing directly on himself and a current crisis in the United States, which is the minimum wage. For 30 days, Morgan and his fiancée live at the poverty line, experiencing what it would be like to live without - constantly working and sleeping in bug infested apartments - as a typical American. While Morgan poses many other questions through the course of this first season, this initial episode is by far the most shocking. As Morgan and his fiancée struggle, we the viewer, cannot help but see the point that he is trying to make. We see the issue at hand, and just like Super Size Me, he builds thesis backed with extremely detailed points. As our series continues, Morgan does a great job with ideas, but it is ultimately the final result that just doesn't quite pack the same wallop that this initial episode enormously did.

Other topics that Morgan explores in this series is the concept of a Christian living in a Muslim world, a man attempting to defy the issue of aging with medical technology, and my personal favorite (because it was the worst test Morgan did), the effects of binge drinking on a college mother. While I will admit that I could not stop watching this series, I had trouble with some of them because it fell into the classic world of "reality television". By watching this series, we knew that by the end the subject would reconsider their lifestyle; we knew that Morgan's experiment would be somewhat of a success, because most television series like to end on a positive note. We, the viewer, like to think that a person can change and that our world is getting better. I believe that I would have seen more strength and value in this program if Morgan would have chosen subjects that would not change, or chose not to change even being consumed in a new lifestyle for thirty days. I sometimes felt that I could fast-forward to the very end of the episode and already know what the final conclusion was, due to a lacking conflict. What I mean is that in the initial episode, Morgan continued to get hurt, causing monetary issues throughout the experiment, but in the rest, I felt there wasn't this conflict (or eruption of random occurrences), which honestly makes for stronger television.

Don't get me wrong, I thought that this style of programming is very smart and extremely creative, but I just felt that it lacked in the "entertainment" side. I think I was initially caught into this series because of how unique it was, but later found out that was nothing more than a small-screen version of Super Size Me. Again, nothing wrong with this, but I felt that by the end of this initial season, Spurlock was running short of ideas, as well as engrossing combinations. The example that comes to mind was the final (and my least favorite) episode with the binge drinking mother. Why did she do this to herself? Spurlock attempted to make connections between college drinking and a mother drinking the same way, but the overall results seemed muddled and very disconnected. Why would any mother have casual conversations with her daughter about getting "drunk"? This whole episode seemed oddly surreal and completely beyond the normality of any mother/daughter relationship.

Overall, I believe Spurlock to be witty, engaging, and completely intelligent about this series, but it is television (and he does ride the curtails of Super Size Me a bit much), and there is only a certain level that your creativity can go before it becomes stock. I applaud "30 Days" for going above and beyond, and I especially applaud FX (whom I believe is challenging the likes of Showtime and HBO) for bringing this series to light. I will watch the second season, but I will go in a little less excited. I think Spurlock has a winner with this series, he just needs to strengthen his topics, become a bit grittier with his subjects, and really shock his audience like he did with his initial episode.

Grade: *** out of *****