Even if it weren’t Gay Pride month, with all of the parades and hoopla typically associated with the festivities this time of year, California’s recent same-sex marriage ruling has put gay issues back on the cultural front burner. This week, two especially notable cable programs take a very personal look at what it means to be gay in today’s society.First up is FX’s 30 Days (airs Tuesdays at 10 pm/ET, following the Rescue Me “mini-sode”), with a compelling and emotionally grueling hour spotlighting same-sex parenting. Like a less exploitative Wife Swap, this episode of Morgan Spurlock’s walk-in-another-person’s-shoes reality show invites Katie, an outspoken Morman mom with two adopted sons—who was herself adopted—to leave her California family to spend a month in the Michigan farmhouse of Dennis and Tom, who are raising four adopted sons of their own. Her beliefs are challenged, but not exactly swayed, at watching two loving men rais...
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30 Days courtesy FX
Cheers to Morgan Spurlock for bringing back TV's best reality show (yeah, I said it), FX's 30 Days. The third-season premiere sent the Supersize Me documentarian back to his home state of West Virginia to spend a month working as a coal miner. He faced dangers ranging from split underwear to cave-ins and convinced his boss to take a long-overdue test for black lung disease (sadly, spots showed up in both lungs). Plus, he took a truly fair and balanced look at energy issues, interviewing both a coal-industry lobbyist and an environmentalist. Funny and moving, entertaining and educational, 30 Days deserves an Emmy or a Peabody or, most of all, more viewers. • Share your own raves and rants about other shows on the Reader Cheers & Jeers discussion board.• We may feature your Cheer or Jeer on TVGuide.com or in TV Guide magazine!
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Morgan Spurlok by Ray Mickshaw/FX
Hold on to your hard-hats because Morgan Spurlock is back with another round of life-changing stories on the FX documentary show 30 Days beginning June 3 In the premiere episode Spurlock returns to his home state of West Virginia to spend 30 days as a coal miner The filmmaker lived with the mine supervisor Dale and his wife Sandy and worked eight-hour shifts 15 miles underground Its dark cold wet and extraordinarily dangerous Not only do miners face daily exposure to coal dust that causes black lung they also deal with possible explosions or collapse at any time But when TVGuidecom asked Spurlock which one of the six stories from the new season moved him the most he immediately spoke of his time at the mines Not only was Spurlock moved by being immersed in the environment and surrounded by the people who affected his life as he grew up he also felt it was kind of eye opening Its a profession that none of us really know much about or know what go
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Justice League courtesy Warner Home Video
New releases announced today, April 30:30 Days - The Complete 2nd Season will be coming out July 1 House of Payne - Volume 2: Episodes 21-40 will be coming out July 1 Justice League - Season 1 on Blu-ray Disc will be coming out August 19 Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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Morgan Spurlock by Randy Tepper/FX
FX has announced a Tuesday, June 3, premiere date for Season 3 of 30 Days. This time around, series creator/host Morgan Spurlock will toil at a coal mine and live with a family back home in West Virginny. Other entries, says Variety, will find former NFL player Ray Crockett spending 30 days in a wheelchair, and Spurlock living on a Native American reservation.
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FX has ordered second seasons of both Dirt and The Riches, "two highly original series that have resonated with our audience as strongly as The Shield and Rescue Me," says the cabler's president and general manager. Speaking of Tommy Gavin, FX also announced that Rescue Me will reclaim its original Wednesdays-at-10 time slot when it kicks off its new season on June 13.Also, a July 24 premiere has been set for Glenn Close's Damages; Season 3 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia arrives in early September; Nip/Tuck braves L.A. in the fall; and 30 Days continues in late 2007.
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Glenn Close by Larry Riley/FX
One of the boldest forces in TV drama, the FX network, is at it again. At a press upfront lunch gathering Wednesday afternoon, the risk-taking cable network screened the pilot episode of its much-anticipated new legal thriller Damages, starring Glenn Close. Premiering this July, it looks like a winner, reminiscent of the early days of David E. Kelley’s masterwork The Practice, before it descended into grotesque silliness and evolved into the ridiculous, sophomoric cartoon that is Boston Legal.Damages is a dark melodrama to be sure: tough and gritty, not even pretending to be earnest on the surface, with wild plot twists that make you wonder if there are any heroes in this picture. The closest thing to a truly sympathetic figure is Ellen Parsons (Australian ingenue Rose Byrne), the new not-as-naive-as-she-looks protégé of cunning high-stakes litigator Patty Hewes, played by Close as an elegant tigress who devours rather than suffers any fools in her path. Does Patty se...
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The Biography Channel hails Tiger Woods in its Biography of the Year special, premiering Thursday, Dec. 21, at 9pm/ET.... FX has ordered a third, six-episode season of Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days, to begin shooting in the spring.... Per Variety, Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson has inked a two-year deal to develop prime-time programming for CBS Paramount Network Television.... WGAY-TV, which touts itself as "the first, free gay TV station," wants your votes for Queer of the Year at WGAY.tv.... Noggin has announced a Jan. 6 premiere for the second season of Jack's Big Music Show.
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If there were any justice, TV would ease up on the glut of crime and legal dramas. But that's hardly likely, and Fox's cynical Justice (Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET) knows it all too well.
Realizing how pointless it would be to try to reinvent the courtroom drama, Justice embraces the fact that our post-O.J. society is saturated with true-crime coverage and fake-crime stories. That's why TV itself (embodied by a fictional infotainment show, "American Crime") is a major character in Jerry Bruckheimer's latest fun-to-watch procedural.
As the head of a glamorous L.A. law firm, Victor Garber sheds the tight-lipped restraint of Alias' Jack Bristow and taps into his theatrical roots as cocky
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Morgan Spurlock, 30 Days
Documentarians don't come much more dedicated than Morgan Spurlock. The director nearly destroyed his liver on his McDonalds-only diet for his film Super Size Me; he and his girlfriend (now wife), Alexandra Jamieson, lived on minimum wage for his FX series, 30 Days; and this year he went to prison for the show. On the occasion of the Season 1 DVD release of 30 Days — which brings to light different perspectives on controversial issues (homophobia, alcoholism, anti-Muslim sentiment) by asking people to walk a mile in someone else's shoes —
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