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30 Days Aired From June 15, 2005 - July 08, 2008 On FX

About the Show:
In 30 Days, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock brings to the small screen issues both social and political. It is an experiment that examines the ways we think, the morals we hold and the truths we believe, to see how we use and challenge those beliefs to mold us both individually and as a society.

30 Days puts ordinary people in a world opposite of the one they know, trying to challenge their comfort zones and examine their biases as they never have before. The show follows a 24-year-old farm boy as he spends 30 days living with a gay roommate in the heart of San Francisco. Spurlock himself gets in front of the camera when he and his girlfriend Alex give up the luxury of the house they know and try and make it living on minimum wage for 30 days. An American-born Christian pushes his level of comfort when he takes 30 days out of his life to live with a Muslim family outside of Detroit in a culture he can't understand.

Spending 30 days living in someone else's shoes is not as easy as one would think and can dramatically change the way we think and live more than one would understand.

Cast:

Morgan Spurlock

Himself

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Episode 1. Minimum Wage
For the first episode host Morgan Spurlock and his fiancée Alex will find out what it is like to live on minimum wage in a country based on wealth. They will uproot themselves from the financial security of their New York City home and move to a struggling Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood for 30 Days. They will have to work at multiple minimum wage jobs just to make ends meet. The couple will experience everything from searching for a place to stay with no income, to what it's like scrapping to afford the basic daily essentials. They will learn the struggle of having to decide on whether to spend money on food or medicine when Alex gets sick (not to mention the money they will lose when she takes time off of work). Their effort to make ends meet is stretched to the limit when Morgan’s nieces come to live with him so he can understand first hand what it’s like to feed and support a whole family living on a measly $5.15 an hour.

Episode 2. Anti-Aging
A 34-year-old former college athlete turned couch potato who is battling middle-age, goes on a strict workout routine and anti-aging drugs for 30 Days to try and reverse the aging process and put some zing back into his life. How will it impact his mood, his marriage, his career, his long-term health, and his outlook on life? His program will be administered by an anti-aging specialist and his health will also be monitored by a general practitioner and a fertility expert. While on the drug therapy he will work out with a trainer, a cardio expert and follow a nutritionist’s plan, as he tries to recapture the glory days of his youth.

Episode 3. Muslims and America
Dave Stacy is a practicing Christian whose mind conjures up images of women in robes and men at war whenever he thinks of the Muslim religion. He has agreed to go to Dearborn, MI, the most concentrated population of Muslim Americans in the country, to see if he can learn more about a culture he is convinced is founded on violence. He will spend 30 days living in a Muslim home, follow all the food and clothing customs, daily study the Qur'an, and grow a beard. Dave will get a hands on education of what the Muslim culture is all about and the stereotypes that American Muslims face every day.

Episode 4. Straight Man in a Gay World
Ryan Hickmott is a God-fearing 24-year-old conservative from Oxford, Michigan, a town of less then 4000 people. He agrees to travel outside his comfort zone to defeat and defend some of his stereotypes of the gay community. His journey takes him to San Francisco's Castro district to live with roommate Ed Coller in what is notoriously known as one of the gayest areas of the country. As he works a job that caters to gay clientele, and attends gay-friendly church services, he gets an inside view of what it is like to live as part of a minority that still elicits strong feelings of hatred among many Americans. Throughout the 30 Days, he makes friends he never thought he would, learns things he didn't realize he didn't know, and realizes that some of the ideals he has been raised with may not be completely his. He will have his Bible-rooted values severely challenged as this important issue becomes very personal.

Episode 5 Off the Grid
Two 30-year-old "typical Americans" – i.e., ravenous consumers of fossil fuels -- learn to live without natural resources. Vito, a club bouncer, and Jahari, an event planner, get a tough lesson in taking things for granted. To do this, they'll move to Dancing Rabbits, an 'eco village' in Missouri that is 100% OFF THE GRID as they have no access to the power that comes from the usual grid of power and phone lines that run above our heads. As they set up house in a former 3,000-bushel grain bin, they will sustain themselves on clean power such as solar and wind. There are only 3 rules that they must follow: 1) say goodbye to fossil fuels, 2) work as members of the community helping out with everything from the backbreaking work in the farm to cooking vegan meals and 3) recycling everything, including their own waste! To follow these rules they will have live in a mostly car-free culture, grow and eat only organic foods and conserve their water use with solar showers and rain-catch systems. The only cars they drive are run on natural diesel they get from vegetable oil that must be hand cranked to fill the tank. Life takes a drastic change for these two partying New Yorkers.

Episode 6. Binge Drinking Mom
A mother concerned about her 19-year-old daughter's alcohol consumption agrees to binge drink for 30 Days to try to get through to her daughter Jessica, who feels that drinking is done to get drunk and is having no effect on her life as a college student. Michiel wants her daughter to see what kind of impact drinking can have on a life. In a boozed-up Freaky Friday scenario, the daughter will see her mother drunk, vomiting, and hung over. For 30 days she will have to drink at least four nights a week, and on those nights she must drink a minimum of 4 drinks in two hours to really have the effect of binge drinking. She is hoping this will make an impact on her daughter as Jessica makes decisions about the tough social choices she faces every day in college. The mother, on the other hand, will become more aware of the enormous social and cultural pressure to drink that kids face every day of their college careers.

Source: tvrage
contributed by codebreaker

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Episode 1. Immigration
A man who has staunch anti-immigration views and is a member of the Minutemen lives with a family of illegal immigrants.

Episode 2. Outsourcing
A man who lost his job to outsourcing travels to India, where he witnesses how the outsourcing of U.S. jobs has affected that county's culture.

Episode 3. Atheist/Christian
A woman who is an atheist lives with a fundamentalist Christian family.

Episode 4. New Age
A man who is over-worked and over-stressed attempts to find inner peace through unconventional means.

Episode 5. Pro-Choice/Pro-Life
A woman who had an abortion 6 years ago and is pro-choice resides in a pro-life group home for pregnant women.

Episode 6. Jail
Series creator Morgan Spurlock will be the final subject for this season's final installment. He is incarcerated at a couty joain in Richmond, Virginia where he is treated no differently then any of the other inmates. He will work the same 15 hour shifts and be allowed the same one hour per week of exercise as the rest of the convicts incarcerated at Henrico County Jail, including spending 72 hours in solitary confinement.

Source: tvrage
contributed by codebreaker

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Episode 1. Working in a Coal Mine
West Virginia native, Morgan Spurlock will spend 30 days in a coal mine, and will get a first hand experience of just how dirty and dangerous the job can be. He will also go with his boss/roommate Dale Lusk, to a clinic to check for black lung disease.

Episode 2. Living in a Wheelchair
Ray Crockett, a former NFL player who played with a teammate who ended up paralyzed, will spend 30 days in a wheelchair. Crockett's home and car are retrofitted, as he continues coaching his son's football team. He will also play a game of wheelchair rugby against other spinal cord injured players. Host Morgan Spurlock challenges Marlon Shirley, a Paralympian to a foot race.

Episode 3. Animal Rights
A North Carolina hunter joins a PETA campaign coordinator/vegan for one month. Among the places they attend are an animal rights protest, work at a center which rescues farm animals and meet with animal rights organizers.

Episode 4. Same Sex Parenting
An adoptee, now a mother of two adopted sons herself, is opposed to same sex adoptions. She will spend the next 30 days living with a gay couple in Michigan who have adopted four boys of their own. Among their stops includes attending church with the family, travelling to the state capital in Lansing for a rally for gay and lesbian couples promotting adoptions, and a meeting with a group of lesbian mothers. She will also have a discussion with former foster children about growing up without parents or a permanant home.

Episode 5. Gun Nation
A dance instructor from Massachusetts who is in favor of gun control will spend 30 days in Ohio at the home of a gun enthusiast. Among the stops will be a job in a gun shop and a visit to a gun show. She in turn will introduce people who have lost a loved one to a bullet.

Episode 6. Life on an Indian Reservation
Morgan Spurlock spends 30 days on an Navajo reservation in New Mexico where he explores the Native American culture. Morgan is hosted by a school superintendent and her husband, a college physical education instructor and rodeo rider. They are well connected to their native culture while enjoying the well to do lifestyle. While there Spurlock also spends some time in a hogan, which is a bit less accommodating dwelling, and works in a tire store.

Source: tvrage
contributed by codebreaker