Remote Possibilities

by LUKE BAUMGARTEN & r & & r & 30 Days & r & & r & (Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, Season 3 readily available via iTunes and less legal means, FX) & r & & r & & lt;span class= "dropcap " & T & lt;/span & he timing of this is bad. I've spent the last month and a half beating my head at the keep of Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days, an infuriatingly uneven documentary series.





Wham, wham, wham goes my head. "Why do you sometimes frustrate me to death, 30 Days?" Wham. "Why do I sometimes think you're the best doc show I've ever seen?" Wham, wham. "Reveal your secrets!"





Week Six, I finally broke through (headfirst, mind), unlocking its mystery. Week Six was also the season finale.





So no, this column isn't newsworthy. It is, though, I believe, artworthy. There are lessons to be learned, so we're plowing ahead.





The setup is the same week to week. A person -- sometimes Spurlock, but most often not -- is sent to live for 30 days in a totally alien and often hostile environment. The hope is that the people on either side of these sometimes vicious clashes of ideology (a hunter versus a PETA volunteer, gun owners versus anti-gun advocates, gay parents versus a homophobic Mormon woman, etc.) will come away with a less polarized, caricatured view of the opposition. When things go right, the show can be incredibly compelling. The "animals are here for our consumption and pleasure" hunter is nearly brought to tears when he sees the conditions under which calves become veal. More often, though, the sides are left deadlocked, agreeing to nothing more than continued animosity.





Super Size Me, the feature-length anti-junk food missive that made Spurlock a pop icon, was a morality tale of sorts about the destruction wrought by eating habits and chemicals and modern American life in general. 30 Days is more of a conversation between entrenched ideologies. Anyone who's talked politics (or religion, or philosophy) knows what a trudge such conversations usually are can be. 30 Days hinges on the willingness of one party to bridge the gap. When there is growth on one side or the other -- when the gun control advocate tearfully concedes the personal protection angle of the Second Amendment, say -- 30 Days transcends the issues and becomes riveting human drama. When the sides remain at loggerheads, though -- as with the gay parents and the woman who hates the idea of gay parents -- it's like being seated between Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken at the cafeteria in hell. Bickering and bickering and a little background to the bickering followed by ad hominem attacks and more bickering. Unbearable.





TiVo-Worthy





Forensic Files


A friend of mine says Forensic Files -- the long-running series that solves murders with science -- is her guiltiest pleasure. A few test episodes and I've found the guilt. Waiting on the pleasure. (TRU TV, rebroadcast in perpetuity)





The Cleaner


Benjamin Bratt (OMG so dreamy!) makes his return to television in the service of A & amp;E in its attempt to follow FX (and to a lesser extent TNT and AMC) down the "oh so hot" road of gritty basic cable drama. Bratt plays William Banks, a recovering drug addict and "extreme interventionist" who intervenes in other people's addictions in, um, the most extreme of ways. Throughout, Banks will continue, we're promised, to confront his own demons. (A & amp;E, Tuesdays, 10 pm)





Million Dollar Password


Is there any more adorable sardonic jokester than Regis Philbin? The answer is no way. I'd watch Live like every day if it weren't for the insufferable co-hosts he's saddled with. Thank God he's back on primetime with this update of the classic game show Password. It's a fun enough game and there's no Kelly Ripa in sight. (CBS, Sundays, 8 pm)