30 Days Season Two Review

Plot

What would it be like to spend a day in another person’s shoes? 30 Days tries to answer that question. In the second season six more people spend 30 Days outside their comfort zone in order to learn what life is like for other Americans. The second season of 30 Days includes the following episodes:

• Immigration: A member of the Minutemen who patrol the USA/Mexico border spends 30 Days with a family of illegal immigrants.
• Outsourcing: A man who lost his job his job to outsourcing spends 30 days in India to find out what outsourcing has done to India.
• Atheist & Christian: An atheist spends 30 days with a fundamentalist Christian family.
• New Age: An overworked, overstressed man spends 30 days trying to achieve inner peace through New Age practices.
• Pro-Life, Pro Choice: A feminist who has had an abortion spends 30 days at a group home that houses pregnant women.
• Jail: Morgan Spurlock spends 30 days in jail and experiences the life of a inmate which includes spending 72 hours in solitary confinement.

My Thoughts

If you haven’t seen my review of the first season of 30 Days, I thought the first season was kind of hit and miss. Half of the episodes where quite good while the other half were kind of boring. Overall I think the second season was better than the first season. The main reason I enjoyed the season more is that the episodes of the second season were a lot more consistent. I actually thought all of the episodes of season two were at least above average.

The second season of 30 Days aired in 2006. Almost being a decade old you would think the episodes would be outdated. While some of the facts are probably outdated at this point, I think the messages of the episodes are still quite relevant today. I think that fact is important since many of the issues addressed in the second season are still huge issues today (almost a decade later).

Here are my thoughts on the individual episodes of season two (I will keep my personal/political beliefs out as much as possible):

• Immigration: Immigration has been a huge hot button issue in America for a long time. I think everyone can agree that something needs to be done about immigration. People will wildly differ on what that solution is though. The immigration episode does a good job giving you a picture of what it is like to be an illegal immigrant in America. The episode may not change your mind on the immigration issue but I think you will at least have a hard time not feeling for the hard situation most illegal immigrants face. I really enjoyed the episode but the ending made me sad.
• Outsourcing: Before watching the episode I didn’t think this episode would be very good. I like most Americans are not a fan of outsourcing. It is pretty hard to support something that takes away a lot of American jobs. The episode surprised me though by doing a good job showing what outsourcing does for countries like India with regards to the economy and culture. While I am still not a fan of outsourcing, the episode shows that there is more to the story than just Americans losing their jobs.
• Atheist & Christian: Before watching this episode I feared that the episode would just be a bunch of arguing and yelling. Whenever religion is brought into the conversation an argument is almost always around the corner. I was surprised that the episode was actually quite mild and was pretty fair to both sides. Overall it was a solid episode.
• New Age: New Age also surprised me. Personally I am not a huge believer in New Age practices. While I am still skeptical of quite a few of the practices, the episode shows that New Age practices can have a positive impact on your life. I don’t think I will adopting any New Age techniques at this time but I may look into some of them in the future.
• Pro-Life, Pro-Choice: Quite possibly the most controversial issue in the entire country. I won’t discuss my opinions on abortion since it is such a divisive topic. I have to say that I was disappointed by the episode though. I don’t know why exactly but I think Pro-Life, Pro-Choice was the worst episode of season two of 30 Days.
• Jail: Just like the first season, Morgan Spurlock’s episode was the best of the season in my opinion. It was the best produced which is not shocking since Morgan Spurlock has experience doing documentaries while the stars of the other episodes do not. I already knew that America’s prison systems needed work and this episode confirmed that fact.

Final Verdict

As I already mentioned, I thought the second season of 30 Days was better than the first season. Season two is just much more consistant than season one. While season one had three average to below average episodes, all of season two’s episodes were above average. I think all of the episodes of season two deserve to be watched while at least one episode from season one could be skipped in my opinion.

Just like the first season of 30 Days, if you don’t like documentaries or are not interested in the topics of the episodes you won’t like 30 Days. If you liked the first season of 30 Days or at least some of the topics interest you, I think you should enjoy the second season of 30 Days.