The TV Zone

Morgan "Fu Manchu" Spurlock owes the Big Mac a Big Wet Kiss - a debt of gratitude so great that "debt of gratitude" is kinda pale; he owes his whole damn career to the 'wich that nearly whacked him. In "Supersize Me," he ate so many Macs and consumed so many extra large cokes and absorbed so many large fries smothered in that extra delicious Mac catchup (which I think is a little sweeter AND saltier than Hunt's) that he nearly croaked. Maybe not, but he definitely got fat.

But out of that full-fat experience came a pretty amusing-if-somewhat-fallacious film (really, who's gonna engorge on Macs day after day, week after week?) and now a pretty good series: "30 Days" has its faults, notably poor wife Alex who clearly didn't know what she was in for in this marriage, and Morgan's occasional tendency to focus on Morgan, but otherwise, "30 Days" is good. The conceit: Spend thirty days in a world and/or pursuit that may be otherwise alien, and from this emerges truths about the human condition or (at the very least) Spurlock's tolerance for a lifestyle unbecoming an emerging/or-wouldbe indie prod superstar.

Tonight on the third season premiere, FX at 10: the coal mines of West Virginia, from whence Morgan came (his father made the torque wrenches used in the mines.) Lots of interesting detail here - pillar mining, for example, and the way miners take out a pillar of coal and then the roof collapses - as well as a compassionate look at those who do the hard, very hard, work.

Bottom line: What's best about Spurlock is, in fact, his compassion for his fellow man and woman - never "sympathetic" or paternalistic, but open-hearted and non-judgmental. He comes. He listens. He reports. And - while I'm getting perilously close to sounding like a promotional tag line - he also seems to care. Future editions include 30 days in a wheel chair, animal rights, same sex parenting, "Gun Nation," and life on an Indian reservation. You go, guy.