30 Day returns for a third year of lifestyle changes

Morgan Spurlock returns to television this spring with the third season of 30 Days, the reality show in which people spend the titled amount of time living someone else’s life.

The show is back June 3 after a one-year hiatus, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX. Airing this year is an episode on disability, one each on animal rights, gay parenting, gun control and Native Americans and the season premiere, during which Spurlock returns to his birthplace of West Virginia to see what life is like for a coal miner.

Spurlock’s past endeavors have directly led to the ideas for the show.

I Bet You Will!, the segmented gross-me-out bet-based show that aired in the early 2000s, was Spurlock’s first creation. Whether you found this show entertaining or irksome, you probably remember when it was on MTV. What you might not know is that before that, it was on the Internet as a videocast, and it became the first Web-to-TV show.

The show also marked Spurlock’s first role as producer. The multi-faceted movie man has gone on to appear in and produce projects like Super Size Me and Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?.

MTV eventually pulled I Bet You Will! off the air, though you can still see it on SPIKE, but not before Spurlock and others made enough money to create his first major film, Super Size Me. For 30 days, Spurlock subsisted only on food from McDonald’s. One month, 24.5 pounds and 25 cholesterol points later, Spurlock’s fame, along with his blood pressure, had shot up.

This documentary inspired the creation of 30 Days, in which people take walks in shoes much different than their own.

In past seasons, Spurlock has been subject to an altered reality one episode per six-episode season. This year, he’ll appear in two.

Co-executive-producers have done work on The Office, Ugly Betty, The Biggest Loser, Flip That House and American High.

“Every year with 30 Days, I’m so blown away with the people that we find,” Spurlock said. He expressed excitement for the upcoming season, with no concrete plans for future projects.

Spurlock resides in New York with his wife, Alexandra, who jokes that her husband’s next film should be about making her the happiest wife on earth. The couple is raising their first child, Laken, whose birth is featured in Where in the World.