>Why this show is on the Science Channel, I haven’t the faintest, but An Idiot Abroad is hilarious. Part of the time, I’m just as uncomfortable and culture-shocked as Karl, the guy Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant send out into the world whose reactions to the bizarreness of the world are recorded for our pleasure.
The episode where he went to the Great Wall of China was so funny it made me cry. The part when he is out in the back country looking at the wall was pretty much what I would have been saying. While it would be really interesting to see the man-made phenomenon, I really don’t want to see the whole thing especially the parts way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. Then when he was visiting some locals who fed him lunch, I totally lost it. The lady was preparing the frogs for the meal. Needless to say, there was a dark stain on the cement. I’m not sure I’m adventurous enough to eat meat that had just been pummeled against the sidewalk.
In one episode, Karl was in India. Honestly, I have absolutely no desire to go there. Aside from the fact that there are just way too many people concentrated in one area and the abject poverty, there are a lot of weird things there that scare me. The elephant baba guy at the religious festival is a prime example. This might not be politically correct, but why does it seem that there are so many people born there with deformities? Sure, it happens everywhere, but every time I hear about a kid or person with some really gnarly deformity (like having 8 limbs), they always seem to be in India.
But, I digress. I like this show because you can relate to the culture-shock and some of the things Karl says I was actually thinking, which probably means I’m a little bit of an idiot too. I’m pretty sure I knew that already. Then he says stuff that is really dumb and accidentally funny like when he was in Israel and thought the soldiers walking around the tourist spots like the Wailing Wall were just there to entertain the visitors.
The one thing I keep thinking is how the hell does Karl get such good reception on his cell phone? Seriously, he is in the middle of the Jordanian desert and is able to take a call on what looks like an iPhone. I’ve heard of people complaining that they can’t get one bar in downtown San Francisco.
>That show is hilarious. The dude doing naked yoga slayed me.