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| Louis Theroux, in a still from the documentary The City Addicted to Crystal Meth, airing March 29 |
Intrepid British television journalist Louis Theroux has a reputation for burrowing deep into unusual and often hidden subcultures - from neo-Nazis to religious recluses, survivalists to white supremacists. His willingness to immerse himself in these worlds has extended to the point of accepting a (fully clothed) walk-on part in a gay skin flick while investigating the San Fernando Valley porn industry, and undergoing liposuction for a documentary on plastic surgery.
A disarmingly gracious interlocutor, he has a way of getting his subjects to reveal more of themselves than they intend - sometimes to their regret. Jimmy Savile, a flamboyant British entertainer who got the Theroux treatment on the BBC series When Louis Met ... has described him as "the pirhana fish of interviewers."
On Tuesday nights (at 10 pm ET/PT), starting Feb. 22, ichannel is presenting a series of six Louis Theroux documentary specials produced for the BBC. Darker and tougher than any of his past projects, these hour films follow Theroux as he tours the places angels fear to tread - from the crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg to a California institution for dangerous paedophiles.
Here's a sneak peek at the lineup:
Feb 22: "The Most Hated Family in America" - Louis gets to know the family of anti-gay preacher Fred Phelps, founder of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Along with his followers, Phelps has become notorious for picketing the funerals of U.S. servicemen and others to protest America's tolerance of homosexuality.
March 1: "Law and Disorder in Johannesburg" - Louis travels to Johannesburg, a city increasingly besieged by crime. Despairing of the capability of the police and courts to protect them, many residents have turned to private security firms offering protection for a price. Do these private police, with their sometimes brutal methods, really represent a solution - or are they just another part of the problem?
March 8: "African Hunting Holiday" - Hunting in South Africa is a blossoming tourist industry, with the cost of a trophy ranging from $250 for a baboon to as much as $70,000 for a rhino. Louis Theroux travels to Limpopo Province to enter an elite world of hunters who pay top dollar for the chance to shoot Africa's big game. Along the way he meets a seven-year-old out to bag a springbok, a CEO intent on bringing home the head of a hippopotamus, and an Evangelical who preaches a macho do-or-die gospel of self-actualization through hunting.
March 15: "Under the Knife" - Breast enhancements. Tummy tucks. Muscle implants. California, the birthplace of modern plastic surgery, is the destination in this documentary special. In a place obsessed with self-image, all it takes is a few thousand dollars and the flick of a scalpel to become whoever you want to be. As he gets under the skin of America's plastic surgery business, meeting the doctors and patients caught up in this quest for everlasting youth and beauty, Louis begins to wonder if he too might be a candidate for a nip and tuck.
March 22: "A Place for Paedophiles" - Coalinga Mental Hospital in California houses more than 500 convicted paedophiles. Most have already served lengthy prison sentences, but have been deemed unsafe for release. Their choice: remain institutionalized indefinitely, or submit to the hospital's rigorous program of rehabilitation and therapy. Louis visits Coalinga to meet with patients and therapists, and to consider whether these men - many with long histories of sexual violence - can be sufficiently changed to live freely in society.
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