Jeff Probst must be up to his jungle jacket with scheming, competitive “Survivor“types, because tonight he does a 180-degree turn by hosting — and, yes, producing — a one-shot special for and about the world’s nicest guy who is doomed not to survive.
“Live for the Moment” is the reality show version of “The Bucket List,” a manipulative mess of a movie starring Jack Nicholson, but one that’s spawned a TV cottage industry of “live your dream like you’re about to die” reality shows.
MTV’s new show, “The Buried Life,” follows a group of young guys (who are not going to die anytime soon unless a goon at the Playboy Mansion kills them for crashing a party), who made a list of things to accomplish before they die and then set about to fulfill their wish list.
The show is by turns sweet and funny. I don’t know how they afforded to spend a year or so traveling around, but that’s another story.
“Live for the Moment,” CBS’s one-shot special, is sweet, too, but it’s not funny. It’s deadly serious.
I mean, it’s about giving the world’s nicest man, a guy named Roger Childs who has a wonderful wife and two adorable little boys, a chance at living it up — before he dies a horrible death from ALS.
Probst offers Childs, a 41-year old ski/astronomy/space junkie, the chance to fulfill his dreams before the disease so incapacitates him that he won’t be able to feed himself or breathe on his own. Be prepared to cry until you are a sobbing mess, because “Live for the Moment” makes “Extreme Home Makeover” look like “Seinfeld.”
The first thing Probst does for Childs (his wife’s name really is Julia!), is to take him and his family to the Kennedy Space Center where they are met by Buzz Aldrin, who gives them a private restricted-area tour and then takes them to watch a shuttle launch.
Then, it’s onto California, where he gets to fly in a two-man L39 Albatross Navy fighter jet that goes just under the speed of sound.
Then, he’s reunited with an old pal in Colorado and the two men are taken by helicopter to the top of a mountain for extreme skiing.
Yes, a man whose friend has to help him put on his gloves and carry his poles because his hands don’t work well skis the treacherous mountain.
It gets worse — or better depending on your own mental health — with family reunions and his dad reading a letter.
Good thing it’s a one-shot special. I don’t know if I could survive a whole season of this without dying of heartbreak myself.
But I am making a list, just in case “Live” is picked up for the summer season.