In many ways, Locked Up Abroad, known as Banged Up Abroad or Jailed Abroad in some countries, is like any other reality show. In it, Westerners engage in completely naive, ridiculous behavior and wind up totally F’ing humiliated and ruining their lives. It’s gold.
This guy was locked up in Thailand. Photo Credit:Raw Television
Only, the UK series Locked Up Abroad is kind of scarier and smarter than, say, Big Brother, and now in it’s seventh season, it’s more more intense than ever.
In the show, pretty average people from English-speaking countries somehow end up in jail elsewhere in the world, usually after trying to smuggle drugs through airport customs. Sometimes, the detainees are completely innocent, including a UK man who was arrested in Peru after he unknowingly traveled with a coke smuggler.
But most of the time, you’re slapping your head at the idiocy of these people, who usually have never left their countries before, and in some cases, they don’t even realize that drugs are illegal outside of the western world (seriously). Sometimes they paint themselves as victims in a smuggling, but there are at least million opportunities for them to extricate themselves per episode. Sometimes they snort cocaine before they’re supposed to look cool for airport security. And in one episode a USA kid ran away from the scene of a shooting in Mexico and dressed up as a woman to be incognito (he lasted two minutes before he was arrested).
It’s like watching a melodramatic Monty Python for heaven’s sake…except it’ll teach your kids never to bring a stash on a plane. And, like most prison scenes, these are pretty disturbing.
Its current season is off to a great start. One of the episodes actually has nothing to to do with drug smuggling, for once. Instead, a pair of Irish guys try to escape Saddam’s Kuwaiti invasion, only to drive right into the Iraqi military’s arms. The episodes are narrated by the detainees, wherever they are now, and there’s a heavily produced, on-site reenactment to aid the story.
It’s really compelling, addictive stuff, and it’s easy to waste a whole weekend watching it. Check out the promotional video from National Geographic!
Related
Sleepwalking Through The Communist Superpower
Indonesian Sex Scandal Suspect, Rock Musician Nazriel “Ariel” Irham, Is a Star in Prison
