An Idiot Abroad 2: The Bucket List, the second installment of what looks to be a growing franchise for the man with the round head, Karl Pilkington, debuts Saturday, January 21, at 10:00 PM on the Science network. The series, which runs for eight episodes through March 10, once again documents the ludicrous adventures of the hapless Pilkington as he roams around the world dealing with an array of torments arranged especially for his delightful anguish by his own personal devils, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. This new series has the eternally duped Pilkington older and a little wiser, but not nearly wise enough.
Pilkington is harassed into agreeing to another round of adventures from a bucket list of things to do before you die, but only if the rules change, and he gets to decide where he goes and what he does. Of course, the very idea that he would expect his tormentors to follow any rules he set up is just another reason he makes the ideal butt for Gervais and Merchant. They may have to do a little more convincing and conniving, but only a little.
He doesn't have to do anything on the list he doesn't want to do, but the things he does choose never seem quite what he thought they would be. A twist here, and suddenly what seemed simple, becomes more complicated, more frightening; a twist there, and it becomes more humiliating. Certainly, there will be those who find no delight in Pilkington's humiliation, but just as certainly there will be those that can't get enough. And since the first series was the Science network's highest rated show, there must have been the latter aplenty.
In the first episode Pilkington chooses what seems to be a harmless stunt from the list. He will spend a night alone on a desert island. The desert island, it turns out, is not quite the exotic paradise he might have hoped for. Along the way he has to deal with bungee jumping, land jumping, arse boarding, native dancing, and some skimpy native costuming. Pilkington's unease as he tries to explain himself to the local tribesmen without insulting them is the stuff of high comedy; his dancing in a foliage adorned jock strap is about as low as comedy gets.
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