Another True Crime TV Obsession in the Making

I've written before about my obsession with the A&E program The First 48. (It's a really, really good show, and you should totally watch it.) But now I'm afraid that another true crime show might be slowly working its way into our DVR queue: Locked Up Abroad on the National Geographic Channel. This show -- which uses a combination of documentary-style interviews and dramatizations of real events -- features the stories of people who for one reason or another ended up incarcerated in foreign prisons.

Some of these folks got locked up after making colossally stupid decisions while overseas. Like the couple from the UK who agreed to smuggle a few kilos of marijuana out of Costa Rica and into Amsterdam in exchange for a nice sum of money. Turns out that the heavier-than-expected briefcases they were given by the Costa Rican drug lords actually contained -- whoopsy! -- seventeen kilos of pure Colombian cocaine. Or the dude who swallowed sixty-seven cocaine-filled condoms, duct-taped the rest of his stash to his torso, and waltzed into Sydney Airport hoping to smuggle the drugs back into the UK. (Spoiler alert: He got caught, and was subsequently rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery to remove the condoms, some of which had begun to rupture. In his words, getting caught literally saved his life.)

Other folks, though, were kidnapped by various guerrilla or rebel forces while working overseas and were detained, incarcerated, and -- at times -- tortured.

It remains to be seen whether this show will become a full-fledged addiction for me like the First 48...but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might!