First, let's dismiss all of this summer's brouhaha about those poor children and their hellish summer of abuse and neglect. It's clearly nonsense; there were adults on hand at all times, and whatever minor accidents there may have been (and you don't put 40 energetic kids into any setting for six weeks without at least a few accidents) were handled with appropriate first aid. It is, in fact, so obvious from the first episode that the complaints were overblown that I'm forced to wonder if CBS didn't plant them as a clever bit of publicity and marketing.
Let's move on to the real issue: Is the show any good? And the answer is, I'm afraid, no.
What we have here is essentially Survivor Junior, but with all of the good stuff that makes Survivor so much fun -- the ruthless competition, the scheming and conniving, the backstabbing -- sucked out. Forty kids, aged 8 to 15, are plopped down in a ghost town (well, on a beautifully prepared ghost town set, anyway) for forty days to create their own society.
They're not left entirely to their own devices, of course; four of the children have been appointed as a Town Council, and they are instructed to divide the kids into four color-coded "districts," who compete against one another in challenges (they're called "showdowns" here) to determine which district will perform which chores -- laborers, cooks, merchants, and upper class.
There's a Town Hall meeting every two or three days, at which the Town Council awards a gold star -- a big chunky thing that weighs about two pounds, and comes with a $20,000 prize -- to the kid they think has earned it. There's no elimination, but the kids are asked at each meeting if anyone wants to leave.
Now, I understand that kids of this age need to learn about cooperation and teamwork, and that it is far better for them to be brought together in that spirit than it would be to throw them into a full-fledged Survivor-style competition. But sadly, cooperation and teamwork really don't make for very interesting TV, and so Kid Nation will rely largely on the American tendency to sentimentalize childhood.
Speaking as one who has never been sentimental about much of anything, I don't look at these kids and think (as I'm clearly meant to) "oh, how cute," or "aren't they sweet," or "that poor baby." (Though I admit, even I misted up a teeny bit when 8-year-old Jimmy decided to leave at the first Town Hall meeting. "I'm a third-grader," he said, "and I'm not old enough for this," showing more self-awareness than most adults I know.) And without those reactions, there's no reason for me to keep watching; it's like being forced to watch your neighbor's kids' home movies from summer camp.
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