IN one of the more brilliant/heinous marketing moves of the recent dishonest past, CBS let it appear for months that their newest reality series, “Kid Nation,” in which 40 kids ages 8-15 were left alone to create a brutal “Lord of the Flies” existence, was justhisshort of child abuse.
To add to the frenzy, the network suits even refused to send out advance screeners to critics so we all had to watch it in real time last night when it debuted.
Clearly, even child-abuse allegations are an acceptable way to get ratings, baby, ratings! Shameless and immoral to let everyone think this? You bet.
A shameless and immoral show in which children were practically sold by their parents into bondage in a labor camp under harsh and inhuman condi tions? Not even close.
In fact, accommodations were more primitive at the camp my daughter went to from middle school through high school – that’s what she loved about it.
And that’s what these kids love about this camp, er, town. On last night’s show, the kids were brought to a ghost town called Bonanza in the West and told they’d have to make the town work – without any grown-ups around.
Four other kids were brought in separately to act as the town council: Mike, 11, a Boy Scout, Taylor 10, a beauty queen, Anjay, 12, spelling-bee champ, and Laurel, 12, a student leader.
They “found” a pioneer cookbook and immediately began to try to create a dinner the first night. This took a huge amount of time, with one kid whining, “I’m so starved I could eat off my own leg.”
Somehow the next morning, they were able to make enough perfect pancakes on the pot-belly stove to feed everyone. Huh? I can’t do this on my bazillion-dollar professional Wolf stove. Third day? Biscuits, oatmeal and grits. Are you kidding me? From scratch yet?
It’s basically “Survivor” for kids – like summer camp with better stuff than arts and crafts and softball to occupy their time. The kids will learn, of course, how to make it all work and become a democracy.
Nobody gets thrown outta Bonanza although there are weekly challenges and rewards. First reward? Choosing between seven outhouses or one giant TV set. They chose the outhouses.
Next day, the leaders, following an “old book” the council leaders found, divided the town into four districts, with districts divided into yellow, blue, green and red. Color War with a fancy name.
Some of the kids are simply too young, like little 8-year-old Jimmy, who opted to go home, crying, “I’m only 8 and in the third grade and I’m too young to be here. I want to be older to do this.” Horrible.
Why would parents send an 8-year-old? For one thing, there’s the $5,000 “stipend.”
It’s a good kid show, but frankly, as an adult I’ll lose interest faster than it took these kids to make gourmet biscuits and grits.
Now if I were 11 that would be a whole other story.
“Kid Nation”
Last night at 8 on CBS