GOOD fences make good neighbors — and good ratings, producers of a new CBS reality show hope.
This summer, eight families have agreed to have their homes enclosed by a monstrous 20-foot high, made-for-TV wall on the new reality-competition series, “There Goes the Neighborhood.”
Completely cut off from the rest of the world, the families will forgo modern conveniences — including the Internet, cell phones, video games and text messaging — as they are forced to reconnect and work together to win a grand prize of $250,000.
Under the voluntary house arrest, the families have no electricity for cooking or TV — but they are allowed lights and air conditioning.
“This show is truly a social experiment,” said producer Mike Fleiss, creator of “The Bachelor.” “We’ve never seen anything like it before — an entire neighborhood trapped behind a giant wall. It’s insane!”
On each episode the families, from the Legacy Park neighborhood in Kennesaw, Ga., will be pitted against each other in various challenges. There are no judges and the families will vote off one group each week. The eliminated family will be put up in an area hotel for the remainder of the filming.
Producers told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it took months to find eight families on adjacent properties who were willing to be trapped behind a maximum-security style wall “with no way in or out,” for three weeks.
CBS producers searched all over the country before settling on the city of Kennesaw, which approved the filming for the boost it will give the local economy.
At a press conference for the series, CBS producers said the families were friendly before filming began on June 15.
They also said there are many diverse and interesting characters in the mix, including a single mom, an inter-racial couple, a lesbian couple and children as young as 6.
But the imposing 2,000-foot-long edifice is testing some Kennesaw residents’ Southern hospitality.
“Try living in this neighborhood and having to drive past this circus every day,” one area resident griped online. “There has not been one single day there hasn’t been delays getting around this. We are all sick of what they’ve put us through.”
Matt Rogers, a finalist on the third season of “American Idol,” will host the series, which is set to premiere Sunday August 9, at 9 p.m. on CBS.
“Neighborhood” will join a long line of social-experiment-styled reality programs launched by the big three networks.
In 2007, CBS’s Emmy-nominated “Kid Nation” raised ratings — and controversy — when 40 children were given free-reign to create their own society. The series was canceled after the first season.
In 2008, NBC’s “The Baby Borrowers” put teenage couples on the fast track to adulthood by becoming parents to babies, toddlers and preteens over the course of three weeks. The series also failed to make it past Season 1.
ABC’s “Wife Swap,” is one social experiment reality show that has proven successful. The program, which interchanges the mothers of two families with very different values, is in its fifth season.