TheBilcourt: Kid Nation

Kid Nation

So....Jody and I just got done watching the premiere episode of Kid Nation. What did I think about it.......? Well, first and foremost, I'm not a huge reality show fan. I did just finish watching Big Brother 8, but hey, there's not a lot on during the summertime. I saw the first episode and kept on watching all summer...religiously. Anyways, I watched the first two seasons of Survivor, Big Brother, and The Apprentice. Usually after two seasons, reality shows just become dull and stale to me. You can always add twists and other surprises, but a lot of these shows just make me lose interest. Kid Nation could easily do that too in the future.

Kid Nation was a welcome surprise. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the show and I do like intriguing controversy! I decided to watch it mainly so that I could keep up with the buzz that is(and will be) surrounding it. I didn't expect much from it to be honest, but like I said, it was a welcome surprise. Is it the best thing I've seen in a while? No. Is it the greatest reality show I've ever seen? No. It is though a nice clean show that primetime tv hasn't seen the likes of in years.

As you grow up, there's always a longing to want to be older. As you get older, there's always a longing to be younger. We all wish we could go back in time to when things were simpler and a lot more fun. I think that's part of Kid Nation's appeal. You watch these 40 kids on their own just wanting and trying hard to feel older and make people recognize them. It really does take you back to when you we're a kid. Watching it made me remember all of the pre-teen and youth trips I used to take at church. It also made me remember what it was like to hang out with my friends when I was in elementary school. It just made me remember simpler times. It does have more appeal than that though. Some of the kids and scenes are just downright funny.(see YouTube clip below). There's this real weasely looking kid that cracks me up everytime he talks. He's like Paul from the Wonder Years. Then there was a scene in which these 3 boys decided they were going to catch a Jackrabbit. They took these big sticks and ran around just trying to catch this rabbit. After a while, they gave up and they started to have a "heart to heart" talk. They all missed home and didn't know if they could make the town run like it should. They were encouraging each other like best friends do. All of sudden, one of the boys spotted some girls coming their way and the boys just started yelling "This is man country!!" It was downright funny and it made me remember all the times I had at my best friends house next door growing up.

To give you a basic overview of the show, it's like this. There's 40 kids divided into 4 groups living in a ghost town. There is one kid from each group that forms a town council and each kid is in charge of their group. The groups participate in a competition each week to decide what kind of class member they will be. There are the high class, the Merchants, the cooks, and the laborers. Each class earns a specific amount of money and is responsible for those tasks. At the end of each week, the entire group of kids convenes in a town hall led by the show's host and the town council to talk about the week's events. During each meeting, the host will ask the kids if anyone wants to go home. Tonight there was one 8 year old kid named Jimmy that wanted to go home because he was homesick. It was kind of cool that after Jimmy raised his hand to go home, all 40 kids started trying to cheer him on to stay. He decided not to stay, but it was still cool to remember the way that kids don't hate each other like adults do. There is no way that if these were 40 adults, that they would try and support each other like that. Anyways, each town hall concludes with one kid being presented with a real gold star by the town council. Each star is worth $20,000 dollars and will be put towards the kid's future. It was funny watching the older kids slack around and the younger kids working hard to prove themselves until the star was given out at the end. Now that the kids know about the value of the stars, they're all going to start busting tail to try and earn one.

I think after watching it, I think the controversy is so far unwarranted. I'm sure there we're incidents to make people kind of worry, but they're kids and things happen. I didn't see any kids being treated like Hong Kong factory workers or anything like that that has made the child labor people go all crazy. I did see a lot of kids trying hard to make things better for themselves. I think some of those kids worked harder than most teenagers work at their jobs. In closing, I think everyone should give Kid Nation a chance. It's not the next Lost or 24, but it is entertaining. It gives the "reality show" genre something to be proud of. Something that hasn't been done in a really long time.

This is an unaired scene. While, yes it is funny seeing these kids act like their drinking, it is a bit disturbing that these kids know how to act like their drinking. Who taught them about dropping the shot glasses in mugs?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 3:58 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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Kid Nation

1 Comments:

What's Sneaky Billy up to right now???

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