Frontier House

What's more dangerous than Survivor? More intimate than Big Brother? It's `Frontier House'! PBS offers a quality reality show in the vein of those previous hits. This is a must see show. This is totally different than any of the shows on today. If you want a true reality show that is also different, then Frontier House is the show to watch. I loved every minute of the show and wished it could have been longer. This show focuses on the complexity and depth of human nature as it faces new challenge everyday.

The show depicts what life was like for the early American's of the frontier. Three families are given a chance to relive this amazing experience. The virtual frontier was recreated using period experts to show an accurate representation of the west.

There are no challenges for food or gifts, no alliances to backstab each other or any ratings booster. The show does show how the families lived, worked, played and interacted with each other over the five months on the frontier. We are treated to real emotions that show that life wasn't always easy on the range. Can three families coexist with each other being their only neighbors? The ultimate goal is to see who can survive and thrive on the range.

I've spent the last two weeks off and on watching this amazing experience. To slap on the title of 'reality show' would be a disgrace. Few shows, if any, can get so deep as to question our society and our place in the world.

It starts out simple. You think it's a show about modern day families trying to experience what it was like to live in 1883. But you are wrong. There are three "families": The Clunes: A wealthy Malibu family consisting of four children (one of them is a niece) and a father who is smart, but weak. His wife is a drama queen, though has a degree in culinary arts. The Glenns: A middle class suburban family from Tennessee. They are competitive people by nature, and see this as a game. There are two children, and the parents who are having marital problems. The Brooks': They start out as a father and his grown son, but half way through the father leaves to make room for his son's new bride. They are without a doubt the most positive and helpful people on the program.

So for five months we see them all struggle and work together to prepare for winter. Tears are shed, anger is expressed, and love is shared. There are some funny moments as well as some enlightening. But the show really makes it's point after the families go home.

The Brooks': They were married on the frontier, but before the show they lived together in Boston and were sharp young people with a good future ahead of them. After leaving the frontier, they are found in Mexico, just drifting through their honeymoon. They state they have been 'gypsies' since their return. Driving from place to place. Sure modern society holds so many more opportunities for them than the frontier did, but they still don't know what they are going to do with their lives.

The Clunes: They return to find the mansion that was under construction when they left completed. Only, there are so many rooms unused, it seems like a waste. In fact, it all seems like a waste at times.

The Glenns: The family with marital problems separates upon their return home. The wife turns to the church, while one of her children becomes addicted to video games, a habit that was not in place before the frontier. The father has moved into an apartment in Nashville, and hides there from the world. You can tell he misses the frontier. He says that the 21st century is so empty and hollow, they need to have support groups for victims of the 21st century. Upon further research, I discovered he moved back to Montana.

So we were conned. Here we thought we were watching an intelligent reality show about people seeing what life was like during another time period. But what they found was that the society we live in now is empty. Sure we have unlimited possibilities, and everything is instant. But is that the route we should be taking?

I have just revisited this show in 2020 after watching when it first aired.

The first thing that struck me was that the show has been edited since the original broadcast. The whole ridiculous scene with Oprah has been removed and I'm pretty certain that other embarrassing moments were as well.

But this is still a useful study in human behavior and worth a re watching. Some of the behavior of the participants is just as disappointing as it was back then.

So living like 1883 is not so important. The real story here is isolating three families, depriving them of all comforts and watching them duke it out.

This would make a great term paper.

This show is what reality television is all about. You take a real family and place them in a "real" situation to work in and out of. This show is nothing like the reality competitions you see on prime time television. This show isn't about winning or losing it's about interaction and life--what people are REALLY like. This is a wonderful show especially for families. To me, this is much more entertaining than "Survivor", "Fear Factor", or the "Bachelor". These shows are just exploitive in nature. Frontier House is wholesome and real. PBS has also come out with a line of several other shows such as 1940's house, which are worth checking out.

NOVA, National Geographic, The Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Scientific American Frontiers and, now, Frontier House. PBS just keeps raising the bar. If only mainstream media would catch on.

Frontier House is really a fantastic show. Three modern families are plopped down in 1880's Montana and left to fend for themselves. From the beginning, it is clear that Frontier House is not just another lame "reality" show. The participants and the organizers obviously take the project seriously. There are no silly games or idiotic "challenges" for the families to participate in because life on the frontier is challenging enough. What happens when you buy thirty chickens who won't produce any eggs? How do you reap (by hand) four tons of hay for your livestock to eat during the coming winter? How do you keep healthy, clean and sane when you are locked in a 24-hour-a-day struggle with the world at large? Frontier House explores these questions and many more.

Meet the Clunes: An extremely wealthy family used to only the best of everything. The husband is a chubby, pampered man with a family business to run. The wife actually has a degree in culinary arts and the daughter and her cousin miss their TV. How does a family like this survive as 1880's frontier settlers? They become a family of moonshining egg-and-baked-goods barons.

Meet the Glenns: Karen and Mark: a most unpleasant pair. Always with something nasty to say about the Clunes and constantly at each other's throats. Clearly, they see this as an exercise in "us against them". Think these show are a joke? The Glenns' marriage may just disintegrate before the show is over. How does Karen feed her family? Country-style thriftiness and severe rationing supplemented by income from a laundry-washing job.

Meet the Brooks: The show starts with Nate Brooks and his father Rudy sharing a log cabin. Nate and Rudy are by far the nicest, most helpful and least competitive people on the show. A pair of intelligent and capable men, they are the only black people on the show. Whether this is to reflect the racial mix of American frontier settlers or it just worked out that way, I don't know and it isn't really important. Rudy leaves early in the show and is replaced by Nate's fiancee, Kristen and the two are married in a Frontier ceremony. Nate and Kristen are my favorite people on Frontier House. They go about their business and do their best to make a life in the harsh conditions that confront them.

Even from my living room couch, the challenges faced by these three families seem insurmountable. The law of open range threatens to destroy all their hard work as cattle are driven across their land. The families face famine without enough provisions. Sickness, desperation, the weather and each other are just a few of the hundreds of daily challenges we see on Frontier House. How much wood do you need to chop to make it through a plains winter? What if animals get into your garden? What's it like to till the soil using a sled and a mule?

This show has an amazing amount of charm and appeal. We've all dreamed of "simpler" times without the hustle and bustle of modern life, but our idea of a simpler world usually has a refrigerator in it, somewhere. Unfortunately for the Clunes, the Brooks and the Glenns, that just isn't the case.

If you are looking for a fascinating show with really great characters (because they are real people!), then Frontier House is for you.

As I write this, I am watching "1940's House" where they have taken a British family and planted them in war-time London. I didn't like the first 5 minutes, but it's already growing on me. I can't wait to see the next episode.

Frontier House: 10/10 and only because there is no such thing as 11/10.