Kid Nation

The idea of a few dozen kids living in an abandoned western town with no adults sounds like a pretty good concept, but having the whole thing ran by a bunch of pre-chosen leaders kinda defeated the purpose though, even with the leaders themselves being kids, not even to mention all the books the adults left them with instructions on how to run the nation. it made the whole thing feel less like a show about kids learning to survive on their own and more like a show about a bunch of kids going to summer camp. it would have been a lot more entertaining if we got to see them all start out with no directon whatsoever and the kids having to figure everything out themselves, other than the bare essentials of course like cookbooks and stuff like that

I mean, there has to be a lawsuit in here somewhere. I honestly don't know what to think. Like, they just kinda threw some kids into the middle of the desert and then watched as they slowly descended into some "Lord of the Flies" type stuff. This has the the work of an escaped mental asylum patient right? Who funded this?

I thought that Kid Nation was a pretty interesting take on society in general.

And of course its partially scripted, they are not going to put the entire show into the hands of the kids and say run with it. But I think the reactions of the kids, the actions of the kids and the emotion of the kids is very really.

It is almost a miniature of the real world. There are the hardworking kids and there are the lazy kids, there are the outgoing kids and there are the shy kids, there are the aggressive kids and there are the timid kids.

All in all, it was an interesting premise and I thought, fairly well done.

This is my favorite show of the 2007 season. I agree with the other comments about the "child labor" commentary - in America you can always find a university professor/media gadfly/reporter desperate for something to talk about somewhere willing to voice clucking concern.

Some people reflexively see anything not involving indulgent, extensive and repeated -heart-ing of kids is torture and abuse. And we must be suspicious of the artifices and manipulation of reality television. I don't care for all the Burnett-style time-lapse shots and really dislike the way tyhe general store has started to play up the play-drinking aspects. These kids watch TV too, and when you give them shot glasses for root beer and water you're encouraging them to act out.

But for me the watchable part of this show, the thing I tune in for every week, is the way these kids found so many ways to cope, to live together and deal with the situations that came up without all the lies and self-aggrandizement and duplicity most adults engage in.

They're so wonderfully honest, and sometimes they like each other and sometimes they hate each other but they crash into things, look around, dust themselves off and move right along. They are all right, and they find their way, and their strength and resilience makes me feel better about the future of the world for an hour on a Wednesday night.

All of the episodes have been fascinating to watch - during the election show when Mike realized that every single kid on his team had voted against him, he visibly sank. Then he picked himself up and took his place among those who had voted him out. You know that will be an event that will always be part of his life, and maybe it will make him a better person and maybe it will undermine him, and instead of "ooh, isn't it cool?" I wanted to show this to my nephews and say this kid is demonstrating what you should do in the world when it hands you failure - you sink for a moment, and then you pick yourself up and deal with what's left.

I highly recommend this show, at least so far.

The way the show worked was interesting. As it was said above the kids needed to make the town work in 40 days. The only problem I had about this was that no matter what...the town would work. The challenges were interesting to watch along with the voting for the gold stars. Obviously the older kids were focused on a bit more but even they had something to contribute to the show. There seemed to be a few stereotypes in the town also...the brat, the brain, the idiot, the wise guy, and all of them made the show what it was. I was kind of looking forward to real struggles but there must have been a crew that took care of the kids and the plot was a lot of drama. Ill have to admit the experience looked really fun and I would have done it myself.