The show stars kids instead of adults, and no one is voted off, but are there really any other differences between “Kid Nation” and CBS’ reality staple “Survivor”? In both shows, the participants are split into groups, and they give private confessionals to a camera. Both shows go through three days per episode with reward challenges in the middle of the episode and meetings at the end.
With “Kid Nation,” CBS may have changed the cast by implementing children, but the scripted nature of the reality show persists. Rather than let things flow naturally, the entire point of reality television, CBS has subtly scripted the show. CBS cleverly orchestrates “Kid Nation” with a ridiculous journal that has supposedly been left behind by “settlers” of Bonanza City, N.M. The settlers give advice about problems the kids might face in the journal, which ironically prompts the kids to create new problems and ensures a theme for the episode.
This is how it works — the society is made up of 40 kids, four of whom are leaders who dictate how the society will run while trying to maintain the good-natured tenets of democracy. The leaders ultimately make all the decisions unless they feel generous.
The leaders read this journal once every three days (or at the beginning of each episode). They then go to the people and tell them what they learned from the journal and what they need to do now.
For example, when the journal told them they should include religion in society, this led to a big uproar about whether or not the town should have a unified religious service. When the journal said eating chicken would give them protein, this led to a grand debate about killing animals for food. In that episode, it seemed like the words “we need protein” were used at least ten times.
Even the reason they split up into color-coded groups was because of the journal. It told them to split so the four leaders split the kids into four groups: red, blue, green and yellow.
The main point of the show is to teach children about the cares of adult life in its flawed civilization. In the world of “Kid Nation,” there are only four job categories: the upper class, the merchants, the cooks and the laborers. The upper class is paid $1 and does nothing unless they want to help. The merchants are paid 50 cents to run the stores of the town. The cooks get 25 cents to cook the food and clean dishes. The laborers do all the dirty work of the city (like clean outhouses and get water from the well) for a mere 10 cents.
Their job changes each week, depending on how well their team does in the “showdown” or reward challenge. The challenges usually are physical ones; thus showing children that brute strength and physical prowess solely decide their status in life. Even when the majority of the challenge is mental, a part of it is still physical. When the groups had to put seven presidents in order in the fastest time, they first had to obtain cards of the presidents by smacking a piñata. After they put together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle in another challenge, they had to turn a wheel to raise their jigsaw puzzle on a pulley.
Like all other reality shows, there is also a clear villain — a 10-year-old girl named Taylor. Taylor whines and complains about doing the least bit of work, thus raising the ire of virtually everybody in “Kid Nation.” But is it moral to set up a 10-year-old child to be universally hated on national television?
Additionally, is it even moral to subject children to the uncensored exposure of reality television at all? It can be argued that the wise guy from “The Real World” or the back stabber from “Survivor” had it coming, but do some of these children really know any better?
There is a good time to be had from “Kid Nation,” despite the often uninteresting plot threads and the stereotypical and sometimes questionable portrayals of the children. There’s no logical explanation for the interest; it’s simply hard to avert the eyes away from this train wreck.