Kids Nation?

[Shaun]

Has anyone watched or been watching that Kids Nation show? It's the one where they took all the kids and put them in an old west town and had them run it without adults.

I was watching it today since we have On Demand at the house, and I just wanted to see if it was any good. I thought the show was going to really be kids running an old west town (at least for the most part). I watched the first 20 minutes of it and was really very interested, and then things got Nickelodeon stupid...
No, I don't have anything against Nickelodeon game shows or reality stuff. But here's the thing. They have been advertising this Kids Nation show as something really controversial and truly interesting. The idea of taking a bunch of kids (8-15) and throwing them out there to see if they can make an old west town work--to be organized and show they could actually lead if they were the only ones left in the world--is really fascinating. Well, the show isn't like that at all. After the first 20 minutes of the first episode, they take you from this gritty, scary experience for these kids and turn everything into a stupid game.
They divide the 40 kids up into different groups. So the camp leaders choose the groups, and they pick them not based at all on games, but based on who they think will work together the best. Well, then they take them and the host guy tells them they now have to work in their teams to play this game where they have to drag this big water pump things to these fake little pipes in the ground and find the ones with the color of water that matches their group color, fill their buckets, and then fill their little jars. Whoever gets to the line first, gets the highest 'class' in the town, and then the 2nd gets the next step down, etc.
What? What kind of stupid crap is this? It's like a game from Double Dare on Nickelodeon...
In the real world these kids wouldn't get to play a game to determine who keeps running things, or to figure out who does what jobs. No, in the real world someone would either be forced into a job by stronger people, or people would cooperate and choose to do the jobs themselves. So, now they're turning this idea into a game show...and it's idiotic.

What do you guys think?

[jordanisonfire]

Channels do that. There's something that we have in Britain (I'm not sure if you have it in America or elsewhere) called Raven. It's like kids dressing up as medieval peasants and unravelling riddles and puzzles and doing like tests. Such as, they have a test called The Way of the Warrior, where they have to do like a course of running across thin planks and getting past obstacles and stuff. I haven't watched it much, but if it was more adult and stuff, then I think it'd make a really great program.

[Shaun]

Well yeah, see, I was really interested in Kid Nation because I thought it was going to really be as controversial as the commercials made it seem. But now it's just stupid...

[Tncowgirl]

The reason they had to do it was because they were breaking laws. Parents were complaining that their kids were getting worked harder then they were supposed to be blahdy blahdy blahdy, they were gonna sue (they wanted money). I mean come on, I would love to do something like that with out adults at all cause I mean come on, who wouldn't. But yea, the show got in some deep trouble and had to change it.

[Shaun]

Well, if it was in the contract, tough crap. They signed up to send their kids out into the wilderness without adults, what the heck did they expect them to do?

And yeah, changing it into a stupid game show ruined it for me. Stupid parents. They signed their kids up for it, I mean, sheesh.

[Tncowgirl]

That is what I said, but laws are laws contract or no.

[Andy]

That's REALLY how it is? Bah, that's pathetic! I was also under the impression that it would be like trying to see if kids could run a nation on their own. So it's like Kids Survivor or something. Lame...

[Shaun]

Basically, it's Double Dare and Survivor put together because the games are remarkably like games from Double Dare. They have to do something messy to fill up a jar up to a line and do it the fastest. It's basically idiotic. I wanted something really fascinating, a bunch of kids running a town (for the most part...with some liberties granted to them), but it turned out to be stupiiiiiid.

[Ichigo]

Yeha I watched that first episodes too, I was disapointed, and whats up with the star thing? I mean in old western times, it's not likely they'd just have random gold stars laying amungst the hay or whatever...
Fortunatly, I never have to watch it agin as YOUTH CHOIR has started.

[Shaun]

Yeah, the gold stars were stupid, but I kinda understood it. I mean, it's not a real western town, but in the old days people would have been rewarded for good service, just not with a magic gold star worth 20 G's.

[Ichigo]

Yeah really...
I don't know, all these shows seem so scripted anyways.

[Shaun]

Well, true, they have to be to some extent. Except maybe that Last Man Standing show. It's the only one that I actually enjoy watching. If you don't know what it is, they take all these guys from various different sports/professions. They have a rugby player, a body builder, a fitness guru, a bmx biker, and a bunch of other things. Then they throw them out to live amongst these native tribes. They get about a week or two to train for whatever big competition that particular tribe has and then they actually compete. It's really very interesting. I've seen them do a style of wrestling, a kickboxing style competition where they can only fight with the bottom of their feet, and a 26 mile marathon raise where they have to kick around this hard ball on a cross country track. It's so amazing because some of the people in the show look so fit and then you realize that they really aren't :S.

[GeorgeMichael]

Nah, I saw the preview and I was like, oh great another reality show, but then there was this one kid who was crying and said, "I just want to go home and see my brother, he's in a WHEELCHAIR!" and I was like oh my God, this is ridiculous.