“Kid Nation” — The Root of All Evil
I checked in this morning with what those crazy kids over at Bonanza City to see if they were still alive, kickin’ and speaking with adorable speech impediments. Having missed the past two episodes I was certain Wednesday’s episode would open with a series of cabins flames and thick black smoke pouring out of the windows. The streets would be riddled with corpses with one naked youngster beating another naked younger with a wooden plank off by the church. The rest of the town would be covered in mud, faces painted and attacking the film crew, who they have decided serve no purpose other than that of food. These images were quickly put to rest as the kids continued doing/not doing dishes, complaining about not getting paid enough, and looking generally chilly.
Unforunately, it looks like I missed some of the series’ best material in the episodes I didn’t watch. The “previously on…” had some excellent moments of Taylor acting like a seaword and her eventual ouster from the town council. This is good stuff. Taylor makes the show. Unlike Greg, who is just a bully a la Nelson from The Simpsons, Taylor is a nine year old trapped in the body of the most horrible 20-something southern, entitled drama queen you could ever imagine, and because she is so young and because we hate her (double underline) a very untypical television experience is had. Though this week she made few appearances, if any.
This week the theme was the corrupting power of money… and I guess, laundry (?), as the town’s citizens battled over wages. None of this was particularly interesting. Week in and week out the show has become a tad repetative with the stupid book telling the boring council to go do something and then decide what they should do with that something that they had just done or did or found. There are a few choice moments of kids arguing over dishes or laundry or Greg making little kids cry, but the fun of watching the show was often in the horrifying behavior of unsupervised youngsters (Remember when they were doing “car bombs” at the bar? That was crazy.) which now that they’ve been there for so long seems not to take place. We don’t want kids acting like adults. We want kids acting like kids acting like adults. The show doesn’t have the general sense of near-chaos that it onec did.
Again, I blame this on Taylor’s back-seat role. It’s way more fun to see her acting like she’s in charge despite being universally hated than simply working around the edges. The town needs a bad guy, just like any town, and Greg simply isn’t cutting it. Not sure if I’ll check back in again. The show is fine, but rarely awesome.
Tags: CBS, Kid Nation
