CBS Sinks to a New Low

I just saw an ad on television for a new show called Kid Nation.

After the ad ended, I found myself saying "no no no no no no" over and over while shaking my head in disbelief. Even Wendy seemed shocked by what we had just seen, and she has a much higher tolerance for bad television.

It turns out the premise of Kid Nation is none other than Lord of the Flies: Put a bunch of kids together in a place with no adults and see what happens. In this case, they are putting the children in an abandoned town named Bonanza in New Mexico.

The TV trailer had all the things you would expect in that situation: Kids crying, yelling at each other, trying to do 'adult' things like (apparently) trying to catch pigs that happened to be larger than they were.

The major difference between Kid Nation and Lord of the Flies?

LORD OF THE FLIES WASN'T REAL, YOU SICK FUCKERS. THIS IS CHILD ABUSE.

Let's ponder this for a second: These kids - who are aged 8-15 - cannot give informed consent in this case. They are not equipped with the mental, intellectual, or emotional tools that would allow them to handle this situations they will be placed in.

Furthermore, what the fuck is wrong with the parents of these children? Especially those parents with younger children?

Furthermore, how is this even legal? Not that legality should be the minimum standard here - given the nature of the show, I am holding this to a higher moral and ethical standard.

...

Browsing around for some information, I found a Wikipedia entry on Kid Nation. It states that the children are on the Imus Ranch, which according to its Wikipedia entry, houses children with cancer and other serious illnesses. It is not clear if the children of Kid Nation are ill in any fashion or not. I don't consider any of that to count as mediating information.

Finally, there is the CBS website for the show, which contains almost no information other than the trailer.

I did not make it through the trailer. I had to stop when they had a kid get up in front of everyone else and say something to the effect of "we have to do this to prove to adults that we can get stuff done and organize a society." It was just too scripted to be believable.

Between Kid Nation and Aliens in America, I'm feeling less generous than ever towards the television industry. More on this lousy trend later. I hope the outcry is tremendous and CBS decides never to make another season again.