"Oh boy! Tonight that pageant queen Taylor gets what's coming to her!" I thought as I sat down to watch tonight's episode. And then it hit me. The nauseating aspect of Kid Nation isn't that forty kids are left alone to fend and feud for themselves in a ghost town. It's that their parents have signed them up to be television personalities — and whatever the kids' storylines turns out to be, that's how they'll be known forevermore. Johnny Fairplay made his own reality show bed, and now he gets to lie in it for the rest of his fifteen minutes of fame, but he's an adult who signed his own waivers. Taylor may have acted like a lazy, entitled princess on the show, but she's also ten years old. Does she really deserve to have this image stick to her for years, because her guardians decided on her behalf that this reality show would be her big showbiz break?
The producers give her a little bit of a break by finding some kids to complain about Anjay, our token Hindu pioneer and Taylor's fellow councillor. But they put the whole council up for re-election, leading to this week's kids-do-the-darnedest-things montage. Last week it was "awww … kids pray!" This week: "awww … Zach is practicing his stump speech!"
The worst thing about political campaigns, it turns out? Hurt feelings. Little Mike, who's arguably taken his leadership responsibilities more seriously than any of his councilmates, has to stand by while homeschooled Guylan, in what to my memory is almost his first appearance onscreen, calls his reign a "dictatorship." That's hard cheese for a fifth-grader.
Because nothing says "U.S. presidential politics" like "red white and blue pinatas," the showdown features a lot of flailing away at party favors in order to collect trading cards that the council members had to put in historical order. (Taylor admits that she has no idea who was president before George W. Bush — don't they have an interview portion in these kiddie pageants?)
Former bad boy Greg cleans up and gets the gold star, putting his dream of college within reach. Then comes the election, raising all kind of behind-the-scenes questions. Did the producers mandate that there only be one challenger for each spot? Has any election ever kicked off with the words "Ready … set … vote!" Where can I get some of those rustic Wild West pencils they used to mark their choices?