[BlogEntry] Kid Nation : To Kill Or Not To Kill

Ok, so apparently the Shakespeare reference by Jared last week (he bought a copy of Henry V from the store) is going to be a regular feature.

This week after discovering how warm a chicken egg is immediately after its hatched, the book tells them that you don't need to keep all your chickens for eggs, you can have some for dinner. This creates quite a controversy among the kids (and I'm sure among the viewers) about whether to kill them at all, and then who will do the killing. The bigger kid, Greg is it?, miraculously has animal butchering experience so he'll be able to do it quick and easy. They agree that as long as they don't have to do the killing, they'll help with the eating.

One girl whose name I forget (come on, there are 40 kids to remember) is so upset by this idea that she and a few others lock themselves up in the chicken coop. Neat idea that they should have keep up with – what would they eventually eat and drink? But instead the situation is diffused in a few minutes. End result, a couple of chickens get killed nice and clean, right there on tv, much to the freakout of the children. Who said that 2 chickens would feed 40 kids?? Jared is loaded with the one liners during this whole process, ranging from the geeky "As Shakespeare would say, To kill or not to kill" to the funnier "We just shortened the natural cycle of life and death for these guys."

The challenge is something about piping water from one place to another, and again the green team comes in last. That's actually one of the most frustrating parts of the show, as the characters on the green team are trying much harder than the spoiled little brats on the yellow team. This week yellow didn't even do their cooking chores, so how long is it before the producers step in with a rule about "If the council decides you didn't do the work, you don't get paid" or something?

Anyway, green loses again, which stinks for them. Remember that they've got the ten cents a day job of cleaning the outhouses. There's a nice moment when the other teams actually console them on their loss rather than being upset that they do not win the prize, but then it turns manipulative again as the host shows them the water pumps that they would have gotten, had green come through. Personally, if the show was really about being a feel good experience for the kids, I say don't even show the reward. If you don't get it, just leave it closed and don't torture the kids with "Look what you lost out on."

Nobody leaves this week, despite that one girl's objection that she would leave if they killed a chicken. I'm not sure if it was made clear whether she actually ate the dinner that night.