"Bless Us and Keep Us Safe"
Although I wasn't around last Wednesday night to recap, I did end up watching the episode on Saturday night and then reading all your comments. One of the things that's interesting now that we have a few episodes under our belts is that the show is really giving off a pretty negative vibe. I mean, 75 percent of the comments last week were negative in one form or another, from talking about Taylor, to Greg's attitude and the whole drinking-shots issue. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but don't you get the feeling that it's much easier to point out the bad than the good? And that's driven by where the editing of this show is taking us.
Just the opening segment alone, where they have Taylor prominently saying "deal with it," gives you a great idea of what the show is trying to portray. The biggest comments from last week were Taylor's attitude and the kids drinking shots. And that was a good chunk of this week, too.
Taylor did nothing this entire episode. She didn't cook; she stood over the puzzle and yelled at people, she didn't get near the wheel to help lift up the puzzle, and she laughed in the faces of the people who were calling her lazy. The host is right on target with his comment at the end. Either she tunes people out or she has the thickest skin I've ever seen in a child. Every child I know would have been crying their eyes out by now. I want to hate her, but I can't hate a child. I can hate her values, her laziness and her arrogance, though. Somehow it makes me feel better to hate everything about the girl, but not the girl herself. Hey, if 15 years from now VH-1 is airing "I Love Taylor IV", then I'll hate her. Yeah, I'm buying into my own crazy logic on this one.
Then there's the shot issue. I have to tell you that I hate this. There's no rosey spin on this one. These kids are drinking their beverages out of shot glasses. How remarkably irresponsible are these producers? It's one thing to leave kids to fend for themselves, but it's another to toss shot glasses in front of them as if normal glasses don't exist. What's the oldest, 15? So give it two or three years before one of them experiments at a party with big bro's Wild Turkey, gets tossed in rehab and blames it on
Kid Nation.
Then there's this show's whole religious vibe. I found it remarkable how strongly some of these young kids believed in their religion. I probably shouldn't be that shocked, but growing up in a nonreligious family it's weird to see 11-year-old kids so adamant about what they believe in. The most interesting comment throughout the whole group debate was when Laurel commented that people are being very "narrow-minded." Don't get me wrong, I see where she's coming from. The fact that some of these kids felt so strongly about not wanting to be in the same service with someone of a different faith can come across as narrow-minded. But wasn't the council being pretty narrow-minded itself in trying to force everyone to come to an overall service so they could learn about each others' religions? By the fact that no one came to the service, it's clear to see which train of thought won over. It's also nice to see the prayer circle afterwards. And of course, the very positive thing about the whole situation is that the group chose the Bibles as the prize. I really do think that one of these times they need to choose the fun prize and let themselves go a bit, but not in this case. Again, I'm not religious, but even I know that was the proper choice. But one of these times, the 40-foot water slide has to come out as a sanity check for the kids.
Now I want to get your opinion on something here. Supposedly, the overall goal of this show is to see if the kids can build a working town by the end, right? Was there one part of this episode that showed any step toward accomplishing that? In fact, how many steps toward that goal have we seen in the last few weeks? All I saw was a religious discussion, Taylor sitting around doing nothing and more dishes being washed. Are we done building up this town already? If so, are any of us going to be able to take many more weeks of just watching kids hold up dirty dishes? I kind of feel like I'm seeing the same thing over and over.
Anyway, Morgan did deserve the star this week, but Zach is certainly right on the verge. And you had to get all teary-eyed for Cody except for the fact that he misses his girlfriend. His
girlfriend! Do 9-year-olds have girlfriends these days? Geez, I feel old.
Until next week, friends.
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