New Series Review: “Kid Nation”

This series was one of the earliest to premiere this season, and it came in with enough baggage to weigh down most the young competitors seen on this misbegotten con job — not to mention comparisons to an odd Stanford Prison Experiment-like incident in Norman back in the ’50s. Blasted by some critics for exploiting kids and investigated for possible violations of New Mexico’s child labor laws, “Kid Nation” put a bunch of kids in a supposed ghost town and purported to allow them to build their own society without adult interference.

So I was intrigued, mainly because it had “Lord of the Flies” overtones and, if done correctly by someone like, say R.J. Cutler, there could have even been a hint of reality to this reality television. Instead, “Kid Nation” is a super-lame “Survivor” rip-off, all the way down to dividing the 8-to15-year-old contestants into teams and creating “challenges.” And this ghost town — who is anyone kidding? Frontier City looks more authentic.