At Jon’s prodding, I watched last night’s episode of Kid Nation at lunch. Whereas last week I thought it was “compelling,” this week I think it’s silly…and contrived…and so obviously produced. The producers have chosen, literally, The Most Perfect Children on Earth, because your “average” American kid wouldn’t give $20k they earnestly earned to their parents, unless their parents owed money to the mob or something. Or perhaps, their parents don’t have health insurance and as such, they have to pay full retail price for prescription Chantix. What kind of weirdo marketing strategy is that? An anti-smoking drug ad during Kid Nation?

Plus, I suspect most of these children are bio-medically engineered robots, because after listening to them complain about how cold they were, they got all excited at the thought of a waterslide in the middle of HannahMontana City. But, it’s heated! It’s much-needed entertainment! It’s 14 degrees outside! It would be fricketyfracking FREEZING when they got out of it, and their clothes would likely permanently mold to them the same way their laundry did in that pail! But DUDE, it’s so COOL!

The one thing I do like, is every week they have their “Reward Challenge” - er - ‘Showdown,” the purpose of which is to rearrange the social and economic order so Team Green won’t have the misfortune of being laborers the entire time they’re on the show…or will they? The…I don’t know what he is…host? Moderator? Anyway, the guy who looks like a cross between Jeff Probst and Ted from How I Met Your Mother (we’ll call him Jed) outlines the challenge, which involves engineering a water delivery system out of PVC pipe and old Atari components. If all of the teams complete the challenge in an hour, they’ll get their choice of the aforementioned waterslide as a reward or…a super secret second choice!

I did think it strange though, that everyone rallied around Team Green and told them how great they all were, even though they came in last…again…and caused the entire town to not get freeze-resistant water taps (the super secret second choice) or a waterslide. Greenie Laurel chirps, “I can’t help but smile when I’m around these people.” Really? Do kids talk like this? I like Laurel, but her lack of ambition is disturbing. I’d like to see a little more fire in her belly, motivating her to climb up a few rungs on the child labor ladder.

Now that our pioneers have tackled the basic needs of life - shelter, water, food, chocolate and root beer…I think it’s time to institute some sort of law enforcement. Of course to enforce laws, you need to create laws…like, pioneers shall not hijack a chicken coop to save said chickens from possible death. Pioneers may assemble outside the chicken coop, may blog about their cause and also may speak to the media. Pioneers may not, however, go on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or speak to anyone affiliated with TMZ.

Not ignoring the giant pink chicken in the room…I don’t think I could have handled watching a chicken get whacked, either. I ran over a chipmunk in my car about 15 years ago, and I bawled like a baby afterward.

Hey, have you met Jared? He’s chock-full of snips, snails, puppy dog tails and totally unoriginal lines such as, “I have a dream!” (referring to, of all things, breakfast) and, “To kill or not to kill. That is the question.” I suspect next week we will be treated to “Out, damn spot!” during laundry duty. To ensure we give equal time to the ladies, I think little Savannah from Kentucky said something about, “Lazy and a Sacratomatoes,” but I can’t be sure.

In case you can’t tell, I now think the show is bad. Really bad. So bad I have to keep watching.