Kid Nation: Greg Finally Gets a Gold Star!

I've been following the CBS show Kid Nation since it first started a few weeks ago.

Kid Nation is a show that takes place in an old ghost town called Bonanza City. Here in Bonanza City 40 kids have been left alone to get the town up and running. The 40 children were divided into team groups. A red team, yellow team, green team, and blue team. The groups compete each week for roles in the town. Roles include upper class, merchants, cooks, and laborers. The children are paid for their chores, the upper class of course being paid the most, and the laborers who get the worst chores are paid the least.

What I like about the show is how the children actually have to work together in order for the town to run properly. Rules are implied, they have a town council, a curfew, and so on.

If you had been following the show, I'm sure from the start the oldest teen Greg may of rubbed you the wrong way. I for one was taken back, he was not only the biggest kid in town, but he also presented himself to the other children as a town bully.

However as episode after episode went on his behavior changed, sometimes for the best, and sometimes for the worst. Either way though, I saw a teen struggling to get a golden star (each week the council elects a member from the town to receive a gold star...the gold star is worth $20,000. Each week one of the children are awarded $20,000!).

I felt that Greg deserved the gold star the second week in the town. I also felt he deserved it the week after that. Sadly though I watched as the council elected a person who didn't quite deserve the star as much as Greg did.

Last night I watched as the council struggled to decide who to give the star to. A child named Zach who only 'recently' stepped up to the plate and started pulling his weight and making himself known to the council and to viewers; or Greg whom had been working his butt off since he got there.

I had a hunch that the council was going to choose Zach, only because Mike; the council member of the red team did not like Greg since the get go. They had a bit of a tiff in the very first episode, and since then Mike had tried persuading the rest of the council to not vote for Greg, because he felt that Greg was only working really hard because he wanted a gold star, not because he cared about the town. (True or not true, Greg was pulling his weight, and the council should have recognized it earlier on!)

However as the children gathered around for their weekly town meeting, I was nearly in tears when the gold star was awarded to Greg. The kid deserved it, and needed it more than any of the children there. When he was given the star he was brought up in front of the town for a small speech. He got all choked up when he stated, 'You have no idea what this means to me....this means I can go to college.'

Not once did I ever think I would shed tears while watching a reality show...yet here I was smiling proudly at this kid whom I never met, with tears running down my face. He truly deserved it, and I was so glad that finally the council awarded him with the gold star.

Kid Nation is truly a heart touching reality show, and I recommend it to everyone.

For those of you who have not followed the show, you can watch full episodes on the official Kid Nation site.

Kid Nation airs every Wednesday night on CBS at 8pm.