This is my favorite show of the 2007 season. I agree with the other comments about the "child labor" commentary - in America you can always find a university professor/media gadfly/reporter desperate for something to talk about somewhere willing to voice clucking concern.
Some people reflexively see anything not involving indulgent, extensive and repeated -heart-ing of kids is torture and abuse. And we must be suspicious of the artifices and manipulation of reality television. I don't care for all the Burnett-style time-lapse shots and really dislike the way tyhe general store has started to play up the play-drinking aspects. These kids watch TV too, and when you give them shot glasses for root beer and water you're encouraging them to act out.
But for me the watchable part of this show, the thing I tune in for every week, is the way these kids found so many ways to cope, to live together and deal with the situations that came up without all the lies and self-aggrandizement and duplicity most adults engage in.
They're so wonderfully honest, and sometimes they like each other and sometimes they hate each other but they crash into things, look around, dust themselves off and move right along. They are all right, and they find their way, and their strength and resilience makes me feel better about the future of the world for an hour on a Wednesday night.
All of the episodes have been fascinating to watch - during the election show when Mike realized that every single kid on his team had voted against him, he visibly sank. Then he picked himself up and took his place among those who had voted him out. You know that will be an event that will always be part of his life, and maybe it will make him a better person and maybe it will undermine him, and instead of "ooh, isn't it cool?" I wanted to show this to my nephews and say this kid is demonstrating what you should do in the world when it hands you failure - you sink for a moment, and then you pick yourself up and deal with what's left.
I highly recommend this show, at least so far.
Some people reflexively see anything not involving indulgent, extensive and repeated -heart-ing of kids is torture and abuse. And we must be suspicious of the artifices and manipulation of reality television. I don't care for all the Burnett-style time-lapse shots and really dislike the way tyhe general store has started to play up the play-drinking aspects. These kids watch TV too, and when you give them shot glasses for root beer and water you're encouraging them to act out.
But for me the watchable part of this show, the thing I tune in for every week, is the way these kids found so many ways to cope, to live together and deal with the situations that came up without all the lies and self-aggrandizement and duplicity most adults engage in.
They're so wonderfully honest, and sometimes they like each other and sometimes they hate each other but they crash into things, look around, dust themselves off and move right along. They are all right, and they find their way, and their strength and resilience makes me feel better about the future of the world for an hour on a Wednesday night.
All of the episodes have been fascinating to watch - during the election show when Mike realized that every single kid on his team had voted against him, he visibly sank. Then he picked himself up and took his place among those who had voted him out. You know that will be an event that will always be part of his life, and maybe it will make him a better person and maybe it will undermine him, and instead of "ooh, isn't it cool?" I wanted to show this to my nephews and say this kid is demonstrating what you should do in the world when it hands you failure - you sink for a moment, and then you pick yourself up and deal with what's left.
I highly recommend this show, at least so far.