CBS’ fall lineup certainly has its problems, but one of its show has been forced to deal with a large portion of the media blitzkrieg. Kid Nation was conceived to draw some level of controversy: placing forty kids into a ghost town on their own is never going to be seen as anything less than exploitation upon first glance. However, beyond that point, the series has been attacked from all sides.
It started, immediately, with the show being unfortunate enough to be placed directly into Jericho’s former timeslot during the Nuts for Jericho campaign. It was one thing for a show to be replacing Jericho, but a reality program with a very different set of values on the surface was quite another. Jericho fans, unsurprisingly, targeted Kid Nation quite directly in their efforts to save their show.
Things really hit the fan, if you will, when the show began to face ethical and safety concerns on behalf of parents and, more importantly, authorities. Claims of child abuse, evasion of child labour laws and enforcement officials, and just about everything else under the sun have started flying, and things are not looking good for the series.
L.A. Times Article (via Zap2it.com) – CBS Addresses ‘Kid Nation’ Controversy
And yet, out of all of this, I think that something needs to be said: as a concept, I do not think that this is a bad idea. As far as reality shows are concerned, I would argue it is in fact one of the least exploitative of the new season. While the show should not receive a free pass for any abuse which may or may not have taken place, I think that it has received a stigma not quite equal to its content. And, well, I think that viewers should keep an open mind.
Bones, meanwhile, is moving to find itself a new timeslot away from a rather tough Wednesday 9pm lineup (Private Practice, Criminal Minds, Bionic Woman). The FOX forensic crime procedural will be moving to New Amsterdam’s timeslot of 8pm on Tuesdays (Starting on September 25th) before itself likely moving to Fridays at 8 in January.
ABC has finally gotten around to announcing that their Emmy-nominated Drama series, Boston Legal (featuring Emmy nominee William Shatner), will premiere its fourth season on September 25th. The episode will be a special 90-minute episode (Which apparently David E. Kelley wasn’t happy with, which makes this all really weird), and will air at 9:30 after Dancing with the Stars before settling into its 10pm timeslot.
When Josh Schwartz created The O.C., he became a household name due to the show’s success and the pop culture phenomenon that developed. He was the young writer-producer who was setting television on fire, and the world was at his doorstep waiting for him to emerge victorious again. However, The O.C. ran into some trouble, and all of a sudden Josh Schwartz was behind a losing property that limped to its fourth season finale.
Cavemen (ABC)
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
When Showtime’s Weeds returns for its third season on August 13th at 10pm, there will be few surprises for fans of the series. Weeds is a sitcom that works on a very precise cycle: mother and pot dealer Nancy makes advances in her field of choice, is faced with a terrifying reality, and then is forced to deal with the consequences before clawing her way back to the top. At the end of Season One, she realized she had fell into bed (literally) with a DEA agent, which then became the overarching development in the show’s second season.
Cultural Learnings 