The TV Zone

Beverly Hills - Hey, networks are almost always happy to get a little pre-launch flak before a new show hits the air, but it's also always valid to ask - how much controversy? or what SORT of controversy? or can this controversy have the potential to humiliate both network, producer, cast member and viewer? This is the kind of stuff the new CBS reality show “Kid Nation" invokes because it IS about kids, and there AREN'T any adults involved, and there ARE such things as child labor laws, and, well, we could go on, but let Tom Forman tell you about all this stuff.

Tom's a reasonably well-regarded producer - talented enough to survive "Armed & Famous," his deliriously, deliciously bad creation, now thankfully cancelled. He was a top producer at "Extreme Makeover," and has a credit on CBS’s "9/11," and was once a network news producer, so maybe he deserves benefit of the doubt here.

Or does he?

There's not much to see with "Kid Nation" - CBS has released only a brief snippet - but it's still one of those shows that instantly prompts a visceral kind of response as in - "what were they drinking when they thought this up?"

The basics: forty kids spend forty days/nights in a New Mexico ghost town, Bonanza City, to "build a new world." They cook their own meals - and they are only about eight years old - haul water, run businesses, and create their own government. No one gets booted - this isn't "Survivor" - and at each episode’s end, the forty kiddies gather together for a town meeting where they hash stuff out. (By the way - no TV.) Seems harmless enough but there have been reports that the show somehow violated child labor laws, and Forman was even asked whether New Mexico was picked because the state has a loophole in said laws that he exploited.

"No," said he, "we picked New Mexico because it had the right location and...we checked with our attorneys, who said there was no problem." But - this persistent writer persisted - when the show started shooting, the New Mexico state legislature discovered the loophole and instantly closed it in response to “Kid Nation,” right? Foreman: "I don't believe that's true..."

"The truth is, it's less child labor laws than labor laws...the participants aren't acting, and we went ahead and made this show with he understanding they'll do what they do and we're not going to consider them actors" who get paid residuals.

He added, this kind of show would not have been possible in, say, California – where presumably the child labor laws have no loopholes.