‘Dark Side of Reality TV’ Sneak Peek: ‘Kid Nation’ Stars on Starvation (VIDEO)
It was a topic of controversy right from the very beginning of its run in 2007, and time has not made Kid Nation look any better in retrospect.
Tuesday’s (September 17) new episode of Dark Side of Reality TV turns to this very short-lived CBS reality competition series, which brought together 40 children from the ages of 8 to 15 to a private ranch in Bonanza City, New Mexico, to create their own brand new society, fit with government and services, with as little adult interactions as possible. What resulted, perhaps not surprisingly, was a Lord of the Flies reality redux, fit with chores, survival skills development, and even town meetings.
Appearing in Dark Side of Reality TV to talk about the show, which was met with negative reviews and low ratings, were participants Anjay Ajodha, Jimmy Flynn, Olivia Cloer and her father, and Daniel Kyri, along with producer Emily Sinclair and attorney Eric Johnson.
In TV Insider’s exclusive sneak peek, embedded above, at the episode, Kyri, who now stars as Darren Ritter in Chicago Fire (which returns for Season 13 on September 25), remembers a moment when the threat of starvation made the kids turn to killing live chickens for sustenance.
Kyri recalled feeling pressured by producers to encourage chicken slaughtering by his costars: “‘You should say, kill the chickens or whatever,’ you know where I’d be like, ‘Yeah, those chickens gotta go down. We need protein,'” he remembered. “I probably would have been like, ‘Nah, I kinda wanna hang out with the chickens.'”
The actor continued, “I remember being told when you cut a chicken’s head off, it’ll still run around and do stuff. So part of me was like, ‘I kind of wanna see what happens,’ and yeah, they do be moving, moving and grooving.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Kyri weighed in on the show’s morality and had an interesting take. “For all the posturing over whether or not the show exploited children I totally think the show could be made again… for better or worse,” the actor said.
Find out more about the hidden secrets of Kid Nation when Dark Side of Reality TV returns for its second episode on Tuesday night.
As the season moves forward, the show will continue to investigate other controversial points in reality TV history, focusing on: Joe Millionaire (September 24), The Surreal Life (October 1), Hell’s Kitchen (October 8), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (October 15), Survivor 1 (October 22), The Real Housewives (October 29), Toddlers & Tiaras (November 5), and America’s Next Top Model (November 12).
Dark Side of Reality TV, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Vice TV
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