Reality Check

By Olivia Leigh in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 2, 2007 7:10PM

Over on Kid Nation, the episode focused on money and greed, as the Council receives directions to go to an abandoned, bat-infested mine (eee!), where they discover a treasure chest full of the town's currency, buffalo nickels. Faced with the decision of distributing the cash among the kids or buying items that the town can collectively share, the Council takes the "big government" approach, buying toys for the town. Shockingly, the kids are A-OK with the council's decision — take note, government officials. The challenge of the week required the teams to launch Wonka-esque golden eggs over a fence to other members of their team. While Chicagoan and last week's gold star (aka, $20,000) winner, D.K., wasn't featured much this episode, the 11-year-old Illinoisan/40-year-old Republican, Nathan, was featured in all his O.C.D. glory. Obsessed with doing "the right thing," Nathan is seeing tending to clothes on a washboard, complaining about the weight of water buckets yoked to him, and continuing to scrub when other kids insist silverware is clean. Despite being a typically ornery older brother/bully to Nathan throughout the episode, 15-year-old Greg nominates Nathan for a gold star, and surprisingly, he beats out the poor kid/bartender that actually needs the money (Pharaoh), and the unbearably annoying potato fryer (Divad).

We also checked out the BET reality series, College Hill: Interns. Sadly, the Chicago-based series takes the traditional Real World approach (playing up romances, roommate drama, and partying), and mixing it with an Apprentice-esque premise, where the interns complete a different task each week and face elimination under the leadership of Celebrity Fit Club doc, Dr. Ian. The series would have been decidedly more interesting had the producers taken A Model Life or Fashionista Diaries approach, tracking the lives of students in real internships, attempting to figure out office politics, making ends meet on a summer intern's salary, and trying to navigate a new transit system. Instead, the two teams faced off against each other this week in a challenge to plan a cleverly-named "Rap-It-Up" HIV/AIDS awareness fundraiser, which the blue team decided to hold at Loop blah-fest, Cactus. Chicago contestants Kathy (acting/theatre major from Illinois State University) and Letia (pre-med at Chicago State University) managed to stay out of trouble, but we'll be watching to see what sort of drama they encounter over the next few weeks.