Kid Nation

CBS.com employee #1: Hey, we haven't shown our quota of ads this month. What should we do?
CBS.com employee #2: Why don't we say, "Your video will play after this brief message," and then instead of putting the show on, play ANOTHER ad?
CBS.com employee #1: Wow, that's a great idea! People will think it's just a technical glitch, and we'll play twice as many ads! Muahahaha! But then what? Loop endlessly?
CBS.com employee #2: Surely people will stop watching if we just play ad after ad.
CBS.com employee #1: Ever heard of a variable reward schedule?
CBS.com employee #2 Bingo!

I have somehow gotten addicted to Kid Nation. Let's leave aside, for a moment, the fact that they put kids in the desert to create a "new society" and then split them into historical social classes halfway through the first episode. The show is still the first to hit the last great untapped reservoir of reality TV show talent: children. People who have lots of drama in their daily lives, cry at the drop of a hat, and, as a bonus, are cute. It's like watching puppies on Jerry Springer.

That said, I think what they do to the leaders is a little bit cruel. And they did pick New Mexico because it doesn't have child labor laws. But hey, does that make it wrong to watch it? The Nazis made awesome anatomical books with photos of dissected bodies, and isn't it a greater disservice to those people to burn the books than to read them?

Anyway, I am currently unable to access my latest TV guilty pleasure, because I'm stuck in an endless loop of ads.