Reality Shows that Just Faded Away, Part 2: Utopia

Back in the summer of 2014, the Fox broadcast network--as opposed to the Fox cable networks--heavily hyped a new reality show, Utopia as fifteen pioneering Americans getting a chance to leave their everyday lives and live in an isolated, undeveloped location to build a new civilization--for an entire year. Not for a single TV season (which is typically around 12-13 weeks), not for a mere six months that would stretch from fall to spring, or over a summer--but an entire year. They'd live, we were promised, cut off from the larger world and be forced to develop their own Utopia during that time. 

In short Utopia was sold to the American viewing public as a year-long experiment in building a new community, a new kind of communal living experience. Besides the broadcast episodes, cameras would stream what was happening in Utopia 24/7 so fans could look in any time, similar to the very popular reality show Big Brother. There was even publicity about fans getting chances to visit the location and meet the cast members.

Then the show was off the air, with no explanation, after only a few weeks. There was no finale, no publicity about any "farewell to Utopia" close, the show and its hype and its streaming counterpart just vanished as if they'd never existed in the first place. A look at how the show's ratings went down week after week is probably a good explanation why.

Why the ratings went down, and down, and down, is probably easy to explain. What the hype promised and what the show delivered proved a classic case of "buyer beware." First off, the cast appeared to be chosen to promote discord, not harmony. Even people working together who share common values and agree on common goals often inevitably encounter conflicts, but this cast appeared deliberately chosen to provoke intentional conflict. A Christian pastor who wanted his ideal society to be one where everyone follows Jesus was mixed with cast members who disagreed with his view of religion, and that was just one example.

In a cast that was hyped as being made up of people with skills to contribute to building a new society, one of the first cast members introduced was an attractive young professional dancer whose skills and abilities seemed confined to being "polyamorous," who, upon entering the Utopia location, was shown kissing good-bye to "her boyfriend, and her other boyfriend, and her girlfriend." Her most likely contribution to this new community appeared to be the suggestion that she might engage in multiple amorous affairs leading to jealous spats breaking out, creating conflict that would last for the entire year-long experiment--exactly what's needed when building an ideal society, LOL.

Then came a scene that involved the cast discussing what they considered essential for life in their new community, and the woman who insisted that she must, absolutely must, have her bug spray because she was afraid of bugs and she'd scream if she saw bugs--when she knew she was expected to remain in the middle of an isolated rural setting for a year. Then why did you come on the show, Lady? Yeah, you wanted to be on TV, but who decided you were going to be confined to this rustic primitive community for a year, where bug spray doesn't grow on trees, and just what did you (and the production crew) intend to do when the bug spray ran out?

Then somebody thought providing the cast with wine to start life in this isolated, insulated community for a year was a good idea, and the wine-drinking led to a fist fight--great ideal society we've got going here--which meant one of the first duties for the cast was to devise a system to deal with an incident of assault and battery. Great way to build an ideal society, starting right from the intro!

Add the woman that almost immediately revealed a stunning secret--she was pregnant! It couldn't have possibly been a secret from the production crew--everyone would've had to pass a medical exam to get on the show--but it was treated as a big reveal. If she actually was going to be confined to this rustic isolated community for a year, she was going to have to give birth in it. On camera? On streaming service? 

Although one of the cast was promoted as a "holistic doctor" that's not the same as an OB. Didn't anyone question what might happen should complications to this "surprise" pregnancy arise? What about post-partum care of mother and child? The whole big-news-someone-is-pregnant story line appeared to be completely out of touch with the reality of what women experience in pregnancy. Plus she was supposed to be cut off from her family for a year while raising a newborn, that might need formula and medical care, and would definitely need a supply of diapers (and diaper-cleaning) and baby food? Really?

In subsequent episodes the entire premise of the show floundered. Turned out the concept of people living in isolation for a year wasn't what the concept was after all. People would be coming and going, not confined and cut off from the outside world. Two original cast members (including the Christian pastor) left for personal reasons, even before the twist in the much-hyped concept was revealed. Every few months, some cast members would be "nominated" for elimination (again, similar to the Big Brother concept) while new cast members would take their place.

Given how much the show that was broadcast differed from the show that was hyped, it's not surprising the ratings sank, and sank, and sank still more. No one even bothered to invent a finale, there was no "Utopia closes up and cast members return to their lives" build-up and closure. The show was simply on the air one week and off the air, permanently, the next.

Utopia was originally conceived to be an American version of an European reality show in which people lived in a rural commune. Somehow that original concept never got translated to the ill-fated American version. Someone, though, might make another attempt to bring that concept to an American audience. Cast a dozen or more diverse people, this time promoting a group who have dedicated their lives to working in harmony with others, and start with a less ambitious timeline--say, the length of an average thirteen-week TV season. The show could be extended to a second season--continuing exactly where the first season left off--if the show proves successful. If the show gets renewed for a second year, then start over with a new cast.

 

Reading List for 2025

 Now that I've completed my goal of reading 25 books in '24, for 2025 I'll return to my often-pursued goal of dividing up my reading between novels, poetry books,  collections of short fiction, and non-fiction books, ten of each over the next twelve  months. I've also included a category of books that maybe aren't meant to be "read" so much as "consumed" and some childhood memories that can be stirred up once again. Of course this list is not locked in, and there may be changes as 2025 unfolds. My 2024 list ended up with three different books taking the place of three on my original list.

Ten novels, largely made up of books I started in grade school but never finished:

1.  The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

2.  All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

3.  Kim by Rudyard Kipling

4.  The Prince of Orange County by Kareem Tayyar 

5.  It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

6.  No Time For Sergeants by Mac Hyman

7.  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

8.  The Chosen by Chaim Potok

9.  Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

10.  Sugar Cage by Connie May Fowler

And one alternate choice: There There by Tommy Orange

Ten collections of short fiction:

1.  The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories

2.  Other Fires:  Short Fiction by Latin American Women

3. This Year it will be Different by Maeve Binchy

4. A Leo Tolstoy collection that includes The Kreutzer Sonata

5.  A Richard Matheson collection that Includes "Duel"

6.  Women on the Case ed. by Sara Paretsky

7. Emperor of the Air: Stories by Ethan Canin

8.  Family Dancing: Stories by David Levitt

9.  Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz

10. Either a Daphne Du Maurier collection that includes "The Birds" or a Saki collection

Ten collections of poetry:

1. The Best American Poetry 2000

2.  The Best American Poetry 1993

3.  Rose Quartz: Poems by Sasha La Pointe

4.  A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide Stories and Poems 

5.  Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

6.  The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

7.  Vagabond's House by Don Blanding

8.  Quarterly Selections by Danny Licten

9. and 10. To be determined.

Ten works of non-fiction:  

1.  Spark Joy by Marie Kondo

2. Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life by Marie Kondo

3.  Finish Strong:  Putting Your Priorities First at Life's End by Barbara Coombs Lee

4. Great Speeches by Native Americans ed. by Bob Blaisdell

5. Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions by Todd Rose

6.  Roots by Alex Haley

7.  Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (first up!)

8.  Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye

9. Teamworks: Building Support Groups that Guarantee Success by Barbara Sher

10.  The Worst Years of Our Lives by Barbara Ehrenreich

Ten books that are difficult to categorize as material for "reading goals" but are good for researching life goals, or simply for browsing in the "reading area" of the house on a rainy or lazy day:

1. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die ed. by Peter Boxall

2.  New Mexico Kicks on Route 66 by Martin A. Link

3.  Arizona Kicks on Route 66 by Roger Naylor

4.  ABA/AARP Checklist for My Family: A Guide to my History, Financial Plans, and Final Wishes by Sally Balch Hurme

5.  ABA/AARP Wise Moves: Checklist for Where to Live, What to Consider, and Whether to Stay or Go by Lawrence A. Frolik

6. The Western ed. by Phil Hardy

7. The Encyclopedia of Westerns by Herb Fagen

8.  The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland by Stephen Johnson, Gerald Haslam, and Robert Dawson

9.  #Still With Her: Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Moments that Sparked a Movement by Barbara Kinney

10.  U2 by U2

And may I include here a few children's books I'd like to pay another visit to?

1. A Pussycat's Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown (illustrated by Anne Mortimer)

2. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson

3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

4. Bambi by Felix Salten

5. Heidi by Johanna Spyri

6. Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

Reality Shows that Just Faded Away, Part 1: Kid Nation

 Some reality shows debut to much hype, get decent ratings, develop a fan base, and then, after one season, or maybe two, or sometimes not even an entire season, they just fade from the entertainment-news cycle. Sometimes there's talk about another season, but that season never actually gets on the air, sometimes the show just stops being on the air and just stops being promoted. It doesn't die, it just fades away. 

One good example is, whatever happened to plans for Kid Nation seasons 2 and 3? The first season of Kid Nation went on the air in 2007, hyped as a family-friendly show that children and parents could watch and discuss together. The concept: children of grade-school age would create their own "nation" with no on-camera adult supervision, the only on-camera adult being the show's host who announced each show's challenges and "town meetings," but otherwise the children in the cast were left to resolve each segment's inevitable issues and conflicts themselves.

Educators may have recognized an approach similar to the progressive ideas of John Dewey, and the child-centered approaches of Maria Montessori. Putting children into a televised reality show where they would learn by doing, working by a process of discovery rather than through traditional adult guidance, is very similar to alternative educational concepts that have been tried and tested for more than a century.

While the show generated controversy, as any project that puts children in charge of their own development will, it also developed a fan base, and there were reports that a second and third season were expected. Yeah, the kids bickered and fought, got hurt a few times, and said outrageous things--just like adults on reality TV and in reality do. 

Then the show just faded away, the announced second (and third) season never came to pass, and no spin-off's, knock-off's, or updates have ever come to pass, either. If you poke around the Internet, best explanation is that plans for subsequent seasons floundered on the questions of whether the cast of children would be employees of a TV series, or if the TV show was a multi-part documentary of an educational experience similar to a summer camp. If the children were show employees, then the show would have to comply with union protections for children's employment. If the show was meant to be a documentary series recording children in an educational environment, then standards for educational/recreational facilities would have to apply. A subsequent season of the show that would have been compatible with either concept never went into production.

As for the forty kids that made Kid Nation what it was, after winning so many fans and showing so much promise, they faded back into anonymity. On the Internet you'll find a few "where are they now" updates--for example, one of the cast, Daniel Kiri, is now an actor on Chicago Fire--and there are You Tube videos devoted to catching up with the cast--but you have to hunt for them. You don't see "former Kid Nation cast member" as part of the credentials for any prominent media influencer, political activist, expert that appears when a talking head is needed, or someone who pops up on other reality shows. The cast has faded away just like the rest of the show.

Given the ever-expanding world of reality TV, the Kid Nation concept of having children being in control of their own "nation" deserves to be revived. Maybe a production team--either the original producers or their successors--could present a revised concept that would be compliant with child actor protections required by unions and/or applicable laws for educational/recreational facilities. Perhaps such a show could be hosted by an educator trained in progressive or Montessori methods that could explain the pedagogy involved to viewers.  

Books of Rock Photography to Take a Look at

 Photography books are meant to be looked at, not read, so I've put together a list of books I'd like to find that feature rock photojournalism, the more iconic the better. Maybe I won't even buy any of these, I'll just see if I can browse through them on a bookstore shelf--whether "used" or new, it doesn't matter. After savoring the contents, I can then decide whether I want to add them to my home library:

1.  With the Beatles: The Historic Photographs of Dezo Hoffman (Omnibus Press/Putnam 1982)

2.  Beatles '64: A Hard Day's Night in America (Doubleday 1989)

3. Bob Dylan: A portrait of the Artist's Early Years by Daniel Kramer

4. Dylan:  A Man Called Alias (Henry Holt 1992)

5. The Early Stones by Michael Cooper

6. The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus by Mike Randolph

7.  Rock Archives by Michael Ochs

8.  Rock Stars by Timothy White

9. Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the Punk Underground (Sun Dog Propaganda 1988)

10.  Famouz: Photographs 1976-1988 by Anton Corbijn

11. Any number of photography books pub. by ROLLING STONE PRESS

DVD Review: Roots of Fire

 Roots of Fire (2022) 85 min. documentary available on DVD, Apple+ and Amazon Prime: https://www.rootsoffire.com/

I "liked" this independent feature-length documentary about the current Cajun scene—but primarily for my longtime interest in Cajun music and culture that began with Doug Kershaw in the sixties and seventies—and he gets mentioned in Roots of Fire but there’s no elaboration as to why he's of interest. His name and career are given no context. That lack of larger context basically goes for the entire documentary, despite some amateurish animated sequences that depict historical happenings. 

What we get are several contemporary Cajun musicians being followed around at home and on stage by the filmmakers, but the result is structured more like a sizzle tape than a narrative, either linear or non-linear. 

I don’t think we hear a single song, beginning to end, in the whole movie, nor any explanation as to where any particular song fits in any of the artists’ repertoire. There are so many classic Cajun songs that could be performed and explained, but aren't. The artists' original work fares no better. Why did any of these musicians compose or play a certain song? What's the song's significance? What gets a good reaction? Those questions are neither asked nor answered. 

We see the featured musicians and their bands in a hodgepodge of on-stage and off-stage footage, but we don’t really meet the bands. We never really learn who these people are, how they got started playing together, their career milestones, their approach to the classic Cajun music as opposed to their own compositions. 

This little-understood corner of the American experience can use all the exposure it can get, though. Any time America's diverse musical heritage can celebrate a little diversity in our collective culture and bring us together, that's a good thing.