Any similarities you may find between the novel by William Golding and this TV show which children are placed in a New Mexico ghost town and given the task of creating a functioning society without the assistance of any adults…? Completely coincidence!
Okay, maybe not complete coincidence.
“I don’t think any of us were unaware of ‘Lord of the Flies,'” acknowledges producer Tom Forman, who also admits that it took “six seconds” for the similarity to the book to come up. “The minute we started talking about it, we stopped and said, ‘Are we making a reality ‘Lord of the Flies’?’ and said, ‘Well, there will be elements.’ I mean, I’m not going to deny the comparison: these are kids living on their own. That said, like every reality show, there are adults off-camera waiting to step in if kids got violent. They didn’t. We didn’t have to, and that’s okay. But they had heated arguments and discussions.”
The show has already come under considerable controversy from those who rush to presume that the kids were worked like dogs for the purposes of making the show work, but Forman denies that categorically. “The kids woke up whenever they wanted and went to bed whenever they wanted,” he assures us, “and that was part of our commitment when we came up with this idea and decided to do it. We were going to follow their lead. A large adult safety net was there to make sure that if anything happened we had a contingency plan in place. But they woke up whenever they felt like it.
They set their own bedtime. And they discussed those things and debated them. So there were mornings they got up early. There were mornings they slept in. We taped whatever happened.”
Still, there was one question that was gnawing at me and, clearly, other writers as well: why weren’t any of the kids from this show up on the panel…?
“They are not here today because they would show me up on this panel,” replied Forman, sounding like he was only about half joking. “I think the moment that we introduce those kids, they should be in the limelight, not me. That’s the only reason they’re not here today. I think, almost to a one, the kids would tell you this was the best experience of their lives. I think, almost to a one, the parents agree. It’s really important to us that they went into this with an understanding of what it was going to be, both the child and the parent. And as I said, we spent a tremendous amount of time together, more than any executive producer and potential cast member in the history of reality TV, talking about what to expect from all of this. You know, there were absolutely kids there who shed tears. There were tough days for everyone: the kids, the cast, the crew. It was hard. But again, they leaned on each other, and I think they emerged stronger and smarter and wiser than when they went in and, as they all kept saying, with friends that they will know for the rest of their lives. We talk to them a lot. I exchange e-mails with every one of these kids, and they’re doing just great.”
