And so it begins. Thirty-six kids, ranging in age from eight to fifteen, get dropped off in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The grown-up host, Jonathan, then introduces them to the four members of their "town council," who arrive by helicopter: Taylor, 10; Mike, 11; and Anjay and Laurel, both 12. Before sending them all down several miles of dirt track to Bonanza City, Jonathan takes the council members aside and tells them they"ll be awarding a "Gold Star" to one of the other kids at their first Town Hall meeting in a few days. This, mind you, is not some sticky little piece of foil, but an actual gold star worth $20,000. And then he cuts all the kids loose to find the town on their own. By the time they get there, unload the stuff, find places to sleep, and come up with dinner, everyone"s too exhausted to have the meeting that Mike wants.
The meeting takes place the next morning instead, and it doesn"t go well; Mike feels threatened by fifteen-year-old Greg"s attempts to help him gain control of the chaos, and Greg storms out. And then fourteen-year-old Michael makes an inspirational speech that brings everyone together and makes him a front-runner for the Gold Star. The council members learn that they"ll each be leading a different-colored "district," whose members they get to pick. Which they do.
Day 3 is all about a "showdown," in which the four districts compete with pumps and water bottles to determine which group will have which job (and which salary). Mike"s red district wins, which means his group gets to be the "upper class," with a dollar salary. Despite having bigger and older kids, Anjay"s blue district comes in second and gets to be "merchants," with a fifty-cent salary. Taylor and her yellow district are the "cooks" at ten cents each, and Laurel"s green district are "laborers," meaning they get five cents each for stuff like scrubbing the one toilet that"s shared by forty kids. But since everyone finished the showdown in under an hour, they get to choose between seven more outhouses and...a TV. The council picks the outhouses, to general approval. And then the kids all go shopping in the stores with their money. Fourteen-year-old Sophia wants to buy a bicycle, so she decides to earn the money she needs by dancing in the middle of the street. Which actually works, because plenty of the other kids are willing to pay to make her stop.
During Day 4, Jonathan presides over the first town hall meeting. Sophia, who was another Gold Star front-runner for running the kitchen at first (before getting demoted to "laborer," that is), challenges the council and the yellow district for not doing the dishes. Michael makes another big speech that makes it look like his Gold Star"s in the bag. Then, instead of an elimination, Jonathan asks if anyone wants to go home voluntarily. Taylor, who has been on the fence all along, decides to stick it out. But Jimmy, the youngest at eight years old, bails out like he"s been planning to do. And then the council presents the Gold Star to Sophia. The whole Gold Star thing is news to everyone else, and the fact that it"s worth twenty grand seems to motivate everyone to do better from now on. And then Sophia gets to go call her mom to break the news that college just got easier to pay for. And she even has a bike to ride when she"s there, too!
Yeah, I know. Seems like quite a lot of structure to impose on a bunch of kids who were supposed to create their own society, doesn"t it?