I'm normally not a fan of reality television. I prefer my TV well-written, lurid, and lascivious. Think Aaron Spelling. Chances are, if Aaron Spelling produced something, I liked it. Right now, Dirty Sexy Money is my favorite show on television. Favorite, that is, if you don't count the reality show Kid Nation.

Whenever I watch Kid Nation, which I do religiously every week, I am certain of one thing: That night I will have intense and crazy dreams, and those dreams will involve at least one but perhaps all of the "pioneers" of Kid Nation. Every Thursday morning, I am certain to wake up confused and in a panic, wondering how Jared is possibly going to process all of that mail by himself! (Because Kid Nation dreams are never just about the TV show. They mix into my normal life and my weird dream life as well.)

Aside from my girlfriend Christa, I don't know anyone else who watches KN. The show, for the uninitiated, puts 40 kids ranging in ages from 8 to 15 without adult supervision in a ghost town known as Bonanza City. There, they have to learn to function as a society. They have a town council and jobs. They have four classes -- ranging from the upper class, whose wage is $1 for doing nothing unless they choose to, to the laborers who haul water and clean outhouses for 10 cents. They have a saloon where they drink root beer and do shots of some kind of clear pop. Someone cries in almost every episode, but this isn't Lord of the Flies. All of the kids are for the most part really nice to each other.

Some kids shine more than others, and the most talked about pioneer is easily Taylor, a 9-year-old "pageant queen" from Georgia. Taylor is, in a word, a bitch. New York Magazine called her "a world-class media whore," and that's about right. When I first heard that I thought, "That's terrible. She probably doesn't even know what that word means." Then I realized that she probably does, and that she probably uses it with surgical precision every day at school. I like Taylor quite a bit.

The aforementioned Jared is easily my favorite pioneer. Jared is also 9, talks in a gravelly voice, and is a bizarre kind of genius. In one episode, he teaches himself to patiently burn words into small pieces of wood with a magnifiying glass. He makes necklaces out of the decorated wood, sells them to the other pioneers, and makes a lot of money (almost $3) which he immediately blows on what can only be described as an Old West pimp outfit -- duster, broad-brimmed hat, huge lollipop that he twirls around in circles. In the most recent episode, he found a cow's skeleton in the desert, stuck the pelvis on his head, and shrieked, "Pelvis has left the building, baby!" His dream is to win the gold star so that he can go to college and get the education to build a teleportation device. His quantum physics theories are already convincing.

Speaking of geniuses, Alex, aka "Ol' One-tooth," is another 9-year-old favorite. One-tooth is only educated in certain matters. "Everyone calls them [two of the other pioneers] Paris and Nicole, but I don't really know what that means," he says. When One-tooth wins the gold star (an actual gold star worth $20,000 that the town coucil awards every few days) he says in his speech that $20,000 is both a lot of money and not a lot of money. "It's a paradox," he says, and in the background we hear one of the girls scream "HE'S SO CUTE!!!!"

Sophie, 14, comes across like she's 26 and a heavy smoker. She's disgusted and jaded about everyone who's around her. I like to think of her as the Ben Franklin of the town, because despite the many calls for re-elections in Bonanza City (the town council has gone through three different incarnations) she's never run, though she's obviously a leader. Understanding this, the council appointed her as sheriff. When she's not keeping the peace, she's usually conducting some kind of sociological experiment, such as roping off a few square feet of land in the center of town, proclaiming it as hers, and saying that no one can step inside of it, just to see if her theory that everyone in town will want to step inside of it is right. (it is.) Sophie is the kind of person who will be a lot of fun to hang around with when she's 30. Right now, though, she's a bit too intense and self-satisifying.

At 15, Greg is the oldest pioneer, and is suffering from some kind of jerk identity crisis, where he waxes between being an absolute doucheface to the nicest guy you ever met. Maybe that's called being 15. Greg was also suspiciously the first pioneer to get the cold sores, and eventually wound up on the town council with his buddy Blaine, with whom he has a little too close of a relationship.

There are many more incredible characters. Put all of them together, and just watch dynamic twist and morph before your eyes. Greg chops the heads off of chickens for dinner while Taylor stands by making sure that only the ugly chickens get killed, all the while screaming about the need for "animal make-up." Meanwhile, the completely useless Mallory (age 8) helps out by attempting to set up a daycare for everyone's stuffed animals.

Next week is Kid Nation's season finale, and I just don't know how to deal with this. The second season can't possibly be as good, and I doubt I'll even bother to give it a chance. If you've never watched KN before, don't bother with the finale. Wait for the DVD to enjoy it properly. Maybe then you'll have dreams like mine.