'There Goes the
Neighborhood,' maybe
What could be more fun than neighbors going at it?
By Tom Conroy
Aug 7, 2009
“There Goes the Neighborhood” adds a new twist to the general nastiness of reality competition shows by pitting friends against one another. Whether that extra dose of bitterness will spoil the series remains to be seen.
The show, premiering this Sunday, Aug. 9, at 9 p.m. on CBS, features “eight families living in their actual suburban neighborhood while being surrounded by a massive 20-foot wall.”
That wording, taken from a CBS press release, seems carefully chosen: It doesn’t say that the families are living in their own houses. It would probably be impossible to find eight contiguous (and telegenic) families willing to participate in a reality show, so it’s reasonable to assume that some are living in the homes of neighbors who were handsomely compensated to move out for a few weeks.
While living behind the wall, the families compete in games for the title of “king of the neighborhood.” Besides giving the winning family “home security,” the title allows them to nominate two other families for elimination; the remaining families vote on which household to eject. The last family behind the wall wins $250,000.
The overhead shots of the walled-in houses look like something out of “The Twilight Zone”—if “The Twilight Zone” had had the budget for overhead shots. (When the producers cut the electricity, some viewers may be reminded of the “Twilight Zone” episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” in which the residents of a suburban neighborhood turn on one another when aliens beginning messing with their power source.)
Belying one’s general impression of those standard big-house-small-lot suburban developments, this group is remarkably diverse: There’s a mixed-race couple, a single mother, a three-generation family, and a woman living with her son, her two orphaned nephews and her lesbian partner. (Again, this suggests that the producers didn’t pick eight contiguous families.)
The participants all talk about the neighborliness of their community, which is in suburban Atlanta. They seem to be good friends, or at least friendly acquaintances.
But right off, the host, Matt Rogers, assembles the families and asks one father to name the family he thinks will be eliminated first, and why. He proceeds to describe his choice, the two-mom family, as “fragmented,” and they don’t take it well.
(Rogers, by the way, was a finalist on season three of “American Idol.” His budding career as a reality-show star is one of those success stories that inspire people to sign up for projects like this in the first place.)
The tension builds when the electricity is cut off. Although we’re inured to seeing reality competitors suffer physically, it seems a little extreme to subject children (who range in age from 5 to 19) to a Georgia summer without air conditioning.
The premiere episode’s king-of-the-neighborhood game is typical reality silliness involving muddy T-shirts, firehoses and locks, but it sets off the backstabbing when the winning family has to make its elimination nominations and the others have to decide how to vote.
The participants seem well versed in the process. (At one point, a young girl actually utters the reality cliché “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”) But it’s still a little startling how willing they seem to be to vote out potentially good competitors who are also good friends.
When the single mother suggests voting against one family, her daughter says, “They’ve killed hairy spiders for us!”
Usually on a show like “Survivor” or “The Apprentice,” the backstabbing takes place between people who were strangers until they were cast—and who won’t have to stay in touch afterward. Seeing friends and acquaintances turn on one another is a little ugly, given the risk of permanent damage to their friendships. There goes the neighborhood indeed.
Since the rough cut that CBS made available for review didn’t include the voting and elimination, it’s possible that both of those processes—and the rest of the season—will provide moving stories that affirm our common humanity.
We wouldn’t bet the house on it.
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