On my show today, I talked with Jonathan Karsh, host of the CBS reality show “Kid Nation.” He’s the guy who appears to run the challenges and hand out the gold stars at the town councils that end each episode. Karsh says there’s a big change coming in tonight’s show.

I asked him whether the kids came to the show knowing how to act because they’d seen other reality shows, and whether the cameras changed them. We discussed Laurel (the very impressive member of the town council who appeared on my show before the season began) and Taylor (the pageant queen who came off as the villain of the season).

I also asked a question my daughter — a big fan of the show — has been wondering about: do the $20,000 gold stars create a lot of jealousy in Bonanza City, or become an incentive for some of the kids to work harder?

CBS hasn’t committed to a second season of “Kid Nation” yet, but if the writers strike goes on for a couple of months, they’ll almost certainly be looking for more reality programming like this.

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Previously on Harris Online…