Documentary done WRONG...

Sad really. This has lots of nice moments, but it hardly shows reality. A moderately sized city like Newark has huge problems, including one of the highest murder rates in the country. But watching this, you'd think the city government are riding in on their white horses to save everyone. The constant "it takes a village" nonsense spewed in the series (overtly of subtly) is total crap. It takes PARENTS to raise a child. And if there are no parents, the village takes over just long enough to find new ones. If a village could raise a child, Africa would be the most powerful continent on earth, instead of the most pathetic (and I'm including Antartica). Unfortunately, this is absolute left wing socialist fantasy/propaganda (full disclosure... I am an independent) where the government is going to solve all of our problems. They should CG halos over the heads of the characters, particularly Booker, which I'm sure they would do if it was in the budget. Listening to Jayda and her lawyer talking about the victim of her crime like she was "some bitch who had it coming and got her ass whooped" was just sickening. I don't care what you are doing now to atone. First, show some remorse (you don't feel bad about beating someone up?). Then, pay the consequences for your actions. Then, you can you be a hero for the positive things you are doing now. And watching Booker give people candy at the voting stations telling them to vote for his man, which is basically illegal depending on how you view candy, was sickening. And then he turns around and complains that Charlie Bell had people at precincts doing the same thing. For all the cherubic glory and praise the series heaps on Booker, he's just another crappy politician who believes so much in his agenda that he ignores the rules. If you are going to make a doc series about a city like Newark showing all the facets of the city's bureaucracy, but never show anything wasteful or negative, you are just plain dishonest. I love good documentary too much to allow this to be called "documentary" when really it is simply propaganda. This is as manipulative as any "reality tv" series. It's just been given a documentary sheen with how it is shot. It's reminiscent of The Hills with a lot more b-roll. Perfect example is Jayda, who doesn't seem to show any sort of leadership or organizational skills other than a slight desire to help young girls. Yet an organization is created for her to lead by people around her and suddenly she has a lawyer working her case pro bono. Gee, could the producers of the show decided that her storyline was going to be important and helped create some of those things? It might as well be Keep up with the Krapdashians.