Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Citizen Nation’ On PBS, A Docuseries About Civics-Minded Teens Participating In The “We The People” Competition

If you’ve been watching shows and docuseries about teens that make you think that our future society is going straight to hell, then tune into PBS to watch the four-part docuseries Citizen Nation . None of the teens in this show are influencers; in fact, they want to live in an America where political discourse is civil and considered, not divisive and rancorous. Imagine that!

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Opening Shot: Scenes of teenagers around Washington, DC, participating in the We The People competition. A teacher says, “I wouldn’t say I’m creating patriots or revolutionaries; I just want to create better citizens. But when it comes to this competition, everybody wants to win.”

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The Gist: Citizen Nation is a four-part docuseries, produced by Retro Report, that follows high school students all over the country as they prepared for the We The People competition that took place in the spring of 2024.

In the first episode, we visit Cheyenne, Wyoming, Las Vegas, and Richmond, Virginia. In all three cities, we meet both students and teachers who are dedicated to having dialogue about politics and policy, which everyone acknowledges has become difficult to do in our current divisive times.

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In Cheyenne, Erin Lindt uses some unorthodox methods to get her civics students interested in We The People. She teaches at a public high school with a bad academic reputation and students who come from the lower end of the socioeconomic scale; one of her smartest students, Mario, often skips class because he works to support himself and doesn’t feel what he learns is germane to the path he wants to follow. Instead of punishing him, though, Lindt makes a t-shirt for him celebrating when he does show up.

A rival school in the area has a team taught by Mike Thomas, whose church-going family would indicate that he might teach civics a certain way. But, as he mentions in the show’s first scene, he’s looking to produce good citizens, not ones who lean one way or another; this school participates in We The People every year, and they have far more resources and support than Lindt’s class does.

In Las Vegas, we hear from a more racially diverse set of students, including Eli, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Her interest in civics stem from her father, a political science professor at UNLV, spending two years in prison, accused of a murder he didn’t commit.

In Virginia, students at an elite high school that expects to win We The People every year is competing against a public school in the same city. One student at the elite school, Caden, will be competing against his father, Schuyler Vanvaklenburg, who will coach the public school’s team. Oh, and Schuyler also is running for state senate, so civics are a big thing in their family.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Citizen Nation feels a lot like Spellbound , only with older students (and civics instead of spelling). There are some hints of the feature-length docs Boys State and Girls State here, too. And the docuseries definitely stands in sharp contrast to the recent FX series Social Studies .

Our Take: One of the best things about Citizen Nation is that it shows high schoolers in a light that’s essentially the opposite of how we see them in Social Studies and other documentaries, or series like Euphoria . Instead of trying to become instantly famous through social media or getting messed up at parties, these kids are hard-working, civic-minded, competitive and smart as hell.

These kids aren’t perfect, by any means; they might be putting too much pressure on themselves, thinking that winning this contest really means a lot in the grand scheme of their lives. In some cases, they may have parents that are putting pressure on them, though we don’t see any evidence of this in the first episode. But what we do know is that we didn’t see any scenes of them doing TikTok dances or anything else on social media.

Social media is part of their lives, we’d imagine, but not in a way that dominates. It could be the shared, yearlong goal of practicing for and participating in We The People is helping in that regard. But there’s something about the dedication of these students that makes us feel a whole lot better about the future, especially to parents of kids and tweens.

The Las Vegas portion was the most interesting part to us because of its racial diversity; the Wyoming and Virginia portions were exceedingly white. We were especially moved by Eli’s reasons for being in the competition; her account of finding out about her father, who was in prison when she was a toddler, is something no kid should experience. But it’s also solidified her determination to work to change the way cases like her father’s are proscecuted.

What Age Group Is This For?: Any civic-minded kid from age 9 and up will be interested in this series.

Parting Shot: We see phone videos of some of the Las Vegas students at a fall dance. This is right after Eli offers the filmmakers some ramen during her interview.

Sleeper Star: Besides Eli, we liked Caden because he was appropriately teen-embarrassed by his father’s campaign ads and slogans. His snarkiness in a rainy local parade his father was walking in was priceless.

Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Citizen Nation is the antidote to every show you’ve seen about teens lately. These teens don’t care about internet fame; they care about restoring dialogue to the discourse in this country, and it’ll be fun to see them all getting ready for and competing in We The People.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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