Sometime last year, I stumbled across an episode of Greensburg on the Discovery Channel.  I learned that a small town in Kansas had been literally wiped off the map by a tornado, and had decided to rebuild itself as the nation’s first green-designed city.  I was fascinated by a segment demonstrating the use of ICF, or insulated concrete forms, in building energy-efficient, tornado-resistant structures.  I was impressed with Greensburg’s plans to build a “small business incubator” in the heart of their downtown core, a place where fledgling shops could develop wings to fly before leaving the nest and taking up permanent commercial residence elsewhere.

You may also have stumbled across an episode of this Planet Green / GAIAM series—or you may have heard about the devastation of Greensburg on the news, or seen Greensburg City Manager Steve Hewitt at President Bush’s 2008 State of the Union Address, or caught the city being featured on CBS’ Early Show on the first anniversary of the tornado last May, or noticed now-mayor Bob Dixson front-row-center at President Obama’s speech to Congress last month.

And like me, the story may be so intriguing that you’d jump at the chance to buy this series on DVD and watch all 13 episodes of “Season One.”

Not so fast, bucko.

In the first place, you can watch all of the episodes—and more—via iTunes at $1.99 per shot, a much cheaper option than forking over $40 for the set.  What’s more, you might not be getting quite what you expect, as the series is not so much a documentary as it is a reality-TV show that latches onto a few interesting small-town personalities before it wears out its welcome, with Greensburg’s lofty goals dissipating in a welter of overly-ambitious and naïve promotional hype.

I have to say, though, that the program is very educational about certain aspects of environmentally-friendly design.  Anyone with a modicum of interest in the topic will appreciate Greensburg’s trials and spotty successes, with the stunning stock photography of Kansas in all seasons as an added bonus. The series is also remarkably apolitical, embracing both free-wheeling leftist ideals and small-town entrepreneurial instincts.

But the program pointedly leaves out some salient details.  Hewitt and post-tornado Mayor Lonnie McCollum hatch the “Green City” concept pretty much out of thin air, for instance, and we never find out how GAIAM, Discovery, or Planet Green managed to get boots on the ground right from the get-go. Was the whole idea hatched as a reality-TV-helps-wiped-out-town-rebuild gimmick that spun wildly out of control?  Who was it, exactly, who first envisioned that a completely wiped-out town was the perfect opportunity to rebuild from the ground up with a green agenda as the driving vision?

When elections come around midway through the program, and Hewitt scans the primary results, leery that incumbents might have been ousted by some “anti-green agenda,” you kind of have to scratch your head and think, “What?”  Hewitt and McCollum’s leadership and progress have been so hamfistedly greenhorned and plodding, respectively, that some measure of backlash comes as absolutely no surprise.

As with most decent reality-TV programs, though, the producers did manage to latch onto some engaging personalities for us to follow.  Hewitt, though clearly aware that he’s under the microscope—and zoom lens—from day one, and though he’s clearly bitten off way more than he’s capable of chewing, is passionate if overextended, and charismatic if short-sighted.  He comes off much better than “sustainability expert” John Picard, who transparently ingratiates himself with, and indoctrinates, student activists Taylor Schmidt, Connor Staats, and Levi Smith, or glib contract master planner Stephen Hardy, who disappears from the series after conspiratorially gloating, “ We paid the ref!”

The most engaging personalities are actually Smith and Schmidt, the former reminding me of Andy Samberg crossed with Mike Myers’ Wayne Campbell, and the latter so reminiscent of a young Matthew Broderick it’s almost scary.

Still, I’ve got to wonder whether Greensburg feels rather used and soiled after all that has been said and done.  The Great Unanswered Question in the series is, “Why hasn’t anyone else done what Greenburg is attempting?” The implied answers are, “Well, no one else has been totally wiped off the map before; this is a unique opportunity.” Or, “It’s just tough doing the Right Thing.”  But the real answer, nowhere stated explicitly is: because it’s so dang expensive to do up front, and competition for dollars is always tough.

So Season One is all we’ll apparently get of Greensburg; I can find no reference to plans for a Season Two.  Did the town feel like they got the big kiss-off because they didn’t “fulfill the vision” in a more timely or compelling fashion?  And does the town get left holding Picard’s sustainability industry bag now that the bottom has fallen out of the economy?  How disillusioned will the youth of Greensburg become when the spotlight fades, and the promises that went with it get forgotten or broken?

“Media, media, media like we can’t explain,” Hewitt shakes his head at one point.  Well, if you know media, it’s pretty explainable.  Greensburg was the right disaster at the right time, and became the Perfect Media Storm.

Too bad real people with real hopes, families, and dreams had to get caught up in the middle of it.  What a mess.  If this represents the future of the greening of America, God help us all.

And just for the record—Greensburg isn’t to blame.  They just got dealt a very bad hand.

Greensburg is unrated, but is easily PG material.  I rather imagine I missed some salty language somewhere along those 13 episodes, mostly because I don’t tally such things.  But there can’t be much here to worry about.

Courtesy of a national publicist, Greg screened a promotional DVD set of Greensburg.