At the power plant, Homer is knocked to the ground by falling pipe. Fearful of being sued for millions, Mr. Burns gives Homer skybox tickets to a hockey game at a sports arena. There, Bart asks an artist to paint a portrait of him knocking out boxer Larry Holmes. When Lisa grows fed up with the special treatment afforded those in the skybox seats, she opts to spend the rest of the game with the real fans in the cheap seats. Standing on a chair next to the rink, Lisa give advice to Sergei Kozlov, a Russian player. When Kozlov scores, he gives Lisa his stick to show his gratitude. When the family returns home, Homer mounts the stick over Lisa’s bed. Soon after, Russian termites living in the stick infest the Simpson home. An exterminator tells the family that the house won’t be inhabitable for six months.

When the Simpsons are unable to get a hotel room, they are forced to ask friends to put them up. Their first stop is Lenny’s apartment, but it turns out to share a common wall with a jai alai court. Horrified, the family turns to Disco Stu, but when he begins gyrating in front of Homer and Marge, clad only in a Speedo, the family takes up residence at Moe’s bar. The barflies tell Homer and Marge about a new reality TV show where contestants are allowed to live in a 1895 home for free…with the proviso they live exactly how people lived during that era. With little choice, the family decides to try out for the program, where they meet with Mitch Hartwell, a producer. After testing several families, the show’s producers choose the Simpsons, who soon find themselves adjusting to the realities of 1895 living. After a shaky start, the family gradually comes to accept the primitive conditions and lack of modern conveniences. It isn’t long before television executives realize the show has become a colossal bore. Actor David Lander, who appeared as Squiggy on the popular sitcom Laverne and Shirley, is brought in to spice things up. But even his presence, coupled with his use of a taser to shock family members, fails to perk up the ratings. Desperate, the producers use a helicopter to transport the old house to a raging river.

When Homer walks out the door the next morning, he is sucked into raging rapids. Homer swims back to the house, where he accuses the producers of retooling the show into a Survivors clone. Eventually, the house tumbles down a waterfall and washes up onshore. The family encounters a group of people who had been a “tribe” on another reality show but lost the final challenge and ended up being abandoned by the production crew. The group vows to overpower the producers of the Simpsons’ reality show and return to civilization. True to their word, the forgotten tribe launches an attack and swarms the production crew. The Simpsons return home, only to realize there’s nothing to watch on television. So Homer entertains the family by going outside and drinking from a garden hose.