"Queer Eye for the Straight Girl" airs in a sneak preview tonight at 11 on Bravo, and it isn't so much a spinoff of the one-time hit "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" as it is an oh-so-slightly genetically altered clone.

		TV Reviews 'Queer Eye For The Straight Girl' When: 11 tonight and 10 p.m. tomorrow on Bravo. Starring: Honey Labrador, Danny Teeson. 'Tilt' When: 9 p.m. Thursday on ESPN. Starring: Michael Madsen. 'Jonny Zero' When: 9 p.m. Friday on Fox. Starring: Franky G.

Instead of helping a straight guy improve his appearance and clean up his messy bachelor pad, the gay helpers work magic on a woman.

The Fab Five from "Straight Guy" are replaced by four "Gal Pals" -- evidently producers finally admitted to themselves that the "culture expert" was extraneous -- who seek to spruce up the life of a heterosexual female. After tonight's preview, the show will air at 10 p.m. Wednesdays.

This show's cast includes just one lesbian, Honey Labrador (sounds like someone's been playing the porn star name game). But she's not the focus. British native Danny Teeson, the show's "life" expert, is more of a take-charge type, this series' Carson Kressley.

In an early episode, the Gal Pals work on reconstructing Nicole, a tomboy about to turn 30 with no fashion sense.

"Small steps," cautions one of the crew as Nicole stomps around in new shoes. "We're not Godzilla attacking the city."

As in the original, there's lots of witty banter and some mild sexual innuendo.

"Straight Guy" fans will likely get a kick out this spinoff, but given the fall-off in interest for the original you have to wonder why "Straight Girl" even exists.

'Tilt'

ESPN hit the jackpot with its first original dramatic series, "Playmakers," which was set in a professional football team's locker room. "Playmakers" turned out to be a smart, compelling drama series, one of the best to air in 2004. But ESPN caved to pressure from the NFL, which didn't like the bad behavior of some of the show's fictional athletes, and "Playmakers" was sacked.

So now ESPN has jumped on the poker bandwagon for its next drama, "Tilt" (9 p.m. Thursday). Never mind that it can be argued that poker is not really a sport -- it's certainly not an athletic competition -- but it's also not as ubiquitous as football. Yes, poker has achieved a certain cachet in recent years, but my guess is the ins and outs of the game still are foreign to many TV viewers.

More importantly, "Tilt" doesn't grab viewers the way "Playmakers" did. The characters and their relationships remain undefined in Thursday's premiere, and there's not much in the way of a character to sympathize with. Not that they're all thugs, but creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien just don't tell viewers enough about the characters to make us care.

In "Tilt" -- a poker term that means no matter what you do, the cards aren't going to go your way -- ruthless card player Don "The Matador" Everest (Michael Madsen) is the poker scene's 550-pound gorilla. The Matador may or may not play dirty, but he's certainly riled up others, including a small-town cop (Chris Bauer) and a triad of young card sharks who have banded together to take The Matador down at the World Poker Championship.

The young'uns are led by Eddie Towne (Eddie Cibrian), whose reasons for going after The Matador remain murky in the premiere.

The Matador is in cahoots with casino manager Bart "Lowball" Rogers, an old friend and fellow lowlife who begins to suspect he can no longer trust his longtime buddy.

Madsen is creepy, but that's nothing new. He's always playing scary thugs, and this one does little to distinguish him from the bad guys he has played in the past.

"Tilt" could improve in the coming weeks, but at first blush, it's far from a royal flush.

'Jonny Zero'

Ex-con Jonny Calvo (Franky G.) is tough but, say it with me now, "has a heart of gold." Or at least silver.

When this so-called "Jonny Zero" (9 p.m. Friday, Fox) gets out of jail, he returns to his old New York neighborhood and tries to bond with his son and repair relationships with his parents and ex-wife. Jonny's crooked old boss wants him back at work, but the Feds want Jonny to be an informant.

Meanwhile, he makes friends with a twitchy deejay called Random (GQ) and an ex-stripper (2003 Carnegie Mellon University graduate Brennan Hesser).

Jonny also gets beat up. A lot.

Not that Jonny is a wimp. He's a pumped-up mini version of The Rock, but he still gets turned into a human punching bag in Friday's premiere.

The show's executive producer, John Wells ("ER," "The West Wing") usually specializes in character-driven drama, but "Jonny Zero" is pretty much a routine urban-set action show with little bits of character development grafted on here and there to make the show seem more sophisticated than it is.

Viewers won't be fooled. In an upcoming episode, Jonny gets his old car back fully restored. He looks at his improved ride with love and barks at Random to steer clear of the vehicle. So unless you've never watched TV before, you know the car will be virtually destroyed by the end of the episode.

"Jonny Zero" is paint-by-numbers TV, a show that's more interested in its characters' hip, young style than anything else.