There aren't many reality shows on the networks' fall schedules, but summer is another story. This week, cable and broadcast networks will roll out a half-dozen reality shows. Tomorrow, following on the heels of last week's "Big Brother 6" premiere, CBS will introduce "Rock Star," which airs live and was unavailable for review.
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'Hooking Up'
Perhaps the least objectionable of this week's crop, this ABC News presentation is more of a documentary than a reality show and comes from the producers of the acclaimed docu-series "Hopkins 24/7."
"Hooking Up" (9 p.m. Thursday, ABC) follows a bevy of New York women, ages 25 to 38, as they use the Internet to meet men for dating.
"He looks more high maintenance than I am," one woman says, looking at a man's online profile picture. "His eyebrows are better arched than mine."
It's an interesting hour: The longer the episode goes on, the better viewers get to know the, um, complex personalities of the women doing the dating.
'Welcome to the Neighborhood'
In a cul de sac outside Austin, Texas, three judgmental white families audition potential new neighbors, including a religious African-American family, a pagan family, a boisterous Hispanic family, an Asian family, tattoo-covered Republicans, a family where the wife has a secret and a gay couple with an adopted African-American child. The self-declared "governor" of the neighborhood mutters, "Oh, Lord" when the gay and tattooed families appear.
In the end, the established neighbors will pick one family to win a dream home and a spot on the block.
There's something vaguely offensive about the concept behind the competition in "Welcome to the Neighborhood" (9 tonight, ABC) because it plays up stereotypes with promises to debunk them as everyone learns valuable lessons about judging a book by its cover.
'Hogan Knows Best'
This rip-off of "The Osbournes" feels more like a scripted sitcom than any "celebreality" show yet. Hulk Hogan and his family star as themselves. As parents, Hulk and Linda, his wife of 21 years, are more traditional than most stars, although Hulk's over-protectiveness is cartoonish in "Hogan Knows Best" (10 tonight, VH1).
When 16-year-old daughter Brooke wants to date a college student, Hulk installs a tracking device in her car. Her brother Nick, 14, is a self-described pot-stirrer who dishes dirt on Brooke's date after she leaves the house.
'The Princes of Malibu'
This show follows the family of uber-rich music producer David Foster, a 14-time Grammy Award winner who's worked with Whitney Houston, Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand, among others. "The Princes of Malibu" (8:30 tonight, Fox) focuses on Foster's stepsons, Brandon and Brody Jenner, Olympian Bruce Jenner's spoiled, lazy sons.
Tonight's premiere depicts Brandon, 23, and Brody, 21, as layabouts with no aspirations beyond antagonizing their stepfather.
"They sleep 'til noon, they don't have jobs, they spend all my money and wreck all my stuff," Foster rages. Wife Linda, the boys' mother, often takes their side. When he suggests they prepare their own meals and make their own beds, Linda protests, "That's pretty harsh, David."
Though the boys are depicted as ambitionless, it turns out Brandon is an aspiring musician in a band called Big Dune, whose first album will be in stores later this month. At least one of the tracks is used in "Princes," betraying the series as opportunistic in addition to a display of disrespectful selfishness.
'Brat Camp'
At least the Jenner kids have their wealth to support them when it all goes bad. That's not the case for the kids in "Brat Camp" (8 p.m. Wednesday, ABC), perhaps the worst example yet of children's bad behavior being used to draw ratings. It's not enough that these children's problems are put on display for all of America to see, but giving the series the denigrating title "Brat Camp" only adds insult to injury.
The two-hour premiere introduces nine teens with varying degrees of dysfunction (druggies, liars, ragers, thieves) whose families send them to a wilderness school in the Oregon high desert where they're taught discipline and responsibility. It's "Survivor" for teen outcasts.