Which network can put the worst reality TV show on the air?

After the marvelous feint of "Survivor," which was fun to watch, CBS is the reigning champion, having, with "Big Brother," devoted more broadcast hours per week to utter tedium than anything this side of the Lawn Channel.

Now ABC is making its best play for the crown with "The Mole." The show debuted Tuesday with a mystifying, incomprehensible episode. From what we could discern from the rush of events, the premise is this:

A group of 10 people is put together in the Mojave Desert. They come together in various ways -- a limo, a sports car, etc. One even walks in through the desert!

This is an immediate bad sign. If the producers are staging shots from the start, how can you trust the "reality" of the show?

We meet the contestants, all of whom immediately start engaging in all sorts of "Big Brother"-style forced jollity. None of them look very interesting, though they all have easily limnable "identities."

There's Jim, former lawyer, now helicopter pilot; Afi, who wants to go to medical school; Steven, undercover cop; Charlie, retired police investigator; Wendi, display artist; Manuel, 40ish single dad from the projects; Kate, grandma; Kathryn, law school lecturer; Jennifer, corporate communications manager (shades of Richard Hatch!); Henry, bartender and "people person."

There's a host, too: Anderson Cooper. As we contemplated his noble mien, we thought about the extra-big boots he had to fill. We reflected on the profession of reality-TV-show host, whose vaunted integrity and sober self-sacrifice were established by the likes of "Survivor's" Jeff Probst and "Big Brother's" Julie Chen.

We realized we haven't thought of Chen, the pantsuited imp, in months!

On first glance, Cooper seems a very, very poor man's Probst. With his thin visage and "Matrix"-lite ensemble of black turtleneck and spiffy leather jacket, Coop looks like an extra from "Queer as Folk." He has the aggressive screen presence of a small potted plant.

Even Coop seems mystified by the goings-on. The group is picked up by helicopters, taken to an airport, put on a plane and then forced to parachute out of it! Then, over a two- or three-day period, they travel to Paris, then go by train and car to the Riviera.

Along the way, they play the game, generally little challenges or activities that the group has to perform or accomplish and for which they're rewarded money in $75,000 and $50,000 chunks. One of the 10 is "the mole," who's operating in cahoots with the producers. It's his or her job subtly to undermine the game and cost the rest of the group their money.

Here comes the complicated part. At the end of each show, the contestants are quizzed -- over a computer -- about the mole's identity. (Is the mole male or female, etc.) The contestant with the fewest correct answers is voted off the island.

Wait, that's "Survivor" lingo. Here, the victim is "executed."

The last contestant standing with the mole gets to keep the money in the pot. The elimination process is designed to both A) keep the real mole in the game and B) encourage the other participants to act suspiciously. If you act squirrelly the others will suspect you, get their answers wrong and end up banished.

Wait, that's "Big Brother" lingo.

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