So, I haven't posted anything about this season's American Idol, because despite its few tweaks -- a supposedly shorter run of try-out episodes; extra Hollywood Week; and the new judge* -- it's been fairly dull.

* Last season I argued for new judges, specifically to bring in smart, sharp-tongued, interesting folks to liven up the three-person panel that might as well be staffed by androids at this point. (Randy-Bot: "Dawg, that rawked'; Paula-Bot: "Your voice, your feeling, what you do when you there there and here with us, really ..."; Simon-Bot: "I have no idea what Paula said. But, if I'm being honest, that was simply dreadful.") But the new judge, Kara, has seemed to be a weird amalgam of the existing three: Randy's occasional industry-speak, mixed with Paula's mooniness (and décolletage), and lightly salted with Simon's truth-telling. For me, a wash.

What has been buzz-worthy this season is AI's head-smackingly dreadful time-management. Each week has been marked with leisurely openings, only to end in frantically rushed comments and Ryan's breathless panting of the voting numbers.

What the frak is goin' on at the fake Trump boardroom? This current season of Celebrity Apprentice is just bizarre! I can't decide if the producers are aiming for train-wreck -- in which case, well done! -- or whether they think all chaos this equals compelling entertainment.

Part of the problem (or wonderfulness, depending on your tolerance for reality-gone-loco) has been the decision to run two-hour episodes. (Here's another sign of how far network TV has fallen, that the bulk of NBC Sunday prime-time would be allotted to this low-rated dud.)

The self-absorbed, long-limbed wannabe-models are back, and just in time for us to start early fretting about revealing our blobbier-than-ever post-winter selves. Remember, their humiliation helps us feel better.

As a convenience to the never-say-die, reality-TV viewers like myself, we've got aspiring-model shows running back to back, albeit on two channels: The CW's America's Next Top Model is back for the 12^th time (!!!), while Bravo's spools out season two of Make Me a Supermodel.

ANTM began with a pointless detour to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, which at least provided a real-life matching cheesy backdrop to the show's female-gladiator/ sexy-toga framing device. (Anything would have been better than last season's alien invasion.)

As we hurtle through the try-outs, one thing is obvious: Tyra's talk-show half is emerging as the dominant force. These models are more picked-for-TV than ready-for-the-runway. It's enough to fill a week's worth of daytime-TV couches! 

A burn victim; a girl who lived at the Port Authority bus station; an epileptic; a street-preacher; a conspiracy theorist ("300 families run the planet"); Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s ex-girlfriend -- plus the usual assortment of fresh-off-the-farm, single moms and walking hair-weave disasters.

What a perfect time to bring back Celebrity Apprentice! Oy, this economy! The glittery rich everywhere are tumbling and -- we hope -- reduced to doing yard work, dog walking or dishing out spuds in a cafeteria. If we can't see Bernie Madoff or the head of GM hawk crap on the streets, can't we at least have some clapped-out celebrities be their proxies? And for their boss: Who better than last century's hero, the unrepentant king of garish nouveau riche, Donald Trump?

Frankly, this year I don't know who half these so-called celebrities are -- really, being a briefcase-holder on Deal or No Deal makes you a celebrity?

A throat-clearing of sorts, to catch up on the various realities:

Last Restaurant Standing: This British import continues to be entertaining as the wannabe restaurateurs fail to master the most basic principles of running a restaurant. One pair purposely underbooks so as not to get too frazzled; not only do they fare poorly at the till, but their few guests look miserable sitting in a cavernously empty venue. Last week's challenge was to use as much of a pig as possible and idiocies ranged from: serving oversized portions, charcoaling the tenderloin and frying up bits of brain, heart and lung and serving them unidentified atop lettuce as a "pork salad."

The pork-salad cook is a lurching, somewhat dim, affable sort, the Gomer Pyle of LRS. His mystery-meat twist landed in him the elimination challenge, where he cheerfully mismanaged a special dinner for an Oxford dining hall. His theme: "Sir Walter Riley" (he meant "Raleigh"); his goof: serving a 50-cent chicken leg to the "high table" of dons; and his gobsmacker: passing around tins of snuff to the students.

Over in pro-cook land, Top Chef New York wrapped up last night.

BBC America's slow-motion cooking reality show is back -- and marginally revamped.

The first thing I noticed was that they've livened up the various meeting and judgment rooms. Gone is that gloomy, fake-baronial hall where head judge and restaurateur Raymond Blanc issued his pronouncements. (One half expected the losers to be beheaded.) Now, all contestant-judge interaction takes place in a bright sunny room, with contemporary furnishings.

And with subtitles! Somebody complained, and now when Blanc's Gallic mumblings are too inscrutable, subtitles pop up.

Season two kicked off with the perennial cooking-contest opener: The nine couples vying to run trial restaurants were tasked to prepare and cook a signature dish.

I recently complained to my cable provider about my ever-escalating bill and for my troubles wound up with more channels for less money. Among the new-to-me channels is the gay-oriented Logo -- and just in time for RuPaul's Drag Race!

I'm not sure that the maxim "there a reality show for everybody" has been coined yet, but the industry is well on its way to making that happen. If bariatric surgeons, dogs and truckers who drive on icy roads can get their own shows, then it's imperative that ever-camera-ready drag queens get theirs.

Has-been (no, please, let's be honest) disco diva and one-woman-band RuPaul hosts this fierce-fest that puts nine drag queens through the paces. The unworthy will be eliminated weekly, and the winner will receive mostly limited glory. (Seriously, the "big prize" is a photo shoot and $20,000.

Network TV continues to plumb the reality-TV depths. On offer this week is ABC's True Beauty, another inane contest to see who is the hottest hottie, but with a twist.

There's the usual line up of totally plastic-looking "beautiful" gals and guys -- 10 in all -- but this show promises to judge not just the outer looks, but also inner beauty. Or to put it another way: Which self-absorbed, vain hottie is actually an honest, caring, considerate do-gooder at heart? Challenges will prove this!

This idiotic concept is the unholy love child of celebu-producers Tyra Banks (America's Next Top Model) and Ashton Kutcher (Punk'd) and not surprisingly it combines their two métiers: Tyra's pick-a-looker with Ashton's Candid Camera-style gotcha follies.

In the first episode we met the contestants, and frankly they struck me as the very worst people you went to high school with: the over-lacquered mean girls, the pec-flexing jocks, the mirror-worshippers and the deeply delusional ("I AM the most beautiful person").

They arrived inexplicably in fancy sports cars, and were greeted by a couple dozen out-of-work actors hired as ... beats me, greeters? As the gathered on the patio of Ye Olde Tacky L.A. Mansion, they began sizing each other up like a pack of dogs.

Deliciously bad TV broke out of the gate early in 2009, literally as the ball was dropping in Times Square.

Inexplicably, CNN booked its increasingly shape-shifting pretty boy Anderson Cooper (who went from fluff to hard news and seems to be cycling back to fluff again, recently taking swims with Michael Phelps) for a special AC 360 to usher in the New Year. In a move best described as "Bravo-style programming," the "news" channel paired the Silver Fox with comedienne Kathy Griffin, pretty much locking in the older-gay-men-at-home-on-the-couch demographic.

And didn't they make an awkward pair?! Like a fixed-up date. Griffin clearly came loaded for bear, with a batch of questions designed to trip up the much-speculated-about Cooper. Her queries about Gossip Girl and who he was wearing had AC collapsing in nervous fits of giggles, and eventually calling her "honey," like two BFFs sipping pink cocktails and commiserating over worthless men.

But their cringe-y pas-de-deux was the show's bright spot, amid some of the lamest "coverage" I've ever seen -- and this from a marquee cable channel.

So Survivor just ended, and Mark Burnett and the gang are going back to the well for the 18^th time. The next series will take place in Brazil and is likely already underway, but that won't stop me offering some suggestions, should this show run on into infinity.

More old people. The ones that don't get voted out in the first couple of episodes generally fare fairly well. Experience does count -- whether it's a lifetime of acquiring useful skills or just simply knowing how to get along with people. And, nothing brings out the rallying fans like supporting the oldster underdog.