If you ever end up running a television network, here are two rules you must remember:

1. It's not OK to make fun of country folks.

2. It is OK to make fun of city slickers.

You may recall that there was a huge outcry a few years ago when CBS was developing a reality-show version of "The Beverly Hillbillies." Outrage ran high because, it was feared, the show would make fun of hillbillies.

The United Mine Workers protested. The Teamsters protested. Then-Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., took the floor of the United States Senate to denounce "The Real Beverly Hillbillies," even though the show never made it past the development stage.

Not a single episode was ever produced, let alone aired.

(All of this really happened. It sounds too stupid to be true, but it is.)

On the other hand, not a single union, not a single politician has protested The CW's new series "Farmer Wants a Wife" (tonight at 8 p.m. on Ch. 30), sort of "The Real Beverly Hillbillies" in reverse — with a whole bunch of "The Simple Life" thrown in for good measure.

Matt, 29, is a hunky farmer, but he's no hick. He seems quite intelligent ... except, of course, for the fact that he's looking for love on a TV show.

Although, seriously, this guy doesn't need a TV show to find a wife. Guys who look like Matt don't have any trouble at all attracting women.

But, c'mon, let's be serious. People don't go on TV reality shows looking for love; they go on looking for their 15 minutes of fame.

At any rate, Matt is a smart, savvy college graduate who's also a hunk. He works the 2,000-acre Missouri farm that's been in his family for generations.

Enter 10 women who want to be his wife. Supposedly. And some of them are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.

That's the been-done-to-death conceit of "Farmer Wants a Wife" — the women are fish-out-of-water who are so spoiled by easy urban living that they're at a loss when it comes to farm life.

Some of them (although not all of them) are giggly idiots who give their entire gender a bad name. They flap around the farm like chickens with their heads cut off. Only these women are shrieking like idiots when they're not ogling and drooling over Matt.

Hey, why isn't Gloria Steinem leading the protests? Why isn't Gloria Allred suing somebody? Why isn't the National Organization for Women launching a boycott?

Because it's OK to make fun of city slickers.

Anyway, "Farmer Wants a Wife" isn't good enough to be good or bad enough to be fun. If this were played entirely for laughs, there might be some humor to be mined.

But it takes itself too seriously for that. And that's the fatal flaw.

"Farmer Wants a Wife" is just dull.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com