"You can't ask a young person about something that happened in 1897," Davies said. "You can't really even ask a young person about . . . things that happened in 1982 that were before they were born." (Well, you can't ask relatively dumb young people. . . .)

Round 4 features questions the contestants have studied up on for the past week they've spent together — topics like fine dining, etiquette and music from way back in the year 1985. Round 5 is a memorization challenge they've worked on. And Round 6 is a head-to-head challenge to see which of the two finalists can answer seven questions (from the same list) correctly in the least amount of time.

"We're rewarding kids who are plugged in and read newspapers and watch television news and listen to the radio and go online and are obsessed with news and entertainment news and sort of current events sites," Davies said.

But, from the episode critics were show, contestants were better off watching "Entertainment Tonight" than "60 Minutes" as they prepared for the show.

That somebody should try to synthesize something out of two television phenomenons — "Survivor" and "Millionaire" — isn't particularly surprising.

"It just felt like a very natural progression, with the way television is, to sort of try taking some of these great elements of reality television — the vote-out, the living together at the apartment, the relationship they have, the strategy — and bring that into a television game show," Davies said.

Unfortunately, the result is that "Studio 7" looks derivative of not one show but two. And, at least in the first episode, the contestants are about as self-absorbed as the young cast members on "Real World."

In this case, imitation is the sincerest form of boredom.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com