'Wife Swap' will try to be positive

Can a TV reality show that takes wives from different families and has them swap places for a couple of weeks be a positive, uplifting experience?

That's what the producers of ABC's "Wife Swap" insist is their goal.

"People take part in the program because it's an adventure," said executive producer Stephen Lambert. "We talk about the fact that going to live somebody else's life will give you a chance to see the way in which they live their lives, and it might help you reflect on the way in which your family works."

Lambert and his partner, executive producer Jenny Crowther, imported for American viewers the hit show they've produced in Great Britain. (And, by the way, they have been distressed to see their idea ripped off in a much more exploitative way by Fox's "Trading Spouses.")

"I think that the experience of living with another wife or the wife coming in and living with a different husband makes people think again about their relationships and the way they bring up their children," Lambert said. "And we're not saying every show leads to a major transformation in people's marriages, but it has done that in many cases. And even when it doesn't lead to a big transformation in people's marriages, it tends to kind of just reaffirm people in terms of what's going on in their marriages and makes them feel good about the fact that they're in that marriage."

Crowther added that "that extends to the whole family. We're finding that kids appreciate their moms as well. Especially the older kids. The teens really are glad to have their moms home. They want to help more."

Which is not to say that "Wife Swap" isn't about entertainment, as is every other show on commercial television. And it is entertaining in its way — a way that can suck you into watching out of morbid curiosity, if nothing else.

Tonight's episode (9 p.m., Ch. 4) features a lower-middle class woman from New Jersey, Lynn Bradley, who switches places with a multimillionaire from Manhattan, Jodi Spolansky. And, while it's watchable in a can't-look-away kind of way, it's also got some of that why-did-they-subject-themselves-to-this quality.

Spolansky and her husband, Steven, quite frankly, don't come off real well. He knows it; that's why he didn't do any publicity for the show, she told TV critics.

Jodi Spolansky, a spoiled rich girl whose nannies spend far more time with her children than she does, doesn't quite get it.