'Nashville' not reality

It just doesn't seem that smart to start off a so-called "reality" show with a complete, total and obvious lie. And yet that's exactly what happens in "Nashville," which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. on Fox/Ch. 13.

Fox describes this as a "high-stakes, high-drama docu-soap" about a bunch of attractive young people trying to become country-music stars. Calling it a "docu-soap" is a way, apparently, of admitting this is fictional without really admitting it.

But that's obvious from the get-go. Tonight's premiere opens with country singer-wannabe Rachel Bradshaw and her famous father, Terry.

"People always told me, 'Oh, well, you'll only get somewhere because of your dad,"' Rachel whines.

"Listen, it's not my job to open doors," Terry says, completely disingenuously.

Yes, like Rachel would even be on this Fox show if her father weren't a famous, Super Bowl-winning quarterback who happens to work as a Fox football analyst. Of course she wouldn't.

But then "Nashville" comes to us from the producers of MTV's "Laguna Beach," and that show was long ago outed for fictionalizing reality.

Rachel Bradshaw is incredibly annoying — a spoiled brat who lies to her boyfriend and expects the world on a platter — but she's one of the few people in the show who isn't so bland she fades into the background.

The rest of the cast includes:

Chuck Wicks, who just signed with Sony/BMG; Matt Jenkins, who released a CD that didn't sell (and he was dropped by his record company); Sarah Gunsolus, Rachel's best friend who thinks she can social-climb her way to stardom; Jamey Johnson, who won a songwriter-of-the-year award; aspiring singer/songwriters Lindsey Hager and Jeff Allen; and Mike Combs, a coal miner's daughter with dreams of stardom.

Oh, and for reasons that are never adequately explained, Clint Moseley — an executive at his father's jet-sales company, who has no country-music dreams — is on hand to scam on and lie to various young women.

This looks like something that ought to be on a cable network, not Fox. Not that it would do well on cable — "Nashville" is a bore.

If you're fictionalizing reality and it's still a bore, you're not doing your job.

HERE'S YOUR SIGN: TBS has renewed "The Bill Engvall Show" for a second season — which is good news indeed.

Engvall, part of the original "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" with Jeff Foxworthy, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy, is also set to host "Blue Collar Comedy: The Next Generation," a special scheduled to air on TBS on Nov. 27.