Dads vs. girls

NBC and the CW both toss new reality/competition shows at us tonight, neither of which seems destined to make much impact on most Americans' viewing habits.

"MY DAD IS BETTER Than Your Dad" (7 p.m., NBC/Ch. 5) is the latest offering from "Survivor" executive producer Mark Burnett, but this show has a lot more in common with another of his offerings — "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"

The show wasn't made available to critics — never a good sign — but the format is sort of a father-child update on "Beat the Clock." Two-person teams consisting of a father and his 8- to 12-year-old son or daughter compete at events such as human dart board, spinning discs, snake bobbing, alphabet soup, happy hour, uphill battle, empty nest, target practice, quiz round, scorpion king, paper boy shoot-out and stinger.

"My Dad" is hosted by Dan Cortese, who was once The Hottest Thing on MTV and later The Next Big Thing Who Never Was on network TV. And now he's a game-show host.

Nice work if you can get it.

IF YOU LIKED The CW's "Search for the Next Pussycat Doll," then I'm really worried about you. No, um, what I meant to say is if you liked that show, you'll probably like "The Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious" (8 p.m., Ch. 30), which is essentially the same show all over again.

Last year the "Search" was for a new girl to join the Pussycat Dolls, a musical group/burlesque act.

In case you were wondering, the "winner" of "Search" never became a Pussycat Doll. "Asia (Nitollano) has decided to do a solo career," CW Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff told TV critics last summer, eliciting a big laugh from the room and this comment from one critic: "Well, that was sort of pointless then."

This time around, "Dolls" creator Robin Antin is putting together a three-girl group/burlesque act she's calling Girlicious. After an exhaustive nationwide search to find young women anxious to bump and grind their way to fame, 15 finalists are chosen.

The finalists compete and overemote their way through various eliminations until the final three are chosen.

We'll have to wait and see if any of them decide to pursue solo careers.

And if anybody has seen Asia Nitollano performing solo, you might want to write to the folks at The CW so they know what happened to her.

FALL 2008 WILL look a whole lot like fall 2007 on CBS. The network has renewed 11 series for next season.