Where dudes go to chill

Apparently the natural habitat of the American male is rapidly vanishing and two new makeover shows on the Discovery Channel -- “Dude Room” and “Garage Takeover” -- aim to correct this alarming trend, domicile by domicile.

It seems that guys (also known as dudes) need their space. They need a place to chill, a room of their own, a sanctuary in which to perform male bonding rituals such as shooting pool, cleaning their guns or watching action movies. And their women understand this need, so they write to TV shows asking for help.

Best of all, the shows really seem to care, and with a little help from the family will render a masculine space that any man, guy or dude would be proud to call home. As Captain Kirk taught us, space is the final frontier, and as good Americans we know that when the frontier is destroyed, you build a simulated one.

The premise of the swaggering “Dude Room” is similar to TLC’s “While You Were Out” minus the surprise. A supportive spouse or significant other summons the “Dude” team to turn an unused or derelict space into a frontier in which a man can stretch his legs. It’s Bob Vila, channeled through Tim Allen and Robert Bly.

Team leader and host Josh Temple, a designer, a contractor, two carpenters and a backup crew arrive at the home and have two days to whip up what in bygone days might have been known as a den or a rec room but has been mythologized into something more meaningful.

As in “WYWO,” most of the drama in “Dude Room” comes from the ticking clock as the designer and builders race to finish their project by the end of the second day. The formula here also includes a role for a “best friend” who helps with the construction and adds to the running commentary.

In the debut episode, the dude-to-be is named Bryce, a young man with a fondness for staying up late and watching Quentin Tarantino flicks and ‘60s B movies. The problem is that in the tiny 900-square-foot house he shares with his girlfriend, Anna, the loud movies keep her awake.

Anna enlists Josh and his team to build Bryce a deluxe screening room in a storage space in their backyard. Designer Elvis Restaino hits on a Grauman’s Chinese Theatre motif with lots of deep reds and dragons to provide Bryce with a refuge to watch his movies and assert his inner dude.

Before Bryce is sent away -- he’s aware of what’s going on but is not allowed to see the room until it’s finished -- he’s given a thorough razzing by Temple on the utter lack of dude accouterments in his home. The house is tasteful but fairly feminized with its “buttery yellow” and “Spanish moss” color scheme.

The “best friend,” David, also questions his pal’s dude qualities, confiding that Bryce is essentially “a woman trapped in a man’s body” and once had a man-crush on Ewan McGregor.

The conflict inherent in other makeover shows is ratcheted up here by borrowing a page from MTV’s “Real World” and intentionally casting people who are sure to clash with just about everyone. Designer Restaino and contractor Jodi Bagwell are at each other’s throats pretty much the entire show, and it’s amazing anything gets done. The bickering, however, becomes so annoying as to overwhelm the rest of “Dude Room.” You begin to hope that one will bury the claw end of a hammer in the other’s skull just to restore some peace.

Another bothersome aspect of the show is the constant display of dude-itude by the cast. Temple, Restaino and carpenter Johnny Littlefield spend far too much time justifying the show’s title and debating what’s pure dude and what’s not. Movies that apparently qualify are “The Godfather,” “Dirty Harry” and anything with Steve McQueen.

In the other episode available for preview (and airing Tuesday), a family brings in the “Dude Room” crew to create a space their father can call his own. It turns out to be on the back patio and mom isn’t thrilled with the corrugated roof the designer has planned, but never mind that, just give the man his sanctuary.

Far less macho is the other entry in this testosterone-themed bloc, “Garage Takeover,” a show with a title that pretty much sums it up. A family with space issues gets a professional makeover of their garage -- that traditional male bastion of work benches and power tools -- and a lesson in letting go of their possessions.

Co-host Erin Carman uses tough love in talking the families through the first step: cleaning out their garage. Everything is hauled into the driveway and placed in either the keep pile or the trash pile with the emphasis on the latter.

The families are then allowed to salvage three items from the discard heap before the rest is ceremoniously crushed by a large tractor in a segment later in the show called, naturally enough, “The Crush.”

An architect and a construction crew then have three days to transform the newly empty space into something remarkable. Given the extra day, the projects tend to be more ambitious than what you see in the typical two-day makeover.

In the episode airing Tuesday, a man named Cliff yearns for a place to park his car and relax. His packrat wife, Lyn, however, has accumulated so much junk that there isn’t room to enter the garage, let alone park a car.

Voila, the “GT” team arrives, subdivides the area and three days later Cliff can not only pull his car in but enjoy the adjoining cabana that opens onto a new hot tub.

“Garage Takeover” is more watchable than “Dude Room” and way less irritating. The show’s other host and construction crew chief, Ki Giuliano, brings a frankness that the other show lacks.

His conflicts with his subordinates are more about getting the job done than ego or whiny posturing. Maybe he and his crew are the only authentic guys here.

Something tells me the real dudes won’t be watching these shows, but they may find an audience with women trying to figure out their own dudes, men who simply aspire to dudeness or people who are addicted to home makeover shows. The real dudes -- a rare breed -- will be out living the life and doing whatever it is dudes do.

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‘Garage Takeover’

Where: Discovery Channel

When: 4-5 p.m.

Rating: Not rated

Executive producers, Steve Manuel and Pam Caragol.

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‘Dude Room’

Where: Discovery Channel

When: 3-4 p.m.

Rating: Not rated

Josh Temple...Host

Executive producers, Robert Wesley Branch and Mike Sears.