‘Reunited,’ and it feels so good

For a lucky few, pop-musical stardom might last a lifetime, but most shine briefly and flicker out. Then it’s off to honest work, or a reduced version of former glory -- clubs, county fairs, casinos. Two series premiering in the next few days explore what might constitute second acts in the lives of American musicians.

A kind of hypothetical extension of “Behind the Music,” VH1’s “Bands Reunited,” which bows Monday, with new episodes nightly, is built on a simple idea: Find a disbanded pop group and convince them to reband for one magical night. For all that it suffers the familiar tics of reality television and the network style -- that is, it pummels you with speed and gimmickry -- it is at the same time ridiculously effective, and for all that the outcome is predetermined by the premise, the camera captures plenty of moments of genuine surprise and real feeling.

The saddest thing about the death of John Lennon for many people, after all, was that it shut the door on a Beatles reunion. And while you may not have personally been waiting for the return of A Flock of Seagulls or Kajagoogoo or Extreme, who are featured on upcoming episodes, there are surely those for whom such a prospect is positively millennial. Any pop fan could supply his or her own wish list -- the casualty rate for bands, from the Jefferson Airplane to the Clash to Pavement, is nearly 100 percent. Someone goes crazy, someone gets religion, someone gets arrested, someone gets tired of carrying the others on his back, or never being allowed to sing his own songs. Someone just plain grows up.

Aamer Haleem, also the host of “Top 20 Countdown,” is the man chosen to appear to be the man who runs them to ground. “Come on, come on, we gotta find these guys!” he shouts with the false urgency that characterizes the hour. We are given to understand that he has only seven days in which to arrange this reunion, and you can believe it if you like.

First up are Berlin, of “Metro” and “Take My Breath Away” fame, whose members greet Haleem’s proposition with various degrees of suspicion and ardor. Most seem happy enough with the present to revisit the past, though the show doesn’t look too close. There is plenty of then-and-now footage, highlighting the relentless march of waistlines and hairlines (ah, time -- the ultimate Extreme Makeover). But given the decade-long bad-hair day in which the band flourished, they arguably look better now -- not even arguably in lead singer Terri Nunn’s case. (Nunn has already revived the brand name; in fact, her new-model Berlin is playing tonight in Whittier.)

Hatchets are buried, there are hugs all around, and more than one mention of “closure.” The hour builds toward the band’s date with destiny, or at least with a couple of hundred fans assembled in the Roxy, most too young to have seen them the first time around. It is suitably triumphant, I ruin nothing by telling you, and inevitably bittersweet.

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‘Dweezil & Lisa’

Singer Lisa Loeb, who with her signature “cat glasses” made the world a friendlier place for astigmatic young women, had her phenomenal moment back in 1994, with the chart-topping “Stay (I Missed You),” and though her career in music is by no means over, she is on the far slope of stardom and sensibly attempting to diversify. Loeb has been doing a little acting (she was very good in an episode of “Cupid” a few seasons back, and was the voice of Mary Jane on MTV’s recent “Spider-Man” cartoon series) and now appears as the co-host of the new Food Network series, “Dweezil & Lisa,” premiering tonight at 10, in which she will travel the country with boyfriend Dweezil Zappa -- are there any other Dweezils? -- in search of what might be called food-related experience. First stop: Atlanta.

It’s for the most part a typical cable-TV video travelogue -- most everything shot in wide-angle, bursts of fast or slow motion for comedy or drama, respectively. What’s different is that in between, and sometimes during their food-related experiences, Lisa will sing, and Dweezil will play his guitar. In this sense it is not unlike a less populous episode of “The Partridge Family”

As light and insubstantial as one of Loeb’s songs, it is no more than fluff, but attractive in a similar way. It is not so much a show about food, anyway, as about watching Lisa and Dweezil eat, shop and sometimes help in the kitchen -- a rarefied home movie. And they are charming enough -- as pop almost-stars go, they’re the cute, not the scary kind. You can’t imagine them throwing a TV out a hotel window -- certainly not now that they’re on it -- or demanding that the brown M&Ms; be removed from the backstage candy dish. Their diction is good; they are well-groomed and friendly.

Certainly we don’t learn anything about food, though we do learn that Lisa doesn’t like people who say the word “pecans” as “pea-cans,” and Dweezil can’t see himself as the kind of guy who takes wine seriously.

“Is it bad to drink it out of a Styrofoam cup?” Dweezil asks Emily Saliers, as they swirl glasses of red at the sometime Indigo Girl’s Decatur restaurant Watershed.

Later they visit the Varsity Drive-In, Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles, perform at the Cotton Club and go home.

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‘Dweezil & Lisa’

Where: Food Network

When: Premieres 10-10:30 tonight

Hosts...Dweezil Zappa and Lisa Loeb

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‘Bands Reunited’

Where: VH1

When: Premieres 10-11 p.m. Monday

Host...Aamer Haleem

Executive producers, Eddie October, Ken Fuchs and Lisa Knapp. Directors, Fuchs and October.