Another round of upward mobility

As the summer is being accorded what looks like increasing respect by the programming of fat miniseries such as ABC’s toga-clad “Empire” (debuting June 28) and the Spielberg-

branded Manifest Destiny drama “Into the West” (TNT, June 10), reality still rules the off-season. This includes the mother of them all, “The Real World 16: Austin, Texas” (MTV, June 23) and its negative double, the don’t-

wanna-be-here “Brat Camp” (ABC, July 13).

Social promotion is the common theme of “The Next Great Rock Star” (CBS, July 11), wherein INXS fields a new lead singer; “The Next Food Network Star” (June 5, on the Food Network, naturally); “The Cut” (CBS, June 9), in which Tommy Hilfiger finds the “next great American designer”; “I Want to Be a Hilton” (NBC, June 21), in which Hilton mater Kathy locates the next Paris; and “Kept” (VH-1, May 29), as Jerry Hall seeks a man to mold into a boy toy.

On Ashton Kutcher’s “Beauty and the Geek” (WB, June 1), good-looking dimwits and socially challenged brains attempt to improve one other, while “The Scholar” (ABC, June 6) has smart kids competing for college money. “The Law Firm” (July 27), David E. Kelley’s dip into reality, looks to be a cross of “The Apprentice” and “The People’s Court,” while Bravo’s “Situation: Comedy” (Aug. 2), is a “Project Greenlight” for sitcoms.

Self-reflexive celebrity series include “Tommy Lee Goes to College (NBC, Aug. 9),”Being Bobby Brown” (Bravo, June 30), “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List” (Bravo, July 27). It’s a trend that’s inspired HBO’s “The Comeback,” in which Lisa Kudrow plays a faded sitcom actress starring in a reality show called “The Comeback.” Postmodern! Meta-reality reaches its apogee in “Battle of the Network Reality Stars” (Bravo, Aug. 10).

Among the summer’s new “fake-ality” series are three crime shows, all set, ominously, in Los Angeles: Fox’s “The Inside” (June 8) and TNT’s “The Closer” (June 13) both center on preternaturally insightful women, and “Wanted” (TNT, July 31) puts Gary Cole in charge of an undercover task force charged with tracking down the town’s Top 100 criminals. (Now, there’s a reality show waiting to be made.)

On the lighter side, there are Comedy Network’s “Stella” (late June), featuring the great Michael Ian Black; Cartoon Network’s “Buffy”-meets-

“Powerpuff” series “The Life and Times of Juniper Lee” (May 30); and Showtime’s “Weeds” (Aug. 10), about a pot-selling mom, which if nothing else offers the company of Mary-Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins -- and as nothing else goes, that’s a good deal.