Coming to a Small Screen Near You: Surreal TV

Summer reality programming from the major networks:

* “Big Sticks” (CBS): Based on the wildly popular Danish program, “Big Sticks” takes place on a remote island off the coast of Borneo where, for six consecutive nights, contestants are locked in a hut and encouraged to hit each other with big sticks. Host: Dick Clark.

* “Bulls and Bears” (Fox): What’s more life threatening: fighting bulls or baiting bears? Twelve eager contestants who have no experience doing either are about to find out--for the chance to win a drug lord’s recently seized villa. Fox is betting that millions of Argentines, who sent the original version of this show into that country’s Top 10, can’t be wrong. Host: Maury Povich.

* “Demographic Derby” (WB): Trend-sniffing programmers at the WB network describe this new entry, based on the hit Micronesian show, as “The Real World” meets “Logan’s Run.” Five visually perfect teenagers share a luxury condo in South Beach and are rudely expelled, one by one, when they reach their 20th birthdays. Host: Jennifer Love Hewitt.

* “Millionaire Smackdown” (UPN): Who wants to be dropped on his head by a professional wrestler, risking permanent spinal-cord injury--for the chance to win a million dollars? According to UPN, whose toll-free contestant hotline has been ringing off the hook, about 10,000 new volunteers a day. If viewers in the United Arab Emirates, where the original hit show aired, are any guide, UPN has a white-hot summer hit on its hands. Host: Pauly Shore.

* “Smash and Grab” (ABC): What’s the next best thing to being a Silicon Valley billionaire? Looting a Silicon Valley billionaire’s ostentatious home on five consecutive nights. ABC is currently investigating the backgrounds of contestants for this new show, which borrows heavily from last summer’s Icelandic juggernaut. Host: Ricki Lake.

* “Torture Chamber” (NBC): Contestants from around the country, ensconced in a room at the Burbank Ramada Inn, are put to the ultimate endurance test: being forced to watch network-TV programming around the clock. Who will survive? How much can they take? Will they hurl themselves out the window, as they did last summer in Honduras? Host: Willard Scott.