Evan Marriott stars in "Joe Millionaire," one of the more than 70 shows in the Fox Reality Channel arsenal.

You can't write this kind of stuff.

Shortly after learning that his family has been selected to spend two weeks with natives in Morocco, Chicagoan David Doig couldn't be more pleased.

"My first thought of Morocco is, you know, 'Casablanca,' with people sitting along the Mediterranean, smoking cigars, drinking cognacs."

The next shot is of the remote village where they'll live and a haggard-looking woman beside a muddy river beating laundry with a stick.

Moments like this, from the series "Worlds Apart," make Fox Reality Channel the best thing to happen to bad TV since Ron Popeil.

The channel, which debuted last spring, was added to Cox Digital Cable (channel 364) late last month, and it couldn't have come too soon. So far, this summer's reality shows lack the heart, or at least the overall goofiness, of series past -- although "Master of Champions" (8 p.m. Thursday, KTNV-TV, Channel 13) looks promising.

But even it appears to be a far cry from that bygone era when Fox would throw anything and everything -- "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance" anyone? -- at the American public. And it's from those glory days that Fox Reality Channel mines its gold.

After all, who among us doesn't need to see a man race a giraffe ("Man vs. Beast")? Or a Porta Potty-themed wedding cake ("America's Trashiest Weddings")? Or Danny Bonaduce take a punch ("Celebrity Boxing")?

The channel doesn't stop with its corporate sibling's back catalog. There's also NBC's dating extravaganza of "Meet My Folks," "Who Wants to Marry My Dad?" and "For Love or Money." And, for variety, a slew of imports including "Temptation Island UK" -- because horrible pick-up lines just seem more endearing in a nearly indecipherable Welsh accent.

Granted the mornings are a little lame, with a daily block of "Extreme Dating," "Ambush Makeover," "Cops," "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" and "Arrest & Trial." But it's a free-for-all once the afternoon kicks in as the schedule changes day to day and week to week.

Wednesday night might mark the triumphant return of Evan Marriott and "Joe Millionaire." Sunday afternoon could be a marathon featuring crazy-eyed Toni Ferrari of both "Love Cruise" and the stellar "Paradise Hotel." (All three are among the more than 70 shows in the channel's arsenal.)

Many of the more familiar reruns are prettied up with additional footage and interviews, like the "Looking For Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska" cast, both the datees and daters, complaining about the other group's unattractiveness.

Sometimes the channel aims a little higher with a show such as "Worlds Apart." Rarely are Muslims shown in a better light than when the Doig family -- wearing the smell of Ugly American as proudly as if it came from Chanel -- stumbles through the hospitable-to-a-fault Berber village of Oulghazi. The Doigs, who make the "European Vacation"-era Griswolds look like goodwill ambassadors, come off so badly, the footage could find a second life as a terrorist recruitment video.

But "Worlds Apart" sticks out like a sore, well-intentioned thumb. Especially around the channel's insanely over-the-top original series "Solitary" (6 and 9 p.m. Mondays).

Nine contestants are sealed into small, color-coded pods with their only contact coming from the unseen helium-voiced "computer" controlling their lives. The contestants are put through challenges involving such niceties as sleep deprivation and sonic torture that go on until all but one of them quit. It's like the "Saw" movies meet the worst in 1970s futuristic Japanese cinema. With just a touch of Abu Ghraib.

But for sheer Christmas Eve-style anticipation, few things can match the channel's upcoming "My Bare Lady," in which a British theater director will pick four American porn stars, take them to London for a rigorous transformation, and put them onstage to perform a classic play.

Like I said, you can't write this kind of stuff.

Speaking of reality: "America's Got Talent" (9 p.m. Wednesday, KVBC-TV, Channel 3), has traded its original top prize of a headlining job on the Strip for a $1 million payday. Several Las Vegans are in the mix -- Strip magician Nathan Burton can be seen in the commercials -- but NBC won't say when, or if, they'll make it on the air.

And a little more reality: Western High School grad Michelle Landry is one of four women looking for love on "How to Get the Guy" (10 p.m. Mondays, KTNV-TV, Channel 13).

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.