TV's idea of keeping it real could use a make-over itself

Television continues to hemorrhage "reality" shows, hour after hour of life so raw and ferocious that you want to take to your bed and pull the covers over your head.

How much more of this tenaciously gritty realism can America handle?

Arriving Thursday on ratings-challenged ABC, for example, is "Extreme Makeover." That's right, pal, extreme! No half measures here. Clamp on your seat belts and cast your peepers on a trio of physically imperfect subjects who, we're assured, will be reconfigured in ways that will "ultimately redirect their destinies." Yes, their destinies!

The hour won't be pretty.

Think nose jobs, plus brow and under-eye lifts. Think liposuction, a chin implant, a breast implant and -- brace yourself -- one of those grisly tummy tucks.

But kids, don't try this at home.

Nor "Love by Design," the new "reality" series on Home and Garden TV that works like this: Someone chooses a date from three prospects, sight unseen and based solely on their home decor, and then -- in a display of realism almost too brutal to witness -- helps redecorate the place before the owner arrives home.

Talk about shining a light on the human condition. Why, just the thought of it gives me the chills.

Get serious.

Although symbolic of our times, the loopy "reality" mind-set is hardly new to television. It's been more than a decade since a psychologist called me with an idea for a series he insisted couldn't miss. Money in the bank. A cinch. It's name? "Suicide Squad."

Am I kidding? No more than he was kidding.

He hadn't hammered out the details, but said he'd need only a hotline and a fleet of TV-equipped vans for a series that would go like this: People leaning toward taking their own lives would be urged to call the show's counselors, who would do their best to dissuade them. But on those occasions when they failed, well, the show might as well salvage something from the tragedies. So call out the vans to videotape the suicides for America's viewing enjoyment.

"Suicide Squad" never materialized. Like many twisted visionaries, its creator was custodian of an idea before its time.

Instead of calling, many "reality" show wannabes now advertise their ideas to the media via e-mail. That's how I learned of John Surowy's proposed "Godfather Court," which he calls "comedic reality."