OK, all together now

By the time this appears in print, NBC's "Clash of the Choirs," the latest bit of unscripted ritualized conflict from network television -- and a harbinger, you can bet your universal remote -- will have run through half of its brief, four-night life. (It is going up against ABC's six-night "Duel.") One of the five competing choirs will have already been voted off the show -- by you, America.

Produced by BBC Worldwide, which also brought you "Dancing With the Stars," "Choirs" has been based on a "format" created by the Swedish company Friday TV. ("Our goal is to be Scandinavia's market leading supplier of TV-formats," it says on its website.) Celebrity singers Michael Bolton, Patti LaBelle, Nick Lachey, Kelly Rowland and Blake Shelton returned to their hometowns (New Haven, Conn.; Philadelphia; Cincinnati; Houston; and Oklahoma City, respectively) to organize "amateur" choirs from the ordinary citizenry and in short order turn total strangers into well-oiled, professional-quality performing units.

Positioned as a kind of extended Christmas special (with "songs guaranteed to put you in the holiday mood"), the show is thick with inspirational uplift and regional spirit. Its arms are stretched wide enough to hold "the troops," God and Hurricane Katrina and the whole nation. "Living in America / Got to have a celebration," the massed choirs, 100 strong, sang to open the show. The winner gets to donate $250,000 to a favorite local charity.

Although the participants have been obviously chosen for their ability -- this is a competition, after all -- they have not necessarily been chosen for ability alone. There is plenty of bite-sized back story, here, the kind of just-add-tears instant "narrative" the viewer fleshes out himself. Here are a father and daughter, whose mother is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Here's a lady who's 77. (She has been dubbed the "Silver Fox.") This man thought he was out but at the last minute he was in. This woman got her first kiss from Nick Lachey when they were kids. ("Aaah-haaah, haah, heh," said Nick when she introduced herself.) These two guys are in the Army. One woman just lost 140 pounds, another was a victim of domestic abuse. This one survived Katrina. "Feel good" always feels a little better when there's a little bad in the mix.