TO fully appreciate "The Naked Brothers Band" (Nickelodeon, 8:30 p.m. Saturdays), it helps to approach it much as a child would -- the kids are the ones who make sense, the adults are background noise. Except for one thing: On this show, this is actually the case and requires no leap of the imagination.

Brothers Nat and Alex Wolff are the Naked Brothers, leaders of the titular, semi-fictional band that is forever followed by cameras, documentary style. They write songs and fight with each other and have fraught emotional interactions with women -- on paper, familiar turf for any rock group. The only giveaway that they're mere children is that, unlike most adults, the Naked Brothers are actually growing up.

The second-season premiere of "Naked Brothers," which aired last weekend, is a slightly slicker affair than the show's early episodes. The writing and editing are cleaner, and Nat and Alex are more in touch with their status as leading men. (Surely, growing fame in the real world has helped the process along.) Nat's voice is getting raspier, his stride more certain, his hair shaggier -- angst is creeping into his songwriting. (He writes the vast majority of the songs, younger brother Alex writes the rest.)

And Alex is emotionally precocious. Last season, a whole episode was devoted to his ability to cry on command as a tool of manipulation, and another -- the show's best -- to his identity crisis after the sales and marketing of his signature look to the masses. In the season premiere, he lashes out against the baby-sitter who's the love of his life by finding someone his own age: "Now let's see whose heart dries up like a piece of beef jerky!" Even his childish petulance seems inspired.

Structure-wise, "The Naked Brothers Band" parallels the real Wolff family, except in one key respect. On the show, the boys' mother is dead. In real life, she's Polly Draper (late of "thirtysomething"), an executive producer and director for the show. Michael Wolff, the boys' father, plays Dad on the show, though mostly as a humorous foil. Largely, the show prefers verisimilitude -- the band is rounded out by Thomas, David, Qaasim and Rosalina, and a manager, Cooper. All the show's primary characters keep the actors' names (except for Rosalina, who is played by Allie DiMeco). Also recurring are the Adorable Timmerman Brothers, a washed-up former boy band and cautionary tale.