toledoblade.com --

ABC's newest summer series may have the best of intentions, but jeez, couldn't they have come up with a better name for it?

Shaq's Big Challenge.

The show, which premieres at 9 p.m. tomorrow, sounds like a documentary on NBA star Shaquille O'Neal's laughable lack of skill at the free-throw line, where the gargantuan Miami Heat center looks about as comfortable - and is about as proficient - as the Abominable Snowman trying to thread a needle.

But no, the challenge referred to in the series' title is Shaq's sometimes frustrating efforts to transform six obese middle-school kids into reasonable facsimiles of fit, healthy teens in just six months.

ON THE AIR

• ‘Shaq’s Big Challenge’ debuts at 9 p.m. tomorrow on Channel 13 in Toledo.

One might wonder what a 7-foot-1-inch, 335-pound behemoth knows about fitness - or at least about shaping up overweight children.

Good question. But all we're given by way of explanation is that Shaq has seen a few too many "chubby kids" waddling around and is concerned about the future health problems they're likely to encounter.

Of course, a cynic might posit that the show's producers, who lifted the concept from a British series called Unfit Kids, hosted by a former pro soccer player, simply needed a big-name American athlete to attract viewers and managed to land the 35-year-old O'Neal, who has dabbled in acting over the years and may be looking ahead to some kind of post-NBA career.

Whatever the motives, there's no denying that childhood obesity is a very real problem in America. Overweight kids face shorter life spans due to their increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments later in life.

To illustrate what a strict regimen of exercise and diet can do, six middle-school students in Florida are chosen to take part in Shaq's crash course in better health. These kids - four boys and two girls - are poster children for sloth, subsisting mainly on pizza, doughnuts, and cheeseburgers, and the closest they get to exercise is wiggling their thumbs while playing video games.

And these kids aren't just a little bit chunky. According to tests conducted by Dr. William Muinos, a physician and child obesity expert at Miami Children's Hospital, they're all "morbidly obese," or 100 pounds or more above their ideal body weight.

Shaq is not familiar with the term. "•'Morbidly obese' to me sounds like death," he tells Dr. Muinos.

"It is like death," Muinos replies. "It's like a bomb ready to blow up."

To help whip his young charges into shape, Shaq recruits a team of experts. In addition to Dr. Muinos, the team includes Shaq's own physician, as well as a nutritionist, a personal trainer, a celebrity chef from the Food Network, and Shaq's old college basketball coach at Louisiana State University, Dale Brown.

A preliminary fitness evaluation shows how woefully out of shape the six kids are: three of them can't do a single sit-up, and four aren't able to complete one push-up.

As their personal trainer, a mini-drill sergeant named Tarik Tyler, begins to put them through their paces, he offers them this reassuring tidbit:

"Don't worry, you'll survive - some of you."

Shaq's involvement in the show might seem odd to some, but the big guy seems genuinely interested in the kids, most of whom have never felt like they were part of any kind of team.

After Shaq learns how serious their health problems are, he shifts emotional gears. "Right now, it ain't about losing weight," he says. "Let's just forget that. It's about saving these kids' lives."

Sure, his concern could be an act. But if you've seen any of Shaq's so-called acting efforts in the past, you know he's not that good at it.

O'Neal's ultimate mission here doesn't stop with his six portly young friends. His ambitious goal: to get the local schools to re-institute physical education classes and provide nutritious meals in their cafeterias - and all without busting the budget. From there, he wants the idea to spread statewide throughout Florida and, ultimately, the whole country.

Wow, and we thought making a free throw was a major deal for the big lug.

As celebrity reality series go, Shaq's seems worthy of a Nobel Prize compared to a silly offering called Hey, Paula, which premieres at 10 p.m. Thursday on the Bravo cable network.

Spotlighting the "crazy cool world" of American Idol sweetheart Paula Abdul, the seven-episode "docu-drama" is a smorgasbord of self-absorption.

As the "stressed-out celebrity and tough business woman" rushes through a whirlwind of red-carpet appearances, media interviews, and meetings on her QVC jewelry designs, viewers are evidently supposed to be astonished that she can keep up such a hectic pace with little or no rest.

Of course, it helps that she has a posse of fawning assistants, including a publicist, hairstylist, wardrobe chief, and dog wrangler.

In the show's first episode, as Paula prepares for an appearance at the Grammys, there's a crisis when one of her pet Chihuahuas tries to gobble down a million-dollar ring. Not to worry: Paula saves the bling, but it wouldn't have mattered, because, you see, ha-ha, it's not Paula's ring anyway. A jewelry manufacturer lent it to her.

And he's insured, right?

Sad to say, Bravo blew it on this one. It would have been lots more interesting if they'd documented the personal life of Paula's fellow American Idol judge, Simon Cowell.

Sure, his life may be equally shallow, but at least maybe we'd get to see which deranged assistant of his picks out those cute little two-sizes-too-small T-shirts that he wears on Idol.