WB's drama 'Summerland' is not much fun in the sun

"Summerland" is an excellent and powerful nighttime soap opera -- for those whose two favorite series ever are "Baywatch" and "Party of Five," that is.

This new WB drama, which premieres in a two-hour special tonight at 8 on Channel 56, places Barbie, Skipper, Ken, and a few other plastic beach boys and babes in charge of three children from Kansas whose parents have died. In between their "Beach Blanket Bingo" flirtations and surfing triumphs, the buff SoCal beauties guide the kids through a host of grief-related traumas. They also guide us into the sleepy headache that comes from consuming too much sugar and too much cheese in one sitting.

The pasted-together family of "Summerland" is headed by Ava Gregory (Lori Loughlin), whose late sister and brother-in-law have left her responsible for Bradin (Jesse McCartney), Nikki (Kay Panabaker), and Derrick (Nick Benson). A flighty fashion designer, she doesn't know much about mothering, and neither do her best friends, Susannah (Merrin Dungey) and a pair of generic muscle dudes. She thinks of herself as "the fun aunt from California"; we still think of her as John Stamos's wife from "Full House."

All of them share the kind of beach house that Vanity Fair might rent for a Brad Pitt photo shoot, with an outdoor shower and an embarrassment of bedrooms. The series pivots on a family tragedy, but it's filled with architectural, environmental, and bathing-suited eye candy. It presents a romanticized endless-summer lifestyle, complete with killer sunsets and take-out pizza, that most kids and young adults would love, once they recovered from their parents' deaths, of course.

But the writing is so doggedly predictable and sentimental, you can't really lose yourself in the fantasy. The show looks like a Club Med travel brochure, but it has the heart of a generic Hallmark movie. It takes its role as a family drama too seriously.

We've seen all of its plotlines many times before, some of them on "Party of Five," from the teen boy who may have an affair with his teacher to the heartbreaking preteen who wants to send his late mother a birthday gift in heaven. The writers put no new twists on the ways the children mourn and on how their aunt learns to help them; and they give us no unexpected resolutions.

"Summerland" could have been a guilty pleasure, along the lines of "The O.C.," but it's so humorless and pat that it's really more of an innocent bore.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.

Summerland
Starring: Lori Loughlin, Shawn Christian, Merrin Dungey, Ryan Kwanten, Jesse McCartney, Kay Panabaker
On: the WB (Channel 56)
Time: Tonight, 8-10