Musicians are out of their environment
The big question is not why Planet Green has chosen a title for the reality show "Battleground Earth" that so quickly calls to mind one of the worst movies of all time. "Battlefield Earth," you may recall, is the 2000 bomb that featured John Travolta in dreadlocks and made the famed schlock director Ed Wood look like a great master by comparison.
The big question is how much slack should a reviewer cut a really awful show with a terrible title that nonetheless has good, green intentions? The answer: Not much. "Battleground Earth" isn't quite the "Battlefield Earth" of reality shows, but it's an overlong, self-congratulatory mess that makes green living look like a succession of cheap, wasteful, pointless stunts performed by people with money and fame.
The series, which premieres tomorrow night at 10, invites us to watch music stars Ludacris and Tommy Lee and their buddies compete in a monthlong "Amazing Race"-like contest to prove which star can be more eco-friendly. What we get is a tedious run of half-hearted trash-talking between the teams, and too much telegenic sincerity about saving the Earth and New Orleans, where the first episode takes place.
Also, we get rampant ego flexing by Lee, who must be the center of attention at all costs. Lee, whose reality credits include "Rock Star" and "Tommy Lee Goes Back to School," is a vicarious headache. At one point, he literally grabs and carries away a blond singer named Nina who is performing in a Bourbon Street bar, in order to put her on his team.
In the premiere, Ludacris and Lee face off over which team can build a solar shack fastest in New Orleans, before they head to San Francisco for a new contest. The tension won't kill you.
The idea behind "Battleground Earth" is to get out the word about green living to people who think Ludacris and Lee are cool. Not a bad goal, of course, but there have to be better ways to reach it. "You guys are more powerful than any law that can be written," Debbie Levin from the Environmental Media Association tells them, by way of convincing them to appear on the show and to take it all seriously. Please tell me she's merely saying that to flatter them.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog. 