This chase comes up empty

One of the ''hunters'' in the new reality show, ''Cha$e'' on the Sci Fi Channel. (Sci Fi channel)

How bored will you need to be to enjoy "Cha$e"? Bored enough to think that watching 10 strangers jog in zigzags through the warehouse neighborhoods of LA sounds like fun. Bored enough to find an hour of their heavily miked breathlessness hypnotic. Bored enough to believe that time does in fact grow on trees - before it's put in a bottle, of course.

The thing about "Cha$e," Sci Fi's new reality series tonight at 10, is that it is all crazy nonstop action. So it should at least be diverting, like a mediocre action movie. But this show is so numbingly tedious, you perch at the edge of your seat only because if you lean back, you'll fall asleep. You feel as though you're spending an hour watching a person who is spending an hour watching a person who is playing a video game. The show is that removed from suspense.

The idea behind "Cha$e" is that 10 players - "runners" - are participating in a live-action video game of sorts. They dodge and dart for an hour, from car to garbage bin to alleyway to ferry dock, while they are being stalked by predatory "hunters." The hunters, expressionless in suits and sunglasses, want to catch the runners and eliminate them from the game. The longer a runner lasts, the more money he or she will take home. Meanwhile, as the clock ticks, the show's host, Trey Farley, issues game-changing instructions to the runners via cellphone.

The advantage to seeing real people in a game is that, presumably, real people have real personalities. We can get to know these runners, who are from all across the country, and we can root for or against them, just as we might for the players on, say, "The Amazing Race."

But "Cha$e" doesn't give the runners a chance to reveal themselves. The show's graphics do provide us with a few cold stats about each one - that guy who trips on the sidewalk is Jason, a carpenter from Boston. But otherwise, the runners are empty vessels, maybe even less engaging than digital people-bots on a screen. And they will change from episode to episode, so there will be no cumulative familiarity.

If the show weren't presented in real time, and the actual chase segments were edited down, and runner back stories were inserted more liberally, maybe "Cha$e" wouldn't be such a boring dash for cash. But probably it would.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.