Lil' Bush, Comedy Central, Wednesday, 10:30 p.m.

It sounded like a great premise: Take the tragi-comical members of the Bush administration, cut them down to the size of their increasingly diminutive statures and send 'em back to school. Unfortuately, it appears that about as much planning went into this show's first episode as was put into post-Saddam reconstruction in Iraq. The "plot" is all over the board, beginning with an excursion to Baghdad, where the kids try to find George Bush Sr. (one of the few unshrunken characters) some good news for Father's Day and ending with Lil' Bush wooing Lil' Laura at an abortion rally. The writers take a page from the Family Guy playbook, eschewing intelligent parody and subtlety in favor of all-too-literal and crude visual humor. Lil' Cheney, whose undisclosed location turns out to be Barbara Bush's womb, spends most of his screen time twisting heads off of chickens and sucking down their blood. One can only hope that this waste of time and potential was supposed to be an intentionally ironic comment on the current situation in Iraq.

On the Lot, Fox, Tuesday, 8 p.m.

Fifty aspiring directors compete for a $1 million movie deal and the respect of Steven Spielberg, which may be worth considerably less by the time this amateurly executed reality show calls it a wrap. The pacing is awkward when not outright slow, and the judges' commentary is banal and useless — Carrie Fisher spends most of the time nervously nodding. The panel of judges, which also includes Garry Marshall and a weekly guest judge, constantly makes reference to the contestants' audition films, which would likely make for much more compelling television.

America's Got Talent, NBC, Tuesday, 8 p.m.

Let's face it: We've come to know what to expect from most reality shows (and knowing is half the boredom). Surprises are increasingly rare (just look how far Blake Lewis' beat-boxing schtick got him on American Idol) and hard earned (What convoluted twist will Survivor contestants have to endure next season? And how long will it take to explain?). Which is why America's Got Talent isn't quite as bad as it sounds. You never know what crazy insane stunt will be performed next. On the two-hour season premiere, we got to see a decent rock band, a not-so-decent violin-vocal duet, and judge David Hasselhoff flirting with a 75-year-old granny who sang and disco-danced her way onto the next round in a short skirt. The banter between Hasselhoff and fellow judges Sharon Osbourne and Pierre Money Mart is much more interesting than AI's preprocessed commentary (dawg). This season, they've also added Jerry Springer, who resides backstage, where he consoles and congratulates contestants. OK, so the whole thing is pretty terrible, but in the best possible way.