From the producers who gifted us with the fatuous folks of reality series "Laguna Beach" comes Fox's "Nashville," a show that, in its eschewing glibness and superficiality (if only by comparison), also avoids the sort of train-wreck guilty pleasures of its predecessor.

"Nashville" focuses on a group of pretty young things who have all landed in the country-music capital in search of stardom.

Tonight's episode already makes it clear who they want us pulling for and who we'll be hissing:

Matt, a singer-songwriter who had a taste of minor stardom before his label downsized and dropped him, is posited as a good guy (too bad his songs are pretty generic).

Mika, the naïve country girl from the mining hills of Kentucky seeking stardom as a singer, seems a good egg but a couple of bad decisions from disaster.

Chuck achieves success with a music label tonight, but that only seems a precursor to a humbling downfall.

Rachel, daughter of football legend Terry Bradshaw, seems to have had her brattiest moments excised out of deference to her dad, a Fox Sports analyst, but her sense of entitlement rings loud and clear nonetheless.

Clint, a partier from a privileged background, is clearly the villain of the piece, a womanizing cad destined to break - at the very least - Rachel's heart.

With all these parts in place, "Nashville" still feels pretty generic. None of these people feel like full-blooded characters yet, particularly damning given that they're real people. The narration is particularly trite: "There's no such thing as a sure thing - in Nashville." "Is there room for one more star - in the Nashville sky?"

Given the general lack of enthusiasm that has greeted most reality programs in the past few months, "Nashville" would have to be a lot better to reverse that trend. Unless it ended the same way Robert Altman's landmark 1975 film by that title concluded. Then, maybe they'd have something.

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638 david.kronke@dailynews.com www.insidesocal.com/tv/