3 new TV shows: Dumb, dumber & dumbest?

The screwball Farrelly brothers direct one of Sunday night's three new TV series, totally appropriate since the shows are dumb, dumber and dumbest.

It's sad when the best of the bunch is a reworking of the old Newlywed Game, but it's shameful that the really big show (as somebody used to say) is wrong on so many levels.

It's doubtful that Oprah's Big Give (Sunday 9 p.m., 6ABC) would have ever made it to the air without Oprah, but (Wrong No. 1) don't go expecting the diva of the heartstrings to be hosting this exploitative (Wrong No. 2) jumble (Wrong No. 3). She turns up now and then, to cheerlead and oversell (Wrong No. 4), but the real host (Wrong No. 5) is one of her minions, Nate Berkus. More wrongs to come, but you'll have to keep track for yourself.

The Farrellys finish in second place, directing a sitcom, Unhitched (Sunday 9:30 p.m., Fox 29), about four clowns who struggle stupidly with their newly single status. The opening scene features an orangutan trying to mount one of the men. I don't make this stuff up, but if I did, apparently I'd be a lot richer, writers' strike or no.

Which leads us to Here Come the Newlyweds (Sunday 10 p.m., 6ABC), recycling a barrelful of old ideas and holding a space for six weeks until new scripts (about orangutans?) are produced and TV life goes back to normal. The newlyweds are delightful, even if their show features silly, drawn-out competitions, tittering about sex, and a weekly vote to see who gets evicted from the luxury house.

At least nobody asks them to switch partners.

Oprah Winfrey has $1 billion. She could give $10 million to each of the five worthies Sunday night on her insipid, derivative, confusing show and still have $950 million, which, if you piled it in a stack, would reach to the moon and the stars.

But she's not giving anything, only lending her name to this show, which sends five two-person teams out to organize fund-raisers for widows, orphans and others, and, in a disgracefully mean-spirited move, punishes the ones who don't do it well enough.

"I love this show!" screams Oprah. Of course she does. It's setting her on the road to her second billion.

You would need a scorecard to track all the copycat reality-show shenanigans that go on here, but for starters you have people who organize events (The Apprentice), round up folks to help the needy (Extreme Makeover, Home Edition) and drive around confusedly trying to follow clues (The Amazing Race).

And then there is a three-judge panel. The man of color sits on the right, the woman is in the middle, and the guy with the funny haircut and the British accent, who's also the meanest, sits on the left. He berates the kind-hearted, if attention-seeking, contestant volunteers for not being smart or organized or assertive enough. One by one, they go home, and at the end of eight weeks the survivor wins $1 million.

On Sunday night, charity goes to a homeless mother, a woman who runs a center for the developmentally disabled, a young veteran down on his luck, a new doctor who owes zillions in education loans, and a family left without its man, who was recently murdered in a store robbery.

In one facet of their big give, the two little girls get over their grief by grabbing six shopping carts full of toys from the local Target store. Perhaps not the height of worthwhile charity, but a great plug for one of the myriad businesses seeking to burnish their images on this show by standing next to Oprah.

Remarkably, the throw-away series that comes after Big Give is more entertaining, even if its pacing and production values seem better suited to some two-bit Disney cable channel than to great and glorious ABC.

Seven truly diverse couples hang out in the mansion and answer some of the silly questions newlyweds have been answering on TV since Bob Eubanks first queried them about making whoopee 42 years ago. One guy says his wife's "upper area" is her best feature.

But they also participate in challenges. The husband drives blindfolded, for instance, while the wife gives directions.

It's good, if slow-moving, fun, and the couples truly seem to enjoy each other's company. "Everybody has just been surprisingly wonderful," says one woman.

That will probably change when they realize, after all, that this is reality TV, where pleasant, normal behavior only goes so far, and the only way to get the big prize is to talk trash and stab your opponents in the back.