Coming soon to a Sci Fi Channel near you

Just as Adult Swim did yesterday, the Sci Fi Channel announced three new programs debuting this summer, leaving us no choice but to make fun of them.

"Flash Gordon" (premieres August 10), unfortunately, has nothing to do with Will Ferrell and Jon Heder’s climactic figure-skating sequence in “Blades of Glory;” instead, it’s yet another take on the old comic strip about space adventurers exploring planets and battling an evildoer who goes by the moniker of Ming the Merciless. Wouldn’t it be great if people still went by names like that? Get to it, Kim Jong-il.

"Destination Truth" (premieres June 6) is “Ghost Hunters,” only with different guys and a much better travel budget – they trek to Malaysia, Chile, Argentina and Papua, New Guinea in search of mythical monsters. (I can see the show’s tagline: “We get paid handsomely to fail.”) They also go to Thailand, but I’m not sure I want to know what they get up to over there.

Derren Brown Project (premieres July 25) has yet to be titled, but at least they know who’s going to star in it: British “mentalist” Derren Brown, who, per Sci Fi, “knows your mind better than you do.” In the case of people who buy into this stuff, I’m not so sure that’s so difficult. How about for the title “At Least It’s Not That Hack John Edward?”

Those last two shows remind me how odd it is that the Sci Fi Channel airs reality shows (or, perhaps I have it all backwards, and all reality shows belong on the Sci Fi Channel). Your assignment: Cook up a “reality” series for Sci Fi; they’ve told me they’ll actually produce the best entry (well, actually, they haven’t returned my calls, but I’m sure it’s a slam dunk).