Last year, as Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars were falling away and the network’s new shows made no impact at all, executives at The CW were able to find one ray of light in their ratings-challenged schedule - reality TV. The genre that has driven most of the growth on cable (ask executives at VH1 or Bravo what butters their bread) was also the only thing drawing people to a new network that seriously struggled finding viewers. America’s Next Top Model, Beauty and the Geek, and The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll were all relative hits for the network. Surprisingly, this season has seen the decline of Model and Geek in the ratings world, but that won’t stop the network from trying to add more fuel to its reality fire. Model, Geek, and another installment of Doll will all air soon, along with the hilariously titled Farmer Takes a Wife and this week’s debut of Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants.

It’s a true shame that no one is watching the excellent scripted programming on The CW - Aliens in America and Reaper - but maybe they should just throw in the towel and stick with what they do best. Top Model is ending its weakest season but they could easily turn that around and, unlike the rest of America, we have yet to grow tired of the increasingly clever Beauty and the Geek. And now we have Crowned, a pureed mix of reality staples set in the world of beauty pageants. Take the fashion sense of the Bravo shows, the awkward pairings that made Amazing Race a hit, the superficiality that has driven the CW reality hits, three judges straight out of the school of American Idol, and make everyone live together like most of the reality greats. Crowned is ridiculous on every level, but it’s also likely to become a national guilty pleasure for the next couple months. Have you ever heard someone describe something as so bad it’s good? They were talking about Crowned.

The concept of Crowned is simple. Take young girls and the mothers who want to live vicariously through them and subject them to a variety of challenges somewhat related to the world of beauty pageant competitions. Each week, the beauty queen wannabes and their moms (or should that be "and their daughters"?) are judged by Queer Eye For the Straight Guy star Carson Kressley, former Miss U.S.A. Shanna Moakler, and TV personality Cynthia Garrett. Each week, one of the pairs will be asked to leave the house they share.

The first episode introduces audiences to the eleven teams and, as with all things reality TV, the casting was essential. Whoever chose the contestants for Crowned deserves a raise. Crowned would have been a disaster if the 22 women forced to share a house were all beauty pageant clones, but the show mixes it up in terms of age, experience, and, possibly, sanity. The 43-year-old Andrea and the 24-year-old Amanda, who both have pageant experience and dub themselves the "Reigning As," couldn’t be more different than the completely inexperienced but charming "Dream Gals," made up of the 49-year-old Gina and the 27-year-old Hollis. Other teams include the hilariously named (and, yes, they chose these themselves) "Silent But Deadly" and "Skin Deep."

The premiere of Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants is good enough that viewers will likely return the next week, but it feels like a show with an expiration date. Let’s be honest - most of us watch beauty pageants for hilariously bad speeches about world peace and in the hope that one of the girls will do a face plant. But how long can that last? The creators of Crowned were wise to keep their show to only eight episodes. It could be the perfect cold weather guilty pleasure for reality fans this new year.