TELEVISION REVIEWS

ABC's 'Wipeout' and Spike's 'Jesse James Is a Dead Man' test the limits of human -- and viewer -- endurance.

By ROBERT LLOYD, Television Critic

Summer is a time for the Things You Should Not Try at Home and most of us would not try anywhere else. That is what we have television for.

In “Wipeout,” which bowed last summer on ABC and returns there tonight, ordinary -- though extraordinarily enthusiastic -- citizens tackle a giant mechanical obstacle course in pursuit of $50,000. It is in its very essence a summer show, full of running around all day and into the night, of getting wet, muddy and foamy. (The final challenge takes place by flaming torchlight.) Contestants are also punched, flipped, spilled, thrown and catapulted -- in such challenges as A Bridge Too Far, the Sucker Punch, the Big Balls, the Gears of Doom, the Hurtles and the Scary-Go-Round -- which is somewhat less evocative of the summertime.

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Last October, Tokyo Broadcasting System filed suit in Los Angeles against ABC, claiming, not frivolously, that "Wipeout" swiped elements from several of its obstacle-themed game shows, including "Takeshi's Castle," which Spike airs here, in a comically dubbed version, as "MXC." But it looks a lot like "American Gladiators" as well, and a little like a '70s series called "Almost Anything Goes," and not unlike a football blooper reel, especially as regards potential neck injuries.

Like those shows, it's presented tongue-in-cheekily as a sporting event, with hosts John Henson (E!'s "Talk Soup") and John Anderson (ESPN's "SportsCenter") providing the play-by-play, while Jill Wagner interviews the players, who get nicknames like Ditsy Princess, Trash Talker, Shiny Happy and Cheap Date in order to bring some order and character to what is basically a parade of people running into and falling off things.

Most of the hour is devoted not to the triumph of victory -- though the occasional displays of skill and athleticism are genuinely exciting -- but to the agony of being hit in the gut, or slightly lower, by a mechanical fist.

I am a person who finds a man walking into a post reliably funny, but it's a laugh that works better the first time than the 10th, and the 10th better than the 20th.

Also setting himself a possibly painful challenge is Jesse James, from Discovery's "Monster Garage" and "Motorcycle Mania," shows that can make exhaust pipes and gearboxes alluring even to a person with no particular interest in the automotive arts. “Jesse James Is a Dead Man,” premiering Sunday on Spike, is his new, misleadingly titled series. He is not dead, nobody wants him dead, nor does he want to be dead, though the whole point of the show is that he does things, mostly involving motor vehicles, that might kill him. (None do -- I don't think that counts as a spoiler.) This is what James would call living a dream.

In the opening episode, he rides a "nitro bike," a dragster-like, 1,000-horsepower motorcycle that goes from 0 to 100 mph in one second, and faster after that -- a challenge for which he prepares by taking a ride in an F-16 (to experience G force) and being set on fire (to experience being on fire). There are people who ride nitro bikes all the time, better than James does, but the point of "Dead Man" is only that he challenge himself, not set records. It is a show about a plucky amateur and the professionals who guide him.

Here, as in his other television venues, James -- who referred to himself as "just some welder from Long Beach" in the recently concluded second season of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” where he was next to last to be eliminated -- is an appealing personality: good-humored, soft-spoken and eerily calm in the face of danger. He has no problem admitting he's scared when he's scared, but he never sounds scared, possibly because he enjoys the feeling. "I don't want to get burned alive," he says of riding the potentially explosive nitro bike. "But, you know. . . ."

The show that surrounds him is, by contrast, loud and hectoring. It underscores the obvious and kills the drama with overstatement. James doesn't need the help. But it's still something to see.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com