BRILLIANT: ‘HOT GIRLS IN SCARY PLACES’

Okay, okay — I’ll put my pants back on.

E! just won itself a few points in my book for ordering “Hot Girls in Scary Places,” an awesomely named special that will air March 13th as a “backdoor pilot.”  (Also a backdoor pilot: John Travolta.)

The show stars three University of Southern California cheer squad friends challenged to spend the night in a supposedly haunted abandoned hospital for a cash prize of $10,000 (which would pay for maybe half a semester at USC). [Not that their parents need it. - Ed.]  To get the prize, the trio will have to complete a series of challenges.

“They’re totally scared, and totally believe experiences they’re going through,” says executive producer Gary Auerbach. “They’ll get scared and then be talking about a sorority party coming up. It’s a little bit ‘Scooby Doo’-ish.”

My only problem with this show is that it isn’t on at this very moment.  I absolutely love the honesty in the title.  E! doesn’t bullshit you.  I’d like to see this take hold elsewhere, like on ABC’s “Shipwrecked on an Island Where the Laws of Physics Don’t Apply,” AMC’s “Nostalgia for Smoking and Sexism,” and Sci-Fi’s “Everyone is Actually a Robot Bent on Humanity’s Destruction, They Just Don’t Know It Yet.”