Sometimes, truly horrible shows are the most thought-provoking. Exhibit A: “Tommy Lee Goes To College” (8 p.m., NBC), a reality retread so thoroughly unfunny it got me wondering: Just who’s minding the shop at the once-proud Peacock network?

I simply refuse to believe that a group of “creative” executives sat around a boardroom, screened “Tommy Lee” and didn’t see the same depressing spectacle that I did. I refuse to believe that anyone laughed. And I refuse to believe that they know who their audience is anymore or what that audience might enjoy.

“Tommy Lee Goes to College” is truly shocking. Not for its rock or its raunch, but for the fact that it is so mind-boggling in its tedious banality. Watch Tommy buy books. Watch Tommy register for class. Watch Tommy look for a roommate. I’ve had more fun at the dentist’s office than watching this show. I’ve spent half-hours rearranging my sock drawer that have been more amusing. I would rather take the SATs all over again than sit through “Tommy Lee Goes to College” one more time.

“Tommy Lee” follows the former Mtley Crüe front man while he matriculates at the University of Nebraska as if he were just another 18-year-old freshman. Of course, he’s not — he’s a 42-year-old tattooed veteran of jail, rehab and the gossip pages who’s had a decade-long on-and-off thing with former “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson. As a college freshman, Lee is simply pathetic, and I’m not talking about his study habits. A wrinkled old rooster in a teenage henhouse, Tommy merely seems sad. This becomes painfully obvious when he begins drooling in the presence of his math tutor, a pretty young woman determined to go to medical school.

But I can’t blame Tommy for wanting all the attention. My mind returns to the programming geniuses who bought this show, a dimwitted spectacle that seems beneath the dignity of even E! or VH1. Perhaps they thought viewers would enjoy Tommy Lee’s “fish out of water” story. They should keep in mind what happen to real fish out of water: They flop around for a while, and then they die. Not long after that, they begin to stink.

¢ The Oscar-winning documentary “Born Into Brothels” (6 p.m., Cinemax) began as an effort by photographer Zana Briski to spotlight the horrific conditions in Calcutta’s red-light district and to draw attention to the global plight of prostitutes. But along the way, Briski and her fellow filmmaker, Ross Kauffman, met and befriended the children of the prostitutes. Soon they were teaching the kids photography and helping them enter school and receive medical attention. But not all can escape the grim life into which they were born.

¢ An Oscar-nominated film, “Hardwood” on “P.O.V.” (9 p.m., PBS, check local listings), explores filmmaker Hubert Davis’ complicated relationship with his father, a former member of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball troupe who fathered him out of wedlock during an adulterous relationship with a white European woman in the 1960s.

Other highlights

¢ Hilary Duff and Rob Schneider co-host “The 2005 Teen Choice Awards” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ A founding partner (Candice Bergen) returns on “Boston Legal” (9 p.m., ABC).

¢ Bruce spends some time with cannibals on “Going Tribal” (9 p.m., Discovery).

¢ “Apprentice” castoff Danny Kastner (the guitar-strumming marketing guy with the Prince Valiant locks and offbeat personality) appears on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” (9 p.m., Bravo). So does Donald Trump.