It’s a little-discussed but scientific fact. If you put a teenager — or an actor portraying a teenager — on television, he automatically becomes 35 years old. Luke Perry wasn’t the first or the last to suffer from this affliction.

The kids on “NYC Prep” (9 p.m., Bravo) take this premature middle-age thing to a new extreme. Two of the kids appear to have been raised by wolves. Or at least the kind of wolves who live in the Hamptons five days a week while their underage kids run wild in Manhattan leading unsupervised, unchaperoned (and for the most part uninteresting) lives.

Apparently, those in the prep crowd entertain one another in restaurants and bars, where, one presumes, they are waited on by sullen would-be actors whose chance at work has been destroyed by the proliferation of cheap documentary shows like “NYC Prep.”

One mass bash is even held by a (gasp!) public-school student, who will probably have to become an indentured servant or sell her kidneys just to pay off the tab.

A shotgun marriage of the hackneyed “Real Housewives” format with the overhyped “Gossip Girl,” “Prep” is unsurprising and predictably choreographed in every conceivable way. There’s really no reason to review it or, for that matter, watch it. We’ve seen this all before. Even our reactions to the kids appear to be predigested. They are there to be hated and pitied, but mostly hated.

Shows this formulaic almost call out for their own drinking game. If you were to down a shot every time someone said the word “hot” or “hookup,” you’d probably embalm yourself before the first commercial break. On the other hand, if you had to wait until somebody expressed an idea or talked about something apart from gossip or shopping or themselves, you’d have a good chance of being the designated driver at your “NYC Prep” viewing party.

• “P.O.V.” (9 p.m., PBS, check local listings) enters a new season with “New Muslim Cool,” a profile of a former drug dealer and Puerto Rican convert to Islam who spreads a message of sobriety, faith and political awareness through hip-hop music. Married to a veiled American-born Muslim woman he met on the Internet, his wedding video offers an interesting clash of cultures, to say the least.

Tonight’s other highlights

• Celebrities take on athletes on “The Superstars” (7 p.m., ABC).

• “America’s Got Talent” (8 p.m., NBC) returns with its first audition show.

• A celebrity suffers a breakdown on camera on “Mental” (8 p.m., Fox).

• “Frontline/World” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings) looks at the proliferation of digital toxic waste in the developing world.

• Crabs on ice on “Deadliest Catch” (8 p.m., Discovery).

• A visit to a nerd-themed restaurant on “Better Off Ted” (8:30 p.m., ABC).

• “Primetime: Family Secrets” (9 p.m., ABC) looks at teen pregnancy.

• Lou and Tommy stagger to the finish on “Rescue Me” (9 p.m., FX).

• Gary Cole guest-stars on the second-season opener of “The Cleaner” (9 p.m., A&E).

Cult choice

Laura Dern offers a memorable turn in the 1991 Depression-era drama “Rambling Rose” (7 p.m., IFC), with Robert Duvall and Dern’s mother, Diane Ladd.