'Queen Bees': Do You Catch More Eyes With Honey?

From left, Kiana Jenkins, Stassi Schroeder, Gisbelle Castillo, Shavon Bonney, Camille Lopez, Michelle Madonna and Brittany Keiffer compete to be nice on the N Network reality show. (By Janet Van Ham -- The N Network)

"Queen bees are often very socially intelligent," says Wiseman, who travels to schools offering seminars on confidence and clique diffusion, and who has no involvement in the show. "They're used to using it to get what they need at that moment," rather than relying on their own smarts and confidence.

Which is why Wiseman finds the show, and the whole concept of "nice," to be problematic. "The issue is not 'nice.' We don't need nicer girls. We need girls who take themselves seriously, who are substantive, who are intellectually engaged."

To that end, a celebrity shrink, Michelle Callahan from "The Tyra Banks Show," appears in each episode, running group therapy sessions, doling out stars as progress reports (crying is key to progress).

But, and here's the rub, the goal of personal betterment doesn't always jibe with reality TV. The show needs the Bees to stay mean. In future episodes, the girls will be given the chance to remove one another's stars and vote one another off the promotional billboard. Petite Camille Lopez is seen sobbing, protesting that she doesn't like this "bad power."

Even in the moments when the girls seem to be getting more real, the viewer can't help but treat the whole exercise as a game, wondering which girl will turn out to have an eating disorder, which girl will come from the brokenest home, and which girl will deliver the most spectacular schadenfreude as her world of meanness slowly implodes.

And then we feel like the bad ones, cheering on the sidelines of the catfight.

Queen Bees (one hour) debuts tonight on the N Network at 9.