Real estate — shorthand in all the major cities for what you can no longer afford to rent, sublet, or buy — is the subject of “Million Dollar Listing,” a new six-part reality show on Bravo starting tonight at 9 p.m. If the idea is to make viewers salivate over hot properties rather than bodies, it badly misfires. Some of these places are so overdecorated they could almost qualify for a sequel to James Lileks’s classic sendup, “Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes From the Horrible ’70s.”

On the other hand, since the program is set in Southern California rather than the Lower East Side, New Yorkers will appreciate the number of rooms in which you can walk 5 feet in any direction without hitting an exposed brick wall.

“Million Dollar Listing” hopes to sell us on the grit and glamour of the realestate business itself. Unfortunately, the producers begin the series with the glamour rather than the grit. Thus, two of its least interesting realtors — Madison Hildebrand, a rookie pretty boy, and Shannon McLeod, a banal ice-queen — are paraded out for the pilot.

Ms. McLeod has got herself in a bind because she’s representing both seller and buyer (legal in California), and the seller happens to be her ex-fiancé, a deeply bored, inscrutable man who vaguely seems to be carrying a torch for her, or maybe just a burnt match. By the end of the program it’s no longer apparent whether the vacuous Ms. McLeod wants to sell his home or get back together with him and live in it — or whether he would have her anyway. The relationship is as murky as the story line.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hildebrand tries to sell a ramshackle property in the hills above Malibu for a man who unsuccessfully tried to turn it into an alcohol rehabilitation center. We also meet another agent, Scotty “Schmoozer” Brown, a former manager for the Stone Temple Pilots who looks like a blob of putty but disguises it with an arsenal of flashy clothes, hats, and glasses. After a while, you can’t help warming to him, or at least climbing out of deep freeze.

All the agents are keen to tout the bonds they forge with their clients, but naturally what they’re really after is a quick, profitable sale. Showing us how hard that is to come by is what the series does well. The agents’ problem, of course, is the clients, most of whom are neurotic, inflexible, and sometimes downright weird creatures who must be coddled and cajoled into accepting the inevitable compromises that precede every deal.

Although buying and selling property are now a major American pastime, this program suggests there is something slightly shameful in selling, as it’s all too often a sign of downward mobility and trying to make a last, desperate buck. And no transaction is complete until a thorough inspection of the property has been carried out. Discovery of mold, dry rot, faulty gutters, and inevitable damp spots not only cloud the image of palatial perfection sellers try to maintain, but wound their egos as well.

Fatally for the series, it’s not until the third episode that the show finally hits on a worthwhile story line. The protagonist is a gay man with the splendidly sinister name of Peter Deep, who has had it with what he sees as a corrupt and homophobic American government. (“When Bush stole the second election in 2004, I realized it’s just time for me to move on and leave,” he says flatly. “I can’t fight it.”) So Mr. Deep, who makes his money on the Internet, decides he’s going to escape rigged elections and homophobia by moving to, er, Mexico.

At least Mr. Deep has personality, something this series desperately needs. Sallow, sullen, pudgy, superstitious, and angry, sporting a smoker’s dark circles like twin badges of misery, he’s already got his eye on a luxurious spread in Puerto Vallerta but must sell his house in L.A. to finance the purchase. The problem is, no one wants to buy the place — it smells, according to one prospective buyer — and as the weeks go by he becomes increasingly desperate.

With Mr. Deep around, “Million Dollar Listing” is a totally different show; in fact, it’s a good one, which just proves that no matter how interesting a reality show’s subject matter, producers must find compelling figures to put on screen if they want to hook an audience. Or, as Sydney Greenstreet told Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon,” “By Gad, Sir, you are a character, that you are. There’s never any telling what you’ll say or do next …”