It may strike some as unseemly to find fault with a television series that airs on a channel extraordinarily few viewers get, that isn’t even in production right now, and won’t return to the airwaves until November. But when a show like MTV2’s “Wonder Showzen” comes along – a series that practically demands to be dubbed a cult hit by critics, many of whom have dutifully fallen in line – I feel a compulsion to warn discerning viewers that this presents a wonderful opportunity to exercise their critical faculties. “Wonder Showzen” isn’t for everyone, and it may very well not be for anyone who isn’t drugged, drunk, or without use of their thumbs. It aspires to be “Sesame Street” on acid, an interesting enough goal, but it has ended up as the kind of show I like least – one that tries desperately to be brilliant and insightful and only manages to be self-conscious and phony.

MTV2 (where viewers can also find the pointless “Andy Milonakis Show”) has just renewed “Wonder Showzen” for a second season, based presumably on the numerous reviews that declared it clever and provocative when it made its debut this past spring. I missed its arrival, but caught up with several episodes recently; it’s a TiVo owner’s dream, a show that bounces all over the schedule. It next airs this Friday at 11:30 p.m. and is loaded with commercials, enabling maximum use of TiVo’s time-shifting, fast-forwarding technologies. In its first run, MTV2 gave it a prime-time slot that made it available to the very children its disclaimer warns against watching. “‘Wonder Showzen’ contains offensive, despicable content that is too despicable and too awesome for actual children,” it announces at the top of the show. “If you allow a child to watch this show you are a bad parent or guardian.” Does the network that airs it bear no responsibility for its easy accessibility to kids? (I suppose it’s probably not wise to hold accountable a network that uses, on its Web site, a logo of a man with ants crawling out of his belly button.)

The creators of “Wonder Showzen” (John “Doggy Fizzle Televizzle” Lee and Trevor Chatman from “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”) seem to think it’s amusing to take the tools of pre-school children’s television programming – hand puppets, morality questions, quick edits, and jokes – and adapt them to a manic adult sensibility. In one regular feature, a blue puppet named Trevor travels the streets of New York asking annoying questions of real people, or demanding that they repeat phrases like “It’s important to be patient” so many times that they grow – guess what? – impatient. In another segment a puppet approaches a butcher with the question, “Who’s going to pay for these steaks? I mean, spiritually?” That’s the kind of line that sounds funny until you think about it, and realize it doesn’t mean anything.

That’s the problem with “Wonder Showzen” – its humor is utterly devoid of meaning. Numbers battle letters for supremacy. Why? I have no idea. A segment called “Five Jokes in Five Seconds” shows jokes printed on the screen that flash by so fast they’re unreadable. Another feature, “Yuck Yuck Goose and the Sidekick, His Butt” illustrates a comedy truism that while jokes about poop might be amusing, the sight of actual poop shooting out of an animal isn’t. Even more offensive is the show’s frequent use of children in sketches that they couldn’t possibly understand; while this practice isn’t limited to “Wonder Showzen” (“Saturday Night Live” is also guilty), there’s something creepy about watching a little girl getting knives thrown at her for the sake of some laughs, especially ones that don’t exist.

We’re in a period of unparalleled expansion in cable programming, where the most creative minds from network television find homes for their wackiest ideas on distant channels. It’s great that MTV2 encourages producers to stretch the limits of taste and comedy in developing niche programming for its demographic – which, in the case of the music channel, is the coveted 18-34 male who has been threatening to abandon network television in recent years. I applaud the notion of “Wonder Showzen” and wanted very much for it to work; from my vantage point (at the outer reaches of the 18-49 demographic), I love the intellectual charge I get from something new and fresh. The frustration of “Wonder Showzen” is that it exists only to disturb, not to entertain. Even the most obscure shows at the farthest reaches of the cable spectrum ought to have some obligation to make us feel something – other than disgust, that is.

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I’ve been stunned by the tepid critical response to “Rome,” HBO’s provocative new Sunday night series, and have searched reviews for clues to explain this odd backlash against a show with such substantial promise. One thing I noticed: Not a single review I read made mention of any plot developments beyond the second episode – despite the cable channel having made the first six hours available to critics in advance of its debut. It makes me wonder whether critics are actually watching the shows they review, especially given the fact that the series only came alive in Episode 3, and roared forward in Episodes 4 through 6.

Slate’s TV critic, Dana Stevens, confessed that she collapsed under the weight of the monumental task of watching all six hours; she openly admitted to falling asleep while watching “Rome.” Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that being a television critic involves some strenuous physical demands, including the arduous job of keeping one’s eyes open for hours at a time. But as tough as it is, dear reader, I promise to muster my strength for the weighty responsibility of watching as much television as my constitution can withstand – so you don’t have to.