What if you put 11 people inside a snow globe and shook it? That appears to be the sum total of the thinking behind “One Ocean View,” which may set a new record for the fewest plot developments in a single hour of prime-time television.

The pilot episode of ABC’s latest reality television series, debuting next Monday night at 10 p.m., introduces 11 good-looking young New Yorkers to each other in a Fire Island beach house rental and follows them around as absolutely nothing happens. No sex, no arguments, and no recriminations. This may at last be reality television in its purest form, in that it accurately mirrors the abundant lack of drama in real life. Perhaps we should be grateful, but the truth is we’ve become so accustomed to the heightened, surreal emotions of shows like “Big Brother” and “The Real World” that “One Ocean View” works on its audience like a brandy nightcap.

Oddly enough, the creators of “The Real World” devised this concept, of a swanky beachfront property housing a gaggle of gorgeous young things, all getting to know each other amid the boogie-down mentality of the Fire Island summer scene. Their impulses must have looked good on paper; gathered here, among others, are a pair of hot female twins, an exotic dancer, a health-club owner, a Wall Street lawyer, and a recently split couple, all of whom ferry out to Fire Island in search of fun, sun, and love. But unlike the urban settings of “The Real World,” the Fire Island scene offers the unreal backdrop of a vacation community; and unlike “Big Brother,” there are no cash prizes to induce drama.

Sadly, the best these folks could come up with is Usman, a 27-year-old lawyer who shows up in a business suit and a suitcase packed with attitude. “I hang around with models because I’m rich and good-looking,” he explains in a rare moment when he isn’t attending to his abundant hairline. His outsized arrogance becomes one of the show’s only dramatic elements, as we watch various women react with horror to his self-aggrandizing pronouncements. Mary, the blond, 24-year-old founder of a handbag company, has reserved for herself the position of Usman’s sworn enemy, and their contentious sniping offers the only respite from the show’s almost relentless tedium.

Instead of pushing these people toward their worst impulses, the producers have allowed them to become friends, which turns out to be the ugliest possible fate for a reality-television cast. Everyone loves K.J., a sweet-faced 26-year-old health-club owner who happily admits to wanting a wife and children, and who even cooks family-style dinners for the group; it’s almost nauseating how these people gravitate to the dullest common denominator. Even the exotic dancer announces that she hopes to date a nerd one day.

Come on, folks, it’s television! Doesn’t anyone want to do something the slightest bit unreasonable or wrong? This is the kind of reality programming you could take home to meet your mother.

Perhaps it seems a bit disingenuous to be arguing for phony conflict on television when most critics bemoan reality television for its lack of believability. But now that one-hour television shows are divided into six acts instead of the four-act structure of old, the viewer has five opportunities to change the channel. Shouldn’t that prompt producers to look for dramatic angles to pursue so that we’re tempted to stay where we are? The audience of “One Ocean View” may end up waiting weeks, not minutes, to see whether Usman fully alienates his housemates, or which woman K.J. chooses as his mate.

Meanwhile, the point seems to be to titillate us with the hard bodies and swell tans these cast members brought with them — and with cable and pay-per-view only a button push away, that’s not nearly enough. The promo at the end of the pilot promises the arrival of a new roommate straight from the pages of Playboy in Episode 2.Is that supposed to excite us? It’s more of a reminder of just how removed from reality the producers of “One Ocean View” must be.

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Tina Fey’s departure from “Saturday Night Live” next season demonstrates just how much the networks still depend on sitcoms for their survival. Ms. Fey’s new half-hour comedy series for NBC, “30 Rock,” means hundreds of millions more to the network’s bottom line than “SNL,” and the network will do anything to ensure its success — even sacrifice the head writer of its 31-year-old late-night institution to its future. With a rumored $1 million an episode being paid to its co-star, Alec Baldwin, the failure of the show Ms. Fey created would put a devastating crimp in the network’s budget planning.

But even with the great gifts of her co-anchor, Amy Poehler, still on display every week, the loss of Ms. Fey will be significant to those of us who still hold out hope each week for a megablast of good, topical comedy from the still-vibrant “SNL.” The chances that Lorne Michaels will find someone as cute, intelligent, and funny as Ms. Fey to fill her seat seem slim, and the prospects for “30 Rock” (at least based on the pilot episode) aren’t much better. Maybe Mr. Michaels can keep the job open at least until the ratings for “30 Rock” come in.

dblum@nysun.com