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Whether you believe that the Hilton family is the picture of distinction and class or the embodiment of unearned privilege, it represents a life of ease most people would enjoy. That's the premise behind NBC's newest reality show, I Want To Be a Hilton. Unfortunately, with a slew of reality shows set in exotic mansions and offering lavish prizes, I Want To Be a Hilton is virtually indistinguishable from some of its predecessors.

The premise of the show is that Hilton family matriarch Kathy will teach 14 hickish, blue-collar Janes and Joes about class and sophistication. That Kathy is the same woman who raised the notoriously classless Paris is never addressed. The players are divided into two teams, Team Park and Team Madison, and go at it in competitions supposedly designed to show how well each team member has learned these lessons. At the end of each episode, the winning team gets a reward, and Kathy picks one player from the losing team to be sent home. Prizes for the ultimate winner include a fancy new apartment, wardrobe and jewelry, as well as a $200,000 "trust fund." The show also promises the winner "access to the Hilton family Rolodex," but odds are that if a contestant didn't pocket Paris' private number when it leaked on the Internet, he or she won't get it here, either.

Viewers meet the competitors in the first episode, and the requisite blue-collar/hick stereotypes -- plumber, ranch hand, construction worker, Department of Motor Vehicles clerk -- are paraded in front of cameras in all their unrefined, "wow, gee whiz" glory. The contestants make statements like, "I wanna trade in my blue-collar life," and generally praise the Hiltons for their wealth and sophistication, hoping their kind words will create some sort of trust fund karma.

The contestants are predictably unfamiliar with the trappings of wealth, but this generally makes them not so much crude as average. Sure, Johnny the plumber plays with his nipples and moons his teammates, and Jabe the ranch hand thinks four pounds of chocolate is an appropriate gift for a woman. But overall, the contestants are more working-class than boorish. After all, how many people watching the show really know the proper way to eat escargots?

In the first episode, the contestants are taught some of the finer things in life, such as the proper way to drink wine and how to crack lobsters without sending them flying across the room. One person from each team is tested on how well he or she handles a sophisticated dinner party with notable "celebrity" guests such as Queer Eye's Ted Allen and Access Hollywood's Billy Bush, while teammates coach his or her behavior through an earpiece. The team whose player comes off as more sophisticated while fighting the urge to beat Bush about the head and shoulders wins the challenge.

At the end of the episode, the winning team is whisked off by private jet to an exclusive vineyard, while the losing team goes to the boardroom -- er, that is, the Hilton mansion -- and one teammate is fired -- I mean, kicked off the show.

I Want To Be a Hilton is, in essence, The Apprentice with a slight makeover component, and the producers were clearly hoping that some of Donald Trump's ratings-earning braggadocio had rubbed off on Mrs. Hilton. Unfortunately, she does not have anywhere near The Donald's presence. Kathy comes off like a very nice, sophisticated woman, and the appearance of her daughters in the second episode makes the show seem more like a Hilton family reputation rehabilitation project than anything else.

The show's lack of originality becomes especially clear in that episode, when the teams must compete in a charity auction of old Hilton family merchandise. The team that raises the most money will be the winner. Here, the show falls off its axis. While this contest does involve some class components -- such as when Jabe overprices some merchandise because he thought the charity auction was "a write-off for rich people" (which it is) -- the show becomes less about class than business acumen, and any uniqueness in its premise melts away.

But every reality show comes down to its rivalries, and as of the second episode, these are minor at best, with no clear hero or villain. The format is somewhat foolproof: If you put 14 people in a pressure-filled, fish-out-of-water scenario and have them compete for something that can change their lives, you should be guaranteed at least some conflict. Still, the tension in the first two hours is limited to silly flare-ups. That Latricia, a heavyset, African-American DMV clerk and single mother, can't stomach Yvette, a leg-flashing white British showgirl, is no surprise. And while an episode 2 "hook-up" seems to have the makings of a major controversy, it fizzles as quickly as it began. When trailer girl Jackaay complains at one point about "people being brats," it refers to nothing of any substance, leaving viewers to wonder if the producers got nervous about the lack of fireworks and threw in that comment in an attempt to fool them.

Overall, whether you enjoy I Want To Be a Hilton depends on your take on reality TV in general, as this show follows the template to a T. Indiscriminate fans of the genre will find this show as enjoyable as any other. The contestants are, for the most part, likable, and if challenges remain consistent in nature, the show will often come down to individual and team strategy. But I Want To Be a Hilton does nothing to distinguish itself, and if it is an attempt to makes the Hiltons seem sophisticated after the silly antics of their elder daughter, it may succeed too well. After watching I Want To Be a Hilton, viewers may think that the Hiltons, however rich, are also boring -- which is surely not the sort of image rehab they seek.

I Want To Be a Hilton airs 9 p.m. Tuesdays on NBC.