Despite the ongoing Writers Guild of America Strike, my DVR has been working overtime recording new programs. My brain nearly turned to mush after viewing most shows. How I suffer for my art!

The majority of these shows are spin offs of spin offs (I’m talking to you, VH-1 – seriously, one season is plenty!), and variations of programs we’ve seen in other incarnations.

There are a few good newcomers among the crop. Mostly, we’ll have to bide our time while we wait for a resolution to the strike that has curtailed our regularly scheduled programming.

The strangely titled “Scott Baio is 46 … and Pregnant” (a spin off of last year’s “Scott Baio is 45 … and Single”) should be called “Scott Baio is a Misogynistic A-hole … Who Knocked Up His Girlfriend and Has to Face Responsibility at 46.”

While it doesn’t roll off the tongue, it certainly reflects the former “Charles In Charge” star’s new show. In it, he attempts to maneuver the double whammy of proposing to his girlfriend, and simultaneously discovering he’s going to be a father.

Case in point: Baio learns he’s having a daughter and hopes she’ll be a lesbian because it “is almost as good as having a boy!” Oh, Chachi!

I would have rather seen VH-1 throw a bone to his former “Happy Days” co-star and one-time love, Erin Moran. I could see her doing a show where she tours thrift stores across America, and they could call it “Joanie Loves Chatchkis.”

Time to stock up on the penicillin and the cold sore cream – there’s an all new season of “Rock of Love 2 with Bret Michaels!”

The Poison lead singer must select a potential mate from a pool of 20 girls. Actually, it’s more like finding love in a hot tub teeming with bacteria that hasn’t been cleaned in oh, say, five years.

Anyhoo, all that Michaels asks of whomever he chooses is that she be able to compete with his “bitch mistress – rock and roll.” I’d say whichever “lady” he picks, should ask him what’s under that damn bandana he’s always wearing!

“My Fair Brady: Maybe Baby?” is the third season chronicling the relationship between Christopher Knight (“The Brady Bunch”) and Adrianne Curry (“America’s Next Top Model”) – fourth season, if you count their courtship on “The Surreal Life.” It’s no surprise that Knight is hesitant to procreate with Curry, what with all of the hullabaloo she caused when she blogged about doing away with Black History Month, and their rather tumultuous relationship.

Watching Peter Brady get p-whipped by Curry isn’t even as entertaining as the ill-fated “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour” from the ’70s – at least that had bad costumes and dance numbers to distract from its underbelly of awfulness!

On the plus side, thanks for re-affirming lifestyle choices, one show at a time, VH-1!

On NBC, Donald Trump has assembled a virtual cornucopia of “Hey, it’s what’s-his/her- face” contestants for “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Trump says he has brought together “the world’s most successful celebrities” for this umpteenth version of his once entertaining show. Oh really?

Yeah, I loved Marilu Henner on “Taxi” 30 YEARS AGO, and her “Apprentice” cast mate, former Olympic Gold medalist Nadia Comaneci, also brings back fond memories of the ’70s! Add Stephen Baldwin (the acting Baldwin brother who found Jesus, but seems to have lost his acting career along the way) and former “Surreal Life” and one-time “Apprentice” villainess, Omarosa (wow, what a coup!), and you’ve got … well, the best word I can think of is delusional, if Trump actually believes these are successful celebs. Maybe his comb-over is growing into his brain?

NBC has also re-tooled the ’80s smack down show, “American Gladiators,” and it has become a huge hit – almost as if it were powered by steroids? I’m just sayin’. No, the winning formula must be Lycra-clad muscle bound men and women who duke it out with huge phallic symbols (you know, those big Q-Tip thingies). Added to the mix is a former gay porn star (Militia a.k.a. “Elian Cortez”) – show ‘em how to take it like a champ, Militia.

It’s hard to poke fun at VH-1’s “Celebrity Rehab,” because the people on the show actually do need help, particularly former Grease star, Jeff Conaway. Hey! The show helped me realize I am not dead inside. Yay!

Bravo’s latest reality show, “Make Me a Supermodel,” is a tad reminiscent of “America’s Next Top Model,” so I guess it should have been called “America’s Next Bottom Model.”

Still the hosts, supermodels in their own right, Niki Taylor and Tyson Beckford, do dispense sage advice. Taylor thanked a female hopeful for “going through with the thong,” (with music so dramatic, you’d have thought the contestant had found a cure for cancer) and Beckford reminded another, “As a model, you can’t think – you just have to do it.” No, really?

Of course, there is guy candy, and surfer hottie Dominic was told his performance was, “as stiff as his surfboards.” Color me intrigued! But, the guy candy factor aside, this is just another beauty pageant.

Thankfully, on the other end of that shallow reflecting pool is “How To Look Good Naked,” on Lifetime with former “Queer Eye” star Carson Kressley. This show gives a more in-depth look at the makeover abilities Kressley displayed on “Queer Eye,” as he helps regular women embrace their regular bodies with sass and a sash.

There are even a few scripted shows making the rounds, including “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” an entertaining, high-octane show that has become a huge hit for Fox. The series has Lena Headey (300), and Thomas Dekker (“Heroes”) as Sarah and John Connor, film roles originally played by Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong (and in T3, by Nick Stahl, because Furlong was too busy fading into obscurity.) The best component of the show is that a teenaged female Terminator (Summer Glau) is out to protect the family, and she kicks some major butt!

Contestants on Fox’s “Moment of Truth” could win $500,000 by being strapped to a lie detector test, and answering a series of 21 questions. I’d be sunk after having to answer truthfully if I will keep watching this overly hyped show.

The best thing I can say about the two shows vying to be the new “Sex and the City” – ABC’s “Cashmere Mafia” and NBC’s “Lipstick Jungle” – is that Sex and the City the movie opens on May 30. There’s just no substitute for good “Sex.”

ABC’s “Eli Stone” stars Jonny Lee Miller (the first Mr. Angelina Jolie) as a materialistic San Francisco lawyer who has hallucinations of George Michael as his guardian angel. This leads Jonny to believe he is a prophet. I wonder if he first sees/hears the former Wham front man in the men’s room? Kidding! I love me some Jorge Miguel, and each episode is named after one of his pop songs. If that’s not gay enough, the show is executive produced by openly gay producer Greg Berlanti (“Brothers and Sisters” and “Dirty Sexy Money”).

Keep your eyes peeled for the Parker Posey Fox comedy, The Return of Jezebel James, on March 14, which happens to be the same month that Showtime will debut “Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union,” which finds the British import lampooning American celebrities as well as creating her trademark unique brand of characters, beginning on March 30.

As for shows returning for a new season, we have “The Bad Girls Club” on Oxygen back with all-new she-nanigans – and these girls put the first season to shame! When one housemate (Cordelia) drunkenly professes (is there any other way?) her love of back door entry, her nemeses in the “Club” torment her with that bit of T.M.I., which leaves her to defend herself by saying, “I’m a big girl, and I love anal!” Words to live by.

Another “Bad Girl” (Lyric), doesn’t just let anyone get up in her business, claiming to have “The gateway to the Kingdom of Heaven between her legs.” Can I get an Amen?

“American Idol,” despite a drop in ratings, is back for its seventh season. The folks behind the show have promised big surprises for this season. So far, the only one I can discern is that Paula Abdul seems lucid.

“Lost” returns for its fourth season.

CBS will be filling holes in its programming (sounds naughty) by trotting out the summer time favorite “Big Brother 9” on Feb. 12. And the network has also acquired an edited-for-network-television version of the Showtime serial killer show, “Dexter,” which will air starting on Feb. 17.

There are some actual GLBT (does that ever sound like a sandwich to you, too?) shows thrown into the mix as well. “The L Word” is back for a fifth season, Sundays at 9 on Showtime – maybe those gals should pay a visit to Scott Baio?

And LOGO offers up “Transamerican Love Story” with transgender dating game hopeful, Calpernia Addams, in her quest to find Mr. Right – just stay away from Bret Michaels and Flava Flav, and you’ll be fine! And “The Big Gay Sketch Show” returns for a second season.

I guess all of the new programming boils down to the age-old dilemma of looking at a glass as “half empty” or “half full.” On one hand, there are shows on TV to entertain us, and on the other hand a lot of it is crap – and as the vulgar adage goes, “crap in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one fills up faster.” And, that just makes for an awkward handshake! Until next time, that’s all of the news that’s fit to print.