Misson: Man Band tracks a reality show’s efforts to restore four former boy-banders to their chart-topping glory. Rock Daily’s Reality Show Recaps will track our efforts to be sympathetic to their cause. Here’s our first report:

Welcome to Mission: Man Band, VH1’s new half-hour sad-sack fest that gathers the runts of Lou Pearlman’s litter and convinces them to make a new, six-pack-abs-free, over-thirty boy band. One episode in and already we have a mutiny: Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees (the one who wasn’t a Lachey) faces the difficult decision of whether to be involved in the project or go back to living in his parents’ house in Orange County, CA (he picks the band).

You know these guys are in trouble when producers misspell their names immediately following the opening credits. Go back and check the TiVo: They spelled the ‘NSYNC member’s name wrong on the first attempt (welcome to “Chris Kirkpatirck’s House” in Orlando, FL). Sadly, this would not be the saddest part of the episode, which is reserved for Bryan Abrams of Color Me Badd, who prays to God that the Man Band works out while he pushes around giant tires at his job in Oklahoma.

The last member of our all-star quartet is Rich Cronin of LFO, who sang that song about girls wearing Abercrombie & Fitch and has been battling leukemia (he’s got a regimen of meds that would impress Lindsay Lohan in his bedroom). So far the foursome have a shark of a manager and a renewed will to sing. But will anyone want to hear it? We’ve got a whole season’s worth of episodes to find out …