HOMES ON THE RANGE INSPIRE DISCOURAGING WORDS.

Byline: DAVID KRONKE TV Critic

FOR ALL the history that PBS' educational reality series ``Frontier House'' tries to foist on its viewers, what will truly draw them in is, naturally, the spectacle of real lives seemingly falling apart before their eyes.

Three families - the Clunes of Malibu, the Glenns of Tennessee and the Brookses of Massachusetts - were selected from 5,000 applicants to spend five months in the gorgeous Montana wilderness, living the lifestyle of the 1880s. The six-hour miniseries' first two hours are kind of dull, really, as the earnest narration tries to justify tormenting these families - much time is spent listening to teen girls lament the makeup prohibition - under the guise of ``education.''

Midway through the second two hours, it becomes apparent what ripe material this would make for a ``Saturday Night Live'' parody. By the end of the second two hours, however, it's obvious: The show itself is lapsing into self-parody, as the harsh realities of the 1880s collide violently with contemporary self-absorption. The final two installments return to earnestness - both in the series' own this-is-good-for-you informational aspects and the participants' navel gazing.

``Frontier House's'' message seems to be: We're a softer, yet perhaps fundamentally less happy, society today. But of course: We've acclimated to our surroundings, which are simultaneously more comfortable and more hectically stressful. But then, the pioneers of the 1880s didn't have to contend with camera crews stalking their every move, forcing them to perform or deliver extemporaneous bon mots.

Of the three families, Nate Brooks; his father, Rudy; and Nate's wife, Kristin, seem to have approached this project with the appropriate fun-loving attitude: Nate uses the first few weeks to bond with his father, then, after his frontier wedding to Kristin (a genuinely touching sequence in hour three), takes on the remainder of their time as a quirky, adventurous extended honeymoon. The Brookses are usually seen in good humor, a decided contrast to the other families. Nate's interracial marriage to Kristin also allows for a brief exploration of racial issues of the period, which we're told was slightly more open-minded on the frontier than elsewhere in the nation.

The Clunes - patriarch Gordon is a successful businessman - apparently have given up the most to rough it, and they're constantly bending the rules in order to make the best of things. His daughters and niece smuggle in makeup and shampoo, wife Adrienne barters with local 21st-century neighbors for sustenance, and Gordon, in a hilarious bit, brings in a still with which to make moonshine, which he sells for creature comforts. Ken Lay no doubt would appreciate Gordon's dubious justification of the still as an educational tool for his children as an example of perfectly acceptable business-think. The Clunes are described by Rudy as ``the Beverly Hillbillies in reverse,'' and the best insult other participants can concoct is to call one another Gordon Clune.

But the really dysfunctional clan turns out to be the Glenns: Matriarch Karen is a classic kvetch and control freak, and her children's stepfather, Mark, is a beleaguered soul who spends much time trying to discover, as he puts it, ``a sense of who I am.'' While the Clunes whine about the primitive amenities, Karen whines at length about the Clunes' whining.

From the outset, hardships abound - ``Survivor'' creator Mark Burnett could learn a thing or two from ``Frontier House's'' sadism. Before they even reach their destination, horses go berserk and a road is washed out, forcing a lengthy detour.

Everyone loses a lot of weight (creepily depicted in the title sequence, in which the participants are seen morphing from their comfortable 21st-century selves to their emaciated frontier personae); Gordon frets that he's become sickly, but a visiting doctor suggests he's merely lost the excess weight most of us have put on these days and has become healthily lean.

Through the families' sundry video diaries, we get to see them go stir crazy, a little like Jack Nicholson in ``The Shining.'' By the end, however, Stockholm Syndrome has set in on some of the settlers as they weepily decide they'll miss their pioneering ways, despite its intense trials. And perhaps they will, though it's more likely they'll miss the opportunity to deliver their every prosaic utterance to ``Frontier House's'' camera crews.

FRONTIER HOUSE - Three stars

What: Educational reality series in which three families re-create life in Montana in the 1880s.

Where: KCET.

When: 9 tonight through Wednesday.

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Photo:

Karen Glenn and her family spent five months re-creating life in 1880s Montana - along with two other clans - in ``Frontier House'' on KCET.