"ATLANTIC CITY -- In what will be the most extensive overhaul of the Atlantic City beauty contest since it started in 1921, the producers of the Miss America pageant announced changes...that unapologetically borrow aspects of programs like "Big Brother" and "The Weakest Link" as well as crowd-pleasing devices from television's most highly rated events."

Rapture.

Well, no one's gonna accuse the braintrust over at Tiaras-R-Us of taking it too slow around the learning curve. Faced with the sort of flat Nielsen ratings that'll get your gala booted from the Atlantic City Convention Center and Tax Sump in favor of a boat show, the powers that be have decided to divest the nation's favorite gown-gawk of whatever remaining shame it has hitherto possessed. With the sort of insight that one can gain only from a combination of (oog) market research and high-level meetings with (egads) network television executives, the Miss America Organization has decided to tart up its three-hour whirlwind even more than usual this time around. The events have been substantially changed. The scoring has been drastically reformulated. The production squad behind "Britney Spears in Hawaii" and "The Teen Choice Awards" will have their oleaginous little mitts on the controls -- and with those credits, you can bet the young ladies will be well served.

And, to inject a hot dose of spectacle and excitement into the affair, the show will be, if the Times is to be believed, "ushering in a new era of high-stakes reality TV."

To be fair, the pageant politburo has refrained from going full-auto crazy with Survivoresque tomfoolery. No one is going to be eating rats (unless Miss New Jersey decides to play to her strengths in the talent competition); no one is going to accidentally set themselves on fire (unless Miss Pennsylvania misgauges the wind speed during her balance-a-'75-Pinto-on-your-head trick); and no one is going to be walking around stark naked on stage (unless, of course, we all get very, very, very lucky).

But make no mistake: changes have been made. Pageant president and Lothario-without-portfolio Robert M. Renneisen, Jr., hopes that "some controversy surrounds what we're doing so people who might not otherwise tune in will watch the show." Controversy? At the Miss America Pageant? Last time that happened, we got Vanessa Williams, speaking of parading around stark naked. And that was during the Reagan administration. (Remember the Reagan years? 'Cause the contestants sure don't. The youngest of them were all of 3 years old at the time.) While one shouldn't begrudge Mr. Renneisen his stratospheric Neilsen numbers, true controversy will be hard to come by, unless the man's planning on dumping peyote into the Vaseline during the commercials.

Messr. Renneisen's delusions notwithstanding, the fact remains that the Miss America pageant we all know and love, or at least deftly change the channel to avoid, has been radically refurbished. The press release on the pageant's official website details the full complement of nips, tucks, ab-crunches, and stomach stapling that the Big Night has undergone, all cheerfully performed for the greater good of reinvigorating the evening's festivities, and more importantly, shedding new insight on the talent, sacrifice, and just plain old All-American wonderfulness of the 50 or so Nice Young Women.

But will it be better? More exciting? Riddled with suspense? Maybe, maybe not. The old system had its flaws, about which I've gone into explicit detail elsewhere. Yet my combined sense of duty, fairness, and getting the Head Icthyoid In Charge of this gigabyte-glossy off my back demands that I re-fight the battle anew.

According to the Miss America website, some of the "improvements" include:

• The Swimsuit Competition is now part of the more-politically correct "Lifestyle and Fitness" category. (Presumably because they couldn't get the network to agree on calling it the "Binge and Purge" category.)
• The Interview Competition is now the "Presentation and Community Achievement" category, which will give the judges an opportunity to learn as much as they can about each contestant, and determine how well she articulates her platform of community service. (As opposed to the usual rambling-on for five minutes about her very important platform statement: "Why Mean People Are Total Poopheads.")
• The Talent Competition is now the "Artistic Expression" category. (Another bit of proof that they're determined to turn this into the Olympic Ice-Dancing finals. Talent, arguably, is something you can measure; if Miss Oregon can't keep all those plates spinning on top of their sticks, she gets marked off. Artistic Expression, however, means nothing. Can anyone really judge this? What happens if Miss West Virginia does a spot-welded abstract representation of Man's Inhumanity To Man, or, more likely, Man's Inhumanity To Baby Seals? How the hell do you score that?)

Although all of this reconstructive surgery seems too much, the pageanteers are adamant -- perhaps a little too adamant -- that it represents the findings of their research. The American public want to see "more competition among the women" and a "more accurate gauge of the intelligence that contestants possess." This may be true, but whether grafting a load of gimmickry onto the evening results in a more accurate gauge of anything is still up in the air. Whether the American public wants to get a deeper appreciation of the intelligence of the average Miss America contestant, or just wants a spot-check on whether she knows which end of the scissors to grip when cutting the grand opening ribbon at the local Jiffy Lube, is a question best left to the Fates.

Or maybe the American public just wants to see some good old-fashioned mud-wrestling. Can't get better high-stakes reality TV than that.