Sometimes you have an inkling about a series even before the opening credits. Sometimes you have the sinking feeling, going in, that the title is going to be better than the actual show.

To wit: Sundance Channel's "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys."

The name packs a punch. It easily telegraphs the premise, a plus as far as reality TV goes.

The current TV culture that leaves no group unscrutinized, no freak show unattended - from real housewives to polygamists to Jersey kids to fashion-challenged straight guys - now trains its sights on women who like gay men.

Not so much women who fall in love with unobtainable gay men but women who desperately cling to, rely on and are codependent with gay men as constant companions, coasting on a certain kind of irony and detachment that keeps them safely aloof.

That a certain derogatory name for such women springs to mind almost instantly is the unspoken subtext to this entertainment.

"Fag hag."

The subject comes up in the first half-hour. Some of the participants hate the term, some don't mind it. Some deny that it's at all relevant to their busy modern lives.

Tuesday night, in back-to-back episodes on Sundance, a batch of hardened New York City women lets the cameras in on their relationships with their gay male friends and talk about the comfort, advantages and reliability of those friendships.

Also the frustrations, jealousies and drawbacks.

What they say they want isn't always what they get - or, for that matter, what they may really desire.

The women variously claim the gay male buddies serve a great purpose in their lives: "Men we can be ourselves with." "Men who listen to us." "Men who will never leave us." The testimonials go on.

But when one of the gay male BFFs gets engaged before she does, one of the unhappily single women is deeply hurt. When one of the gay BFFs says he wants to have children, another of the women, a mother herself, is highly critical.

Some of the men are single, some in pairs. Some of the women are desperately eager to date, others are rebounding or in a committed relationship. Some of the straight women and gay buddies have been hanging together for years, enabling their selfish whining.

The backdrop is familiar. Late-night clubs, restaurants, SoHo boutiques, Central Park. "Sex and the City" brought us here in more hetero company. Spoiled brats, entitled Manhattanites droning on about their sex lives ... we've met them before too.

But the twist is new.

It's hard to believe the reality genre hasn't yet run out of gawk-worthy stereotypes.

The producers have definitely hit on an under-represented "type" in this drama. Listening to the women discuss the merits of the term "fag hag" is alternately amusing and pathetic. When the participants allow themselves to be vulnerable and verbalize ideas beyond the superficial, kernels of truth appear.

The whole production is as phony and mannered as most so-called "reality" series fare. Heavy editing is obvious. Tears and emotional meltdowns are encouraged.

But if you stick with the show long enough, you do see some real sentiments.

Prolonged exposure reveals those sentiments are frustration, fear, loneliness and a shared emotional intimacy that seem less clever and edgy when stripped down.