Depending on how you look at it, making a reality television series about people whose religion forbids television is either a really bad way to guarantee an audience or a really great way to try to avoid controversy. UPN is developing a still-untitled reality series based around the Amish rite of passage known as rumspringa.

The show, which has been dubbed "Amish in the City" within the UPN family, comes from executive producers Daniel Laikind and Steven Canton, who also produced the documentary "Devil's Playground" depicting the rumspringa.

Rumspringa comes from a Pennsylvania Dutch word meaning "running wild" and refers to the moment when, at the age of 16, Amish youths leave their communities and go off into the world. After their experiences with outside life, they must decide whether or not to return to their homes.

The young Amish call the outside the "English World," while the elders refer to it as the "Devil's Playground."

Laikind and Canton will be joined by Jon Kroll ("Big Brother") on the series, which will be a weekly one-hour exploration of the rumspringa experience as lived by five Amish youths. The series will place them in a house with five "mainstream" young adults in a yet-to-be-determined major city.

CBS and UPN Chairman Les Moonves admits that the series sounds potentially problematic, but offers assurances that it won't be exploitative.

"This will not be denigrating in any way," Moonves says, suggesting the network is looking to do more of a sociological study.

At the same time, Moonves jokingly compares the Amish series to CBS' recent attempt at making a reality version of "The Beverly Hillbillies." Before that proposed show even made it out of the earliest stages of development, it came under attack from politicians and rural advocacy groups. While Moonves refuses to describe it as dead, that idea is certainly on the backburner.

"We couldn't do 'The Beverly Hillbillies' and the Amish don't have quite as good a lobbying effort," he kids.

With UPN executives hoping to launch the series in the summer, Moonves still has plenty of time to see just how much lobbying power the Amish actually have.

The five Amish kids have yet to be cast.

The netlet is also in development on a second reality series that couldn't be more different from its Amish plans. "UPN's The Player" comes from Don Weiner ("Who Wants To Marry a Multi-Millionaire") and pits a group of self-described love experts against each other in a series of romantic challenges to determine who among them is actually the ultimate "player."

The one-hour weekly relationship series is aiming for a summer premiere.