Have you watched this? It’s okay, you can tell me. Confession is good for the soul. “Armed & Famous” debuted last Wednesday night with a viewership of 8.2 million, generating a 2.9 rating. Its second episode was seen by 7.8 million viewers and generated a rating of 2.7. A downward trend? Let’s hope so. If not, I fear our society is doomed.

The show, which clearly exists mainly to be ridiculed, features five B-list celebrities (Erik Estrada of “CHiPs,” singer La Toya Jackson, wrestler Trish Stratus, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna of “Jackass” and Ozzy Osbourne’s son, Jack) pretending to learn how to pretend to be policemen on the Muncie, Indiana force. In the words of the ABC website, “They will [be] arresting bad guys including drug dealers, hookers and johns, wife-beaters, burglars, the drunk-and-disorderly and more.”

All in a night’s work in Hollywood, California, one might think. But, no, it turns out our celebs are serving as reserve cops in Muncie, Indiana. And a good thing, too; having has-been celebrities arrest current ones like Hugh Grant and Mel Gibson would have been unseemly and unfair.

The website continues, “Funny? Often. Emotional? Yes, and in surprising ways. Serious? Always. To these five celebrities, serving the people of Muncie is an honor that equals or surpasses anything they’ve experienced previously.” Come on! The show has “they can’t be serious” written all over it!

It’s hard to believe that anyone would deliberately create programming like this. And even more incredible that anyone would watch it. But, of course, many will. Why? I think because it’s grotesquely fascinating even when it isn’t even remotely funny, emotional or serious. Programs like this are like third-generation parodies; in a reversal of show-business tradition, they’re bad on purpose. Not only does no one expect them to be good, no one wants them to be.

The producers hope instead that viewers will get a certain satisfaction from hooting and howling at the awfulness of it all. But “Armed & Famous” (even the name is bad) rushes by “awful” and heads straight for “abominable” — it’s not even that much fun to laugh at.

Admittedly, most TV shows are little more than time-killers. But there’s killing time and there’s beating it to death with a stick. Or a billy club. Or shooting it in the head — because, yes, the “celebrity” cops in “Armed & Famous” are truly armed if not actually famous.

“Muncie is quite different from L.A.,” observes “recording artist and author” (huh?) La Toya Jackson, who insists on a tablecloth and a finger bowl (honest!) when her partner takes her out for peanuts at the Texas Roadhouse. “Midnight!” says the narrator. “On the streets of Muncie, crime doesn’t sleep, and neither do our celebrity cops!” Oozes suspense, doesn’t it?

When “international television icon” (really?) Eric Estrada finds himself inside Muncie’s version of a crack house, he’s surprised to discover the dealer is a toothless granny in her 80s. “This is the wrong way to meet you, Ponch,” she says, laughing all the way to the police station in the back seat of the cop car. Oh, puleez!

These details may inadvertently make the show sound mildly amusing. It isn’t. As Tom Shales points out in the Washington Post, “in addition to epitomizing the trend toward cheaper and cheaper prime-time programming, “Armed & Famous” represents another unhappy trend: The insane business of trying to pass off game-playing as entertainment on a massive, inescapable scale. Games are a vicarious experience in the first place. Watching people play games — whether the game is poker or make-believe cop — is vicarious vicariousness. It’s a form of “reality” that only makes television less real — and, inevitably, less worth having around.”

The midseason now belongs to Fox and “American Idol.” That gives rise to a “what-have-we-got-to-lose” mentality that in turn makes shows like “Armed and Famous” possible. What can we do? Read a book. And pray that the already cast second season is mercifully put to sleep even before they pull the plug on the current one.