A wacky new reality series claims to show what could happen to society if a bunch of bumble-headed men were ever left in charge.
In “The Week the Women Went” — premiering Aug. 14 on Lifetime — all the wives, girlfriends and mothers of Yemassee, SC, (pop. 807) head out on vacation for seven days.
The guys are left behind to struggle with such unimaginable tasks as changing diapers, cooking meals and doing laundry.
It’s “a social experiment of biblical proportions,” a voice-over claims. “Some think that when the women leave, the men will be doomed!”
Even the mayor proclaims, “I think it will be dangerous,” as an on-screen timer counts down the seconds until the female exodus.
“I think certainly some people from big cities will laugh at these people,” producer Jon Kroll admits. “But I think some people from the country will, as well.”
“We wanted to blow the doors off and make this a little bit more outrageous, a little bit more over-the-top.”
But Kroll, who won an Emmy for “The Amazing Race,” insists he “really didn’t try to make anyone look like an idiot.”
“Yes there are some characters that have some lunk-headed moments,” he tells The Post. “But I can’t say that if I was stuck with crazy kids all the time I wouldn’t have some lunk-headed moments, as well.”
The show was adapted from a BBC series that aired in 2005. It has since been produced in Canada, India, Sweden and Morocco.
Kroll and his team narrowed a list of 93 towns down to just three before selecting Yemassee, where the median household income is just below $25,000.
“What Yemassee had was a great cast of characters,” Kroll says.
The show features:
* Yemasee’s 18-year-old fire chief, who proposes to his girlfriend without his mother’s blessing.
* A 24-year-old Marine who is left in charge of his 31-year-old girlfriend’s two teenage daughters.
* A single mom who leaves her 13-year-old daughter in charge of the family diner.
* A husband and father who is so flustered by his wife being away that he sends a family friend to retrieve her in Florida.
“When we were there, it felt very dramatic,” Kroll says. “When you are looking at it, it seems a little silly.
“So, we felt the best way to try to convey the experience was to make it feel in the show as dramatic as it did when it was going off.
“My feeling is, it helps it to be entertaining if you make it seem kind of more important that it is.
“But at the time, everything really felt really important. It felt like we wouldn’t make it through another night.”