It is a feel-good show, and it has drawn visitors in such numbers that a few years ago the organizer, Josh Wainwright, decided to extend its run from three to four days.

For all its bleakness and darkness, there's a glowing exhilaration about this series: It's a feel-good show about feeling really bad.

- not just feel-good shows but ones where the protagonist scores a victory.

It is one of the best feel-good shows in town: Watching 36 Rockettes do their famous "eye-highs" under a smiling harvest moon or doing the toy soldier routine they have done since 1933, no one can feel blue.

A surprising number of executives have put their money on piety, and this season's spirituality is far more peculiar than past feel-good shows like "Touched by an Angel."

That type of reality show would fit in well with ABC's other nonscripted programming, which tilts heavily toward feel-good shows like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Wife Swap" and "Supernanny."

Broadway's ultimate feel-good show.

"It certainly seems like the viewers have gravitated to the feel-good shows this fall and rejected the humiliation shows," said Steve Sternberg, senior vice president at Magna Global USA, a media buying firm.

The fifth ABC summer series falls into a category that the network pioneered, principally with "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" - the "feel-good show."

"If it is possible to imagine a 'feel-good' show about child abuse, then this is it."