Dad and son still feuding on 'American Chopper'

Family feud! After last season's expletive spewing and chair throwing, fired Paulie starts his own shop down the street from fiery dad Paul's original site.

MY SAY

How to reinvigorate an aging reality series / docusoap? Shake it up. When it's "The Real World," they change the city. When it's "The Girls Next Door," Hef gets new chicks. When it's "American Chopper," the Teutels escalate their internecine warfare, and split into factions that work against each other instead of (trying to work) together.

After all, how many times could handlebar-mustachioed bike builder Paul Sr. berate his bike designer son Paul Jr. as arrogant and superior? Well, as it turns out, a few thousand more times (in absentia), which drags down the first half of this seventh-season premiere hour. While Paul Jr. searches for his own shop site, Paul Sr. stews and yammers at his office employees as their eyes (and ours) glaze over. There's also the matter of Dad's lawsuit, which Paul Jr. brings up in a bizarre three-way phone interview over the radio while brother Mikey, the only one actually at the station, sits there looking pathetic, as usual, and ignored, ditto.

Paulie finally chooses a Newburgh site right near Dad's original, and invites old Orange County Choppers dissident Vinnie to be his mechanic. While the new Paul Jr. Designs team sits on folding chairs in a vacant building scribbling on yellow legal pads, Paul Sr.'s crew uses computers to craft a high-tech-inspired bike in return for Brooklyn's Domani Studios' renovating their website.

So one of the Teutels has it all, and one has nothing. This revamped season seems meant to reveal which is which.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Fans who felt "American Chopper" was losing its edge last season should find it reinvigorated by the heated business rivalry. But how long can the show go without its trademark nose-to-nose button-pushing?

GRADE

B