Matt's given us reviews of both Kitchen Nightmares (the UK version of which I enjoyed very much, and which also starred Gordon Ramsay) and Moonlight, the vampire detective series airing on CBS.

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Kitchen Nightmares

(FOX, Wednesday, 8,00)

Kitchen Nightmares is a fantastic program.  If you are not watching it, and I know that you aren't, I am a little upset with out.  Here is the premise:  A chef with a temper goes into restaurants that are going very poorly and he fixes the restaurant by changing the menu, revamping the facilities, and verbally beating the staff into submission.  There is always one person in the restaurant that is particularly useless or crazy.  At some point, this person flies off the handle and does something ridiculous, crazy, or ridiculous and crazy. 

The restaurants generally get fixed up and have some level of success.  This may seem repetative and formulaic, but I really don't care.  You always come back for more and hang through the commercial breaks to see that horrible thing will happen next.  Gordon Ramsay is a dynamic personality and I demand you worship him.  You sodding slapper.

Kitchen Nightmares: FOX, Weds, 8,00. A

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Moonlight

(CBS, Friday, 8,00)

Moonlight is a program that is about a Vampire that is a private detective. He is primarily employed by a richer vampire friend of his that is trying to keep the secret of vampires from getting out to the general public. There is a twist however, this vampire isn’t evil as most of them are; he is a good guy. He tries to protect civilians as well as the vampire secret. In other words, nothing about this show is new. The good guy vampire thing is common, as I am sure you know. The vampire community protecting their secret from the outside world is also not a new idea…at all. In fact, there is a whole book series and video games centered around this particular idea as well.

The show also features a poorly executed self narration scheme that makes me feel dumber for having listened to it. In this first episode, a plot twist is featured where it turns out the hero knew the primary reporter that just happens to follow the cases that the Vampire P.I. when she was a child. In fact, he saved her life from another vampire when she was a child. Now, the thing of this is that you, or at least I, was able to deduce this about 5 minutes into the show.

So, my final grade on this show really hinged on “is the plot of this show (a vampire detective) enough to raise the show's grade above a D?” No. No it is not. For a regular TV show, it is not even close. If the show were on at the same in the era of The Pretender-Walker Texas Ranger-The Profiler, the show would fit right in on that Saturday line up. However, as that is not the case, the show is a D. I cannot give the show an F because it could be worse, but it is so very weak.

Moonlight: CBS, Fri, 8,00. D 

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If Matt had a blog, I'd link to it here, but it seems he does not, so let him know what you think in the comments.