I just watched the premiere of the US version of Kitchen Nightmares last night... Wow. Sure fire way to make a great program absolutely shit... Bring it to the US and give it the USA treatment.

The original show, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is produced by the BBC and is fantastic, not only for its uncensored approach. This US version took everything that made the original special, including Gordon's own narration and focus on the food, and instead replaced it with a huge chunk of Extreme Makeover Home Edition (though that show is an even bigger pile of garbage). Now we get a ton of 1:1 camera confessionals, over the top theatrics by one or more of the restaurant staff and too generous use of replays.

Also caught the new Kelsey Grammer show, Back to You.... Yawn. This won't likely last the season. The show following it was just above "meh" but markedly better. Both are rather typical multi-camera studio-based sitcoms with annoying laugh tracks.

Lots of stuff premiering but I don't see anything that I think will make it through to next season except perhaps Private Practice. I'm not even sure Lost will make it to next season after the February premier and new short season format (only 16 eps per season from now on).

I'm about to start watching the new season of Weeds - had to download the first 5 episodes because it hasn't premiered in Canada yet. Someone tell Showtime to grow a clue and start producing this show with an additional 15 minutes per episode and more than 12 episodes per season. What's with these cable shows and their super short "seasons?" Do they think they're in the UK or something?