Nine's first dud.

Nine's first official dud for 2008 has surfaced. And it was its first new show.
The Chopping Block premiered on Wenesday, a new reality/My Restaurant Rules/Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare type show. It got about 700k viewers. Which is terrible, especially for a show which is a premiere and has been advertised to death. It is also Nine's first new show with its new old look.
But in saying all of this, my opinion of this show is that it was a poor version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The good points about it were that... Matt Moran was pretty good as the chef. He didn't need to go over the top like Ramsay to get his message across, but this was probably part of the problem. The only reason why people watch Ramsay's is for the conflicts and for Ramsay swearing his head off while criticising the chefs.
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares got great ratings on Thursday night- 1m. This is great for a 9:30 show. Don't be surprised if Nine shifts it to 8:30. But back to The Chopping Block; the bad points(and there were many); the starting introduction dragged on for way too long, the restaurant critic was pushed to be too harsh on the restaurant owners and waiters- making fun of some waiter's appearance was not on, the fact that the show has tried to combine the reforming the restaurant with the competition aspect was a mistake. Also, Catriona Rowntree was not needed. Don't get me wrong, she is a good host of Getaway but a voice over would have been much better. Just look at Ramsay's- it doesn't have a host and it does just fine. Nine would have been better off making an Australian version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and have Moran as the chef... just a thought. Well, don't expect this one to hang around for long. Channel Nine might give it a couple more weeks in this timeslot then replace it with Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.