New tonight: "Kitchen Nation," "Kid Nightmares" ... oh, wait

All times Central:

  “Kitchen Nightmares”

  8 p.m., Fox 4

  An utterly compelling reality show on Wednesday nights this fall with the initials “KN” -- but it's not the one you've been hearing about.

  We'll get to “Kid Nation” in a moment, but first consider this brilliant concept: Take British chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsay out from “Hell's Kitchen” and throw him into the kitchens from Hell. Call it “Extreme Makeover: Café Edition.” Every week, Ramsay enters a restaurant carefully chosen for its dwindling customer base and dysfunctional staff. By the time he walks out seven days later, he expects to have worked a turnaround. If not -- hey, it still makes for great TV.

  Then there's that mouth. Ramsay swears even when he's happy. But he seems to speak the language of the kitchen, and he gets results in his first two episodes. Tonight, he hits the jackpot with a Long Island restaurant run by a family that exudes Italian stereotypes, including a super-macho brother who is driving the business off a cliff, to the despair of his co-owner sister. It's a recipe for gripping TV, and Ramsay and his producers cook it to perfection. In the second episode, he confronts the owner with his self-esteem issues. He's not above pep talks and hugs. He's like a foul-mouthed Dr. Phil of the culinary circuit.

  Since CBS doesn't want us to see “Kid Nation” in advance, I guess I'll just have to declare “Kitchen Nightmares” the best new reality show of the fall.

  “Kid Nation”

  7 p.m., CBS (KCTV-5)

  Forty kids ages 8 to 15 spent 40 days in a ghost town turned movie ranch in New Mexico, with no adult help, forming their own experimental society. That part you probably know. That's the message the CBS publicity machine has been putting out all summer. Perhaps, too, you read the story about the kid who accidentally scalded herself on the set, or about the children who accidentally drank bleach. Maybe you checked out the Web site with the 23-page release the parents of “Kid Nation” had to sign. Maybe you heard that the state of New Mexico was investigating whether child labor laws were broken after some kids complained of being put through 18-hour work days. (In their defense, the show's producers said they were running a “summer camp,” and unhappy campers could leave at any time.)

  I was hoping I could provide a better idea of what “Kid Nation” will actually be like by now. But CBS decided to withhold the preview screeners that are traditionally mailed to TV critics prior to broadcast of every new fall show. Maybe they're just having a bad summer over at Television City (I don't have the screener for the CBS vampire drama “Moonlight,” either). Maybe they think the show can sell itself with that five-minute trailer currently running on the Web.

  Or maybe it's even worse than the critics thought.

  I've been of two minds about this show. And I still am. Just like you, I'll have to wait until tonight's episode to decide whether “Kid Nation” is brilliant, edgy reality programming, or an exploitative show that makes me shield my eyes and is bound to leave its young stars scarred for life.

  “Gossip Girl”

  8 p.m., CW (KCWE, Channel 29 over the air, Channel 7 cable)

  Unlike “Kid Nation,” I have no ambiguity about this show -- I hate it. Mostly, I hate what it stands for: the idea that teenagers reenacting episodes of “Dynasty” in New York City's posh Upper East Side could be considered entertaining; the addition of one more show about filthy people to a mediascape that has all but forgotten the working class and poor; the idea that teenagers only read trashy novels (like the “Gossip Girl” series); and the fact that minority actors only get second-class parts on a show set in America's biggest melting pot.

  That said, it's going to be a success, in all likelihood, because of the books and the sweet time period (right after “America's Next Top Model”).

  “Back to You”

  7 p.m., Fox 4

  Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton play dueling news anchors in Pittsburgh, with an assist from Fred Willard and a whole crew of sitcom veterans working behind the scenes. Workplace comedies just bore me. I'd rather watch “America's Next Top Model,” because at least I haven't been watching TV like that all my life. Fox is hoping that putting two former “Everybody Loves Raymond” co-stars side by side on its schedule will draw enough viewers to this tough time slot (Brad Garrett, fresh off embarrassing himself at the Emmys, returns for a new season of “Til Death” at 7:30). Secretly, I'm hoping they both crater and Fox's reality king, Mike Darnell, plugs the hole with another hour of Gordon Ramsay, who's much funnier than “Back to You.”