Alton Brown's Edible Inevitable Tour

How do you judge something done by one of your all-time heroes?

Do you just gush and crow about how (undeniably) awesome he is and simply repeat the stories and describe the activities you saw, thus denying anybody else the enjoyment of seeing it all for the first time?

Do you have to point an extra-critical eye to it, determined to pick it apart so you don't simply come across as too much of a fan that you can't keep a fair, balanced look at something?

Do you read five hundred other reviews and then simply parrot the primary points each one seems to make?

I was torn between all of these, but instead I think I'll break it down to the things I'm happy I saw/took part in and the things I was disappointed I didn't see/take part in.

Cutthroat Kitchen

I am a huge Alton Brown fan.  Good Eats was the television show that really lit that spark inside me that loved to cook, and without him being able to break down the science of cooking in a way that not only showed me technique but also explained how, why, and (in a few cases) where things were happening.  When his show went off the air, I was rather depressed.  Thank heavens for reruns.  Also thank heavens for Iron Chef America, where I still get samplings of his encyclopedic knowledge base of food and how cooking works.

However, when I heard that he was going to be hosting a new game show on the Food Network...I wasn't sure.  I remembered an Ask Me Anything of his where he didn't seem too fond of cooking competitions with gimmicks, and while I do love programs like Chopped, it was starting to feel a bit silly.  Cupcake competitions, dessert competitions with bizarre ingredients, and all sorts of other shows were popping up.

But I started to learn more about it, and I became interested.  Well, slightly interested.  I was willing to give it a shot because, well, Alton Brown was hosting it.  Surely the smartest man Food Network ever hired wouldn't lead me wrong.