Last night, TLC (formerly The Learning Channel; now The Little Channel) premiered The Little Chocolatiers, the pilot for a series coming in 2010. The reality series is all about Salt Lake City's Hatch Family Chocolates (390 4th Avenue), owned and operated by Steve Hatch and Katie Masterson. ---

Not that I've many (or any) dealings with TLC, but an advance heads-up about a series centered around Salt Lake City people and a Salt Lake City business filmed in Salt Lake City to a Salt Lake City publication that's had a TV column for 10 damned years woulda been nice. Just sayin.'

Gripes aside, The Little Chocolatiers is already one of TLC's best new series: It looks great (the SLC exterior shots are pure postcard pretty), the Hatches are naturals on-camera (unlike, say, TLC's Cake Boss, an overacting cartoon combo of Jersey Shore and Fred Flintstone), and their complex confections nothing short of art (Ace of Cakes, look out). Sure, the Emergency-Every-Minute pace is Reality 101, but The Little Chocolatiers gets far more right than wrong--and who's to say the drama-fueling power outage in the pilot ep wasn't caused by TV cameras sucking power?

The Little Chocolatiers repeats Thursday Dec. 24 (twice), Monday Dec. 28 and Tuesday Dec. 29; check your cable/satellite provider for times. A handful of TLC videos are here; a clip from The Little Chocolatiers is buried in the middle of this choco-promo: