Think you’re a picky hotel guest? “Hotel Impossible” host Anthony Melchiorri will give you a run for your money.

The new show, which airs Monday nights at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel, follows roughly the same formula as popular restaurant renovation shows like Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares” on FOX and Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible”: likable host swoops into failing establishment and uncovers all of the challenges holding it back from success — then attempts to turn it all around during a one-hour episode with a blend of tough love and humor.

Indeed, the recent episode we caught, featuring the Hotel Corpus Christi Bayfront in Corpus Christi, Texas, offered its fair share of laughs. After arriving at the hotel to find an unmanned check-in desk, Melchiorri took matters into his own hands — namely, a tree in the atrium that, when shaken, showered dust onto an already grungy carpet (“the only thing staying at this hotel is dirt!”). Other unpleasant discoveries were just around the corner during Melchiorri’s full inspection, including a head-scratching toilet paper shortage, dead roaches, a pigeon corpse by the rooftop pool and thousands of uninvited guests of the bacterial kind.

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Melchiorri also provided guidance to the hotel staff (after he finally found them), from the overwhelmed owner to a haphazard housekeeper who did such a poor job cleaning a toilet that Melchiorri asked her where he was expected to put his butt. All good stuff — but when Don Jones, the gentleman in charge of hotel marketing, announced his job title to be Intergalactic Ninja Sultan of Revenue Development, we knew for sure we’d be back for more episodes. You can catch some of the highlights from this one here.

Amid the comedy and gross-outs, interesting facts about the hotel industry do emerge. Did you know, for example, that hotels that offer room service generally charge more per night, and that by adding room service a property can expect to increase overall revenue by 10 percent? We also learned that a typical hotel allows 30 minutes per room for housecleaning; that’s a lot of manpower for a 199-room hotel.

Curious about how the hotel is faring post-intervention, we surfed over to TripAdvisor. Alas, the property’s reviews are still mixed, with a submission from just this week citing fruit flies and stains. But there’s a bright spot: Mr. Jones no longer appears to be identifying himself as a Ninja Sultan in his responses to guests.

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– written by Melissa Paloti

Editor’s Note: IndependentTraveler.com is published by The Independent Traveler, Inc., a member of the TripAdvisor Media Network.