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A select viewing guide for Friday, January 25

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REALITY Rich Bride, Poor Bride (Slice, 7 p.m.) Even though every bride wants her wedding day to be perfect, most are forced to stick to a budget. This lively series pairs couples with professional wedding planners in order to help both bride and groom obtain the biggest bang for the buck on their special day. Tonight’s show introduces viewers to Rasha and Samir. In this instance, she’s the sensible one trying to plan for their future, while he wants a super-extravagant reception that will have guests talking for years. Wedding planner Allistar Reid provides the reality check and helps the couple walk down the aisle in style without going bankrupt.

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REALITY Kitchen Nightmares (Fox, Global, 8 p.m.) You’re a mean one, Gordon Ramsay. Still trying to revitalize the American dining industry one restaurant at a time, the blustery Brit chef holds nothing back in this popular series, now in its fifth season. Tonight’s new episode takes him to Hanson, Massachusetts, to a rustic eatery called The Olde Hitching Post. Owner Tom bought the place for his daughter Andrea several years ago but still can’t stop micro-managing her every attempt to bring in customers. Not surprisingly, father and daughter are at each other’s throats and things don’t become any less intense when Chef Ramsay arrives with his own list of demands, er, suggestions.

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COMEDY Anger Management (Comedy Network, 9 p.m.) Never underestimate the public appeal of Charlie Sheen. Back tonight for its second season, this no-frills sitcom was a huge hit on U.S. cable last year. The premise is loosely based on a 2003 film and casts the former Two And a Half Men star as Charlie, an anger-management therapist with some pretty serious anger issues of his own. The support players include Charlie’s ex-wife Jennifer (Shawnee Smith) and teen daughter Sam (Daniela Bobadilla); he also has a friends-with-benefits deal with the hot fellow therapist Kate (Selma Blair). In tonight’s new season opener, Charlie takes Kate to his sister’s baby shower, which understandably has her fretting that they’re becoming a real couple. Perish forbid!

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DRAMA Ripper Street (Space, 10 p.m.) More than a century after the infamous serial killer known as Jack the Ripper terrorized London, he’s still providing fodder for movies and TV programs. This recent BBC miniseries is grislier than most and takes place several months after the murders and opens with the violent death of a violinist. London police captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) reckons it’s a copy-cat killing, but Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfayden) and Fleet Street reporter Fred Best (David Dawson) believe otherwise. The investigation takes a particularly sordid twist when Reid and his team stumble upon a world of Victorian-era pornography and what might be the very first “snuff film.” Nasty stuff indeed.

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MOVIE Post Grad (W, 10 p.m.) In Hollywood terms, Alexis Bledel has enjoyed somewhat erratic success. Her breakout role in the 1998 film Rushmore lead to a seven-season run on the acclaimed series Gilmore Girls, but save for a few spot roles in films like Sin City and The Conspirator, the winsome brunette has yet to find her footing in a feature film. Bledel proves her leading-women mettle, however, in this 2009 romantic comedy in which she plays the disaffected twentysomething Ryden, who learned absolutely nothing from four years of college and is forced to move back in with her eccentric parents, played by Michael Keaton and Glee’s Jane Lynch. And just when everything seems to be going downhill, her platonic friend Adam (Zach Gilford) reveals he has a huge crush on her. This lady should be making more comedies.

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