Things you expect from a show about a guy who goes in full throttle to fix failing hotels: scenes of dirty rooms, bad service and hopeless business practices followed by wondrous makeovers. What you don't expect is to get choked up.

But that happened to Anthony Melchiorri every time he went to some far-flung location to shoot an episode of his Travel Channel series "Hotel Impossible," currently in its second season. The straight-talking New Yorker gets caught up in the personal stories of the hotel owners he meets, many of whom open their hearts to him and are clearly desperate for his help.

"I never in a million years thought it would be this emotional," Melchiorri tells Zap2it. "There's not a show I haven't cried on; there's not a show where people haven't cried. ... They know I'm the real deal. So they're like, 'Oh, my God, this guy's really here to help me,...