Hells KitchenWatched Hell’s Kitchen last night. I never watched season 1, but got into it with Season 2. This season is turning out horribly. This show places it’s emphasis on service. Not on innovation in developing dishes. Mostly, it’s home cooks or small-time cooks who are decent, but want a chance to break into the big time, and are willing to endure the boot-camp like atmosphere of Hell’s Kitchen to get there. The first problem is that most of the people don’t have the basic skills required to be there. They’re serving beef wellington to a restaurant and screwing it up for Christ’s sake. The contestants seem to have been selected for personality first, and skills second, with a handful of competent thrown in there so that someone can win and Green Valley Ranch, the resort offering the restaurant prize, doesn’t get screwed with a loser. The second problem is that it’s a game show. As a game show, when contestants are asked to select someone for elimination, they’re not going to select based on who did the worst, but rather on who they think is the biggest competitive threat. That’s a mess, and makes for a lousy show. Last night, Gordon Ramsay overruled both selections for elimination, and chose the two who were obviously the worst of the bunch. Frankly, the show isn’t fun when it’s so obvious what’s going on. They should either dump the prize and bring in all joke contestants, or keep the prize and stop bringing in clowns as contestants. As it is, the show is fairly unwatchable now. |
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2 Responses to “Hells Kitchen”
June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
The first season was easily the best. The winner was actually kind of a jerk, and is the only contestant we’ve seen so far who specifically sabotaged other players, but he was a superb chef. Elsie, the person who came in 4th, was excellent and much the same sort of casting as Julia this year. She was the only one who pleased GR the first episode when they have to make a “signature dish” for him to taste. She made something she makes for her six kids.
This year it’s the clearest it’s ever been that they do casting to specific roles and have few people included that they really credit with a chance of winning. Rock being the obvious one, and melissa being the other obvious one. It’s getting like American Idol. They got a male winner. They seeded to get a female winner the next year. The first two were white, so seed to get a black winner this time. Last year Heather was obvious from the beginning.
I still enjoy it, but it’s not a cooking skills show. In fact, toward the end they particularly emphasize management and leadership skills and having the whole package.
June 30th, 2007 at 8:51 am
[...] I guess I should get around to writing a Hell’s Kitchen post for the last episode. Not that it was that exciting, as Rob Sama noted in this post. [...]
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