You know who I like? Gordon Ramsay. You know what I don’t like? His show, Hell’s Kitchen.
I used to like it. I used to like it a lot! I also like his other shows, like The F-Word and Kitchen Nightmares. But I only like the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares. The American version is watchable, but it suffers from a lot of the problems the current season of Hell’s Kitchen suffers from.
What are the problems? Well, firstly, I don’t care about any of the competitors. The only one I thought was even vaguely interesting was Louross and that was because I’ve a fetish for Asians. Plus the show is just more of the same from the last season. Chefs screw up. Gordon yells at them. Chefs get sullen and snipey. Repeat as needed.
But what really annoys me at about the show at this point is the checklist of reality TV cliches they’re using on it. The show suffers from some of the worst editing I can imagine. It’s very clear that some scenes are taken out of squence while others are taken out of context. And the way they break for commercials? Argh.
Here’s a breakdown of what happens when we go to commercial.
Step One: Gordon Ramsay yells about something.
Step Two: Cut to shocked look on face of chef.
Step Three: Cut to shocked looking customer reactions (if the resturant is open, otherwise go to Step Four)
Step Four: Dramatic music!
Step Five: Go to commercial!
Now this can happen on virtually any quote at all. You might have Ramsay yelling, “You donkey!” or “Where is the sauce?!” or, “What the hell has happened to my career?!”
Basically the show has degenerated into being nothing but a big shout-fest. This is the same problem I have with the American version of Kitchen Nightmares. The British version is more about cooking and the things it really takes to run a restaurant. The American version is about shouting and semi-clever editing tricks.
I dunno. I used to like the show, as I said, but now it’s frankly unbearable. I’ll check the first couple episodes of the next season of this and Kitchen Nightmares, but I think that henceforth, if I want to see one of Gordon Ramsay’s shows, I’ll stick to the ones on BBC America.
