Hell's Kitchen
I have been watching this TV show called Hell’s Kitchen. It’s a reality show on Fox. It’s not true “reality”, but most of the popular reality shows are not true reality. I think of reality as fly-on-the-wall like Cops or Real World. Shows like Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Apprentice and this new show are chatter-of-pop-culture, meaning they are what people talk about at the water cooler the next day. They have a more scripted base with contests and somewhat planned outcomes.
Anyway, I have been watching this show mostly because I have been in a hotel the past few Mondays and it is on late enough for me to be back in the room. It’s about this celebrity chef from England, voted the best chef in England 9 years in a row according to the opening credits, who is having a contest to see who can take his crap the longest and will get his own Blimpie franchise sandwich shop. I used to work in a restaurant as both a cook and a waiter, then later bartender and manager, during high school, college and grad school. It’s not the same as high end dining but I can understand the whole cooking- for- the-masses thing, sort of like playing softball allows me to relate slightly to MLB players. Well, that might not be a good example. Sort of like having a 15 minute segment on Ask This Old House allows me to related to Tom Cruise. Hmm, not a good example either. You get the idea.
So the show has this a** hole of a celebrity chef who berates, scolds, shouts at and humiliates a group of people who want to win this contest. Like Survivor, there are two teams who compete against each other and reap lame rewards for victory. The big contest each episode, just like the immunity challenge is the big contest each episode, is to cook dinner for a restaurant full of people. So far in all the episodes I have seen it has been a train wreck with the celebrity chef treating the contestants like bad behaving criminals. One guy actually told the chef off one episode and walked off the show.
Couple of things that bug me.
First, no one would ever be put into the position of those people without some sort of culinary training. Some of the contestants work in kitchens now so they have a base, but others are just hobby chefs. Because I can put a band aid on a cut would you let me operate on someone? Coordination and timing, prep, and other aspects of serving a large group of people eating at separate times is not easy.
Second, I hate this guy because he reminds me of so many people I know. Playing sports my whole life, working in a kitchen with people who were like that, working at a country club with a GM who was a jerk, etc. I know it makes great TV but there is a more effective way to get things out of people than to shout curses at them and throw food around.
Finally, the rewards have to be improved. Because one team made better home-made pasta they get to sit in some oversized canoe in a dirty polluted LA harbor and drink cheap wine out of plastic cups just doesn’t get me going. Send them to Costa Rica for a few days. Give them plasma TVs. Having a losing team clean the apartment is painful and boring. And having the self centered, egotistical, arrogant narcissistic chef eliminate one person each week is flat. Donald Trump can get away with it because Trump has a certain cache in the business world. People know who he is. No one knows this celebrity chef guy, other than the Brits I guess, so it doesn’t really mean much. Would you want to watch a show where I yell at college interns and let one guy each episode? Me either.
Anyway, just thought I’d share my opinion on yet another reality TV show.