What’s this show called … Hell’s Kitchen?

When I set out on my long journey to cover Hell’s Kitchen for this week’s installment of my column (Read: when I set my DVR last week), little did I know that Tara would be writing an episode summary on the show’s season seven premiere. Which, aside from being highly entertaining and worth a read even if you don’t watch the show, also comes in handy for what I like to call “What’s this show called … 101.”

This column is meant to be one thing, and one thing only: my experience with a new show that I have no frame-of-reference for, haven’t done extensive homework on, and am not prepared for. That may sound fruitless to some of you, but consider this — I am experiencing a show the same way any newcomer would. Which, I should mention, is something that happens on a regular basis with every single show on television. No series has failed to gain viewers post-series premiere, and it would be completely short-sighted to imagine otherwise.

A single episode should have the ability to attract a viewer enough to make them come back. Should it provide a full back story week after week? No. But if you need six weeks to decide whether or not a series is actually entertaining, it’s doing something really wrong.

Episode Summary – With the above in mind, I caught Hell’s Kitchen‘s season premiere, a point at which I imagine a fair amount of people might decide to join a show.

After the contestants were announced at a press conference (what?) they got right down to their first task: cooking their signature dishes for Gordon Ramsay, or as they call him, “Chef” (Which at first I found funny. Only later did it become really stupid). His undercover wife bit was a tad nauseating, even after we learned that she was his wife, and his reactions to the contestants’ dishes turned me off immediately.

I began to wonder if this could really be what the show is all about: un-famous chefs cook for an older, annoying chef who criticizes them. And, by the way, Ramsay being a chef himself does not necessarily make him an expert in the taste-side of food, just the preparation (I’m assuming that he is, although I know nothing about him; people tend to land on TV more for their personalities than their skills).

The majority of the episode really bored me. The all-night tutorials, the punishment, the attempts to complete a complete first dinner service. How in the world can these “chefs” not manage to thoroughly cook the food they’re preparing? Everything was either cold or raw … are they not allowed to turn on the ovens and stoves until later in the competition?

It was mildly amusing when the phrase “chopping block” was used, because on this show that could actually be literal. I had already been wondering if Ramsay slaughtered and cooked the losers each week, so that kind of went with the theme … but the manner in which a contestant is chosen to leave was totally anti-climactic.

Conclusions – Where was the excitement of this series that I’ve heard so much about? I found the entire experience to be rather bland. Ramsay is unappealingly brash, but so what? I’ve never seen a reality competition before where the show is less about the competitors and more about the judge. Donald Trump may be a major turn-off, but that show is all about the contestants, both before it went “celebrity” and since. This was just nonsense about some guy who had 50% of what he said bleeped out.

And unless you’re super-into cooking, I can’t imagine what’s interesting about the series. At least American Idol has the potential to provide viewers with some listening pleasure (it’s been a few years since it’s managed to do so successfully, but potential is potential). Can you even pick up a recipe from these episodes?

I don’t know. I found myself very confused as to what I was seeing. I kept thinking, “This is the show?” Maybe the premiere episode is unlike the rest of the season itself, but I just didn’t get it. Hell’s Kitchen is not something I’ll ever be making reservations for again.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jun 07, 2010 @ 15:00 EST5EDT