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Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Grand Guignol Dinner Theater
With all the TV shows we've been watching for the past few months now over (well, not The Shield...), Barb and I were willing to try out the new reality show Hell's Kitchen. It was funny, though I'm not sure that was the intention of the star chef who everyone's trying to impress.
The star chef, who's like the Donald Trump of the show's titular restaurant, is apparently a highly well-regarded and very demanding culinary master. To prove both of these things, he spits out and tosses around food he considers bad, curses like a drunken sailor - I haven't heard this much bleeping on TV since Ol' Dirty Bastard was alive - and even resorts to shoving around some of his contestants.
It just got to be too much. Several times I was laughing, saying, "Come on!" to the television. If the chef isn't acting this way just for the sake of the camera, then he's something of a silly man. A great cook I'm sure, but a very silly man.
And yet...
And yet, this is the right kind of behavior for reality television. Reality TV isn't about reality but about the exaggeration of reality, and this guy is a definite caricature, a walking, spitting, bleeping cartoon. In other words, he's fun to watch and it's interesting to see how the more toned-down, desperate-to-win contestants will deal with him.
And, like The Restaurant, it was great fun to see an actual working restaurant fall apart as people try to live up to expectations. The challenge before the restaurant opened was okay, but the actual travails of not being experienced in a working restaurant kitchen and being thrown in head-first - with a screaming maniac to keep you motivated - was riveting to watch.
I hope this gets good ratings, so at least it'll finish its full run on TV. If anything, it should make a good companion to Big Brother when that starts up again next month.
The star chef, who's like the Donald Trump of the show's titular restaurant, is apparently a highly well-regarded and very demanding culinary master. To prove both of these things, he spits out and tosses around food he considers bad, curses like a drunken sailor - I haven't heard this much bleeping on TV since Ol' Dirty Bastard was alive - and even resorts to shoving around some of his contestants.
It just got to be too much. Several times I was laughing, saying, "Come on!" to the television. If the chef isn't acting this way just for the sake of the camera, then he's something of a silly man. A great cook I'm sure, but a very silly man.
And yet...
And yet, this is the right kind of behavior for reality television. Reality TV isn't about reality but about the exaggeration of reality, and this guy is a definite caricature, a walking, spitting, bleeping cartoon. In other words, he's fun to watch and it's interesting to see how the more toned-down, desperate-to-win contestants will deal with him.
And, like The Restaurant, it was great fun to see an actual working restaurant fall apart as people try to live up to expectations. The challenge before the restaurant opened was okay, but the actual travails of not being experienced in a working restaurant kitchen and being thrown in head-first - with a screaming maniac to keep you motivated - was riveting to watch.
I hope this gets good ratings, so at least it'll finish its full run on TV. If anything, it should make a good companion to Big Brother when that starts up again next month.
