kitchen nightmares

By PETER BROWN, Associate Editor
Published 9/20/2007


One of the best shows to come out of the BBC is RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES, where Chef Gordon Ramsay of HELL'S KITCHEN fame here in the states would travel to British (and sometimes French) locations and resurrect troubled restaurants that were once popular, but have fallen from grace.

Hot the heels of its success with Ramsay and HELL'S KITCHEN, Fox has brought the series to the states where Ramsay now tries to do the same thing, but with Americans and restaurants through the U.S. Usually Ramsay will eat at the restaurant and in typical Ramsay fashion hate everything and give his critique. Then he investigates the kitchen, finding any faults or problems therein and then updates the restaurant in terms of menu, décor and usually a good gimmick that can be used to bring people in.

But in the U.S. version, it looks like things are going to be a little different, instead of just working with what each restaurant has to begin with, Ramsay actually seems to have a budget in order to update and improve the conditions in the kitchen. But this isn't where the differences end and this is mostly the result of Fox and its editors.

Related Articles
Television
Review: FLASH GORDON - SEASON ONE - 'Ascension'
9/17/2007
Television
Review: 'HELL'S KITCHEN' - SEASON THREE - 10 Chefs
6/25/2007
Television
Review: 'HELL'S KITCHEN' - SEASON THREE - Premiere
6/6/2007
One of the biggest problems with Fox's KITCHEN NIGHTMARES is that Ramsay isn't the narrator, one of the more endearing aspects to the BBC version of the show. Instead of Ramsay, we have the same cold, no personality guy that does HELL'S KITCHEN � really a shame because Ramsay as the narrator is brilliant and gives actual emotion to what he is saying.

Unfortunately, one of the other problems with at least the first episode of KITCHEN NIGHTMARES is that there aren't any likeable people here. The U.K. version had pompous, egomaniacal chefs, but at least they seemed to learn from their mistakes and faults in the end. Here it appears they went for pure shock and reality show nonsense rather than compelling characters that we could actually cheer for.

The first episode had Ramsay trying to turn around Italian restaurant Peter's run by an Italian family that has no business running a restaurant, especially with one of the lousiest, disrespectful, moron of a co-owner who you just want to fail and fail hard. Even after giving this ungrateful ass a new kitchen and watching him yell at every staff member, disrupt service and only care about his own needs, the last thing you want to see is this restaurant succeed. That's a big problem when the show is about turning restaurants around.

One of the other problems is that at least in the pilot episode it is so chopped to death and ADD'd and then backplugged with dramatic music that you don't get a good feel as to what Ramsay is really trying to do with the turnaround. We don't see Ramsay cooking, we don't seem him changing the inside of the restaurant or even working with the chefs. Again, a more subdued, personal touch always wins over a candy-coated, way too edited reality show schlock.

In the end, they attempt to leave us with a happy ending but having spent 50 minutes hating everyone they have just shown, it leaves a little to be desired in the happy ending department Tonight Fox premieres an old-fashioned sitcom with nothing much going for it but Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton and a pretty funny set of screenwriters.

"Back To You" is a great reminder talent ― and not concept ― is ultimately what drives a television show.

Grammer (in his first series since "Frasier") stars as Chuck Darling, a big shot news anchor who, after unleashing a long on-air tirade riddled with f-bombs, finds himself back at the gimcrack station in Pittsburgh where his career began years ago. There he's reunited with his old coanchor, Kelly Carr (played by Heaton in her first series since "Everybody Loves Raymond").

It was their incredible chemistry on the anchor desk, in fact, that ignited his career … except, it turns out, they hated each other. Make that hate, present tense: "I cannot do this with you again, you preening gasbag," the exasperated Kelly exclaims after taping their first promo, and the barbs fly thick, fast and sharp from there.

Created by veteran producers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, who between them have worked on probably half the hit sitcoms of the past two decades ("Frasier," "Wings," So what can we expect from Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares? I honestly don't what "nightmares" Ramsey has in store for us but I am so looking forward to this new show. I've seen the British version of Kitchen Nightmares and find Ramsey a little more easy going. Of course, with the previews I was treated to last night of the American version of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, he might not have as easy a time here as he does in Merry Olde England.

The previews for tonight show Ramsey in a kitchen. There is grease EVERYWHERE -- grime build up -- and what looked like a "rat's nest". Almost made me sick but I stuck with it to know what to expect. The episodes I have seen of the British version haven't been that detailed so that lets me know that he is really taking this serious and it will be more substantial fixes than menus and personalities. On the whole, the show looks to be very good.

And, on another note, the Sunday papers reviews had this as one of the 10 shows not to miss! Pretty heady stuff, I think!

Long live Ramsey -- and let's watch to see if he can do his magic on already established eating establishments."The Golden Girls" and "Just Shoot Me," to name only a few) and starring two of the most dependably funny people in television in Grammer and Heaton, "Back to You" is a monument to solid professionalism.

The show's hoary formula has been used in everything from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," and "Back to You" doesn't do anything new, it just does it very well.

Whether it's the archetypal characters like weather girl Montana Diaz Herrera, extravagantly rolling her R's like a telenovela queen even though she's only one-eighth Nicaraguan, or the dialogue (Kelly on her expectations from a boyfriend: "I like a relationship where the guy isn't trying to sleep with my sister"), you just can't get through two minutes of "Back to You" without a belly laugh.

That's true even in the rare moments when Grammer and Heaton aren't on-screen, thanks to a splendid supporting cast that includes Fred Willard ("American Pie 3") as the unctuously daft sportscaster Marsh McGinley; stage actor Josh Gad as rookie news director Ryan Church ("I've been on the news side for quite a few weeks now"); Ayda Field ("Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip") as the oversexed weather girl; and Laura Marano ("Without a Trace") as Kelly's 10-year-old daughter, Gracie.

Use up all your laughs on "Back To You," because you certainly won't be needing them the rest of the night.

'KITCHEN NIGHTMARES'
Fox's "Kitchen Nightmares" may induce a wide variety of reactions from audiences, ranging from projectile vomiting to existential confusion that a universe created by a just and merciful God would permit such a program, but chuckles and guffaws will not be among them.

Hosted by Gordon Ramsay, the ill-tempered and foulmouthed chef who makes the cooking-reality show "Hell's Kitchen" one of television's most unpleasant hours, "Kitchen Nightmares" plays like one of those excruciating dreams you have the night after an anchovy-and-pineapple pizza. Ramsay takes over restaurants knee-deep in cockroaches and fungus (not to mention managers who rank a couple of steps lower than those on the evolutionary scale) and, by screaming the f-word a few thousand times, magically transforms them into Michelin three-stars in a week's time.

The show's boorishness is exceeded only by its dissimulation; not one frame of this thing ― from the diners who seem not to notice that their table is surrounded by camera crews to the melodramatically villainous managers ― is believable. "Kitchen Nightmares" has achieved a rare distinction: It's the least credible reality show on television.

'KID NATION'
Of course, that's only because we haven't seen "Kid Nation" yet. CBS refused to make an episode available in advance for review purposes, probably because they would have had to enclose a scratch-n-sniff card to convey the stench of death already wafting around the thing.

The show's premise might be titled "Survivor: Lord of the Flies Edition." Forty kids ages 8 to 15 spend six weeks in a New Mexican ghost town, without parents or teachers, constructing a new society. Except the "ghost town" is actually a movie set; the producers got the show declared a summer camp to exploit a loophole in child-labor law.

And as for the "no teachers or parents" stuff, pay no attention to the hundreds of doctors, shrinks, social workers, cameramen, animal wranglers and probably even official network astrologers lurking just off-camera. Reality TV has never seemed so unreal.