Question: Regarding the recent Hell's Kitchen rant: I admit that I could never get into Hell's Kitchen because of Gordon Ramsay's attitude, although I now suspect Fox and the producers are more at fault than the star. Not sure if you've seen Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America, but it shows a totally different side to the jerk and is a much better show. It sends the chef to a different failing restaurant each week and shows him trying to turn things around, mostly by helping the chefs regain their passion for cooking. He still curses like a sailor and can be biting, but mostly you realize that he actually wants to help these places become popular. He can be very kind, like in a recent episode when he helped a chef with an alcohol problem. After watching some of Kitchen Nightmares I find myself a Gordon Ramsay fan, although I still can't bring myself to sit through an episode of Hell's Kitchen. If Fox would let Ramsay bring to Hell's Kitchen some of the Tim Gunn-esque mentoring ...
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Question: This season I've watched Hell's Kitchen on and off, hoping it would improve as it went on, but that never happened. Now that the season is thankfully coming to an end, I have a few questions and gripes. There are some things that I just don't understand about this show and Gordon Ramsay. Why would Chef Ramsay risk his reputation and a lot of money by turning over such an expensive restaurant to be run by any of those inept people who are barely qualified to run a Taco Bell? My second problem is with the chef himself: I realize that a lot of the insults are done for the sake of ratings, but if he acts like that toward his employees, don't you think he would have a few lawsuits by now? There are laws protecting employees from such verbal abuse in the U.S., and I assume that the U.K. must have similar regulations, although I have never heard of any charges filed against him. Last year's show had real talent, and while he was still obnoxious, he wasn't quite so over-the-top and ...
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Question: I just started watching Hell's Kitchen and was wondering how this restaurant (if it is real) can stay open. It takes hours for the food to come to the table, and the chef is yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs for all to hear, and then he shuts down the kitchen, so customers leave without their dinner. Who would continue to go to a restaurant like that? Are the patrons real or actors? Do they know this is a reality show in progress? Are they warned in advance that they may or may not be served?
Answer: There's nothing real about the Hell's Kitchen restaurant. It's all made for TV, and the customers are in on it. According to Fox, before production starts, a hotline number is set up to take reservations, and the customers know what they're signing up for: a chance to be on TV, and anyone with reality-TV savvy knows the bigger a stink you make when things start to go badly, the more opportunity you have for face time. Everything about the show this season makes me want
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Question: I have started watching Hell's Kitchen, and I have to say I am hooked. What are your thoughts on the show? I find it fascinating to watch these chefs try to cook food and fail miserably. It's neat to see Gordon Ramsay actually in there observing the contestants as they do their tasks. And the swearing makes it even more fun to watch. I hope it stays.
Answer: You have just described all the reasons I hate the show this season. Ramsay's shrieking has grown tiresome to me, and this cast of unappealing incompetents is a turnoff. But as is the case with most reality-TV shows, this one's a guilty pleasure at best, so one man's addiction is another's poison. Given the current summer reality glut, I have to be choosy. And I choose not to watch this one. As I mentioned last week, the unappetizing ineptitude of Hell's Kitchen makes me miss Bravo's superior-in-every-way Top Chef, where the cooking actually looked good and most of the contestants possessed personality as well as talent ...
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Question: Summer TV is always bad, but this year I find myself watching virtually nothing. OK, I have used the rerun schedule to catch a few eps of My Name Is Earl (but not if I already saw them), and I have rewatched some Grey's Anatomy episodes, but otherwise I watch nothing. I can't face Gilmore Girls reruns this year. Somehow Lost reruns don't cut it. I'd rather pull my fingernails out one by one than watch moronic reality shows. I don't have cable. Am I doomed until September? Is there anything out there on broadcast TV that is worth watching?
Answer: Oh, David, this is so sad. I'm actually having a pretty good TV summer, but only because of the variety of cable choices, from Rescue Me on FX and The Closer on TNT to Hustle on AMC to HBO's Deadwood-Entourage combo on Sundays, with a chaser of The 4400 the same night. And in July there's the delightful new comedy-mystery
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