Photos
Video
Fine dining takes a beating in 'Hell's Kitchen'
There's a limit to how many rigged competitions and eliminations I can tolerate on a reality show and with Monday's (July 16) Hell's Kitchen, I may have reached that limit.
[Spoilers coming...]
Coming after a week where Chef Gordon Ramsay pretty blatantly threw a challenge in order to do a photo shoot with the female team rather than the males, Monday's episode featured some increasingly bizarre choices by the show's judge-jury-and-executioner, complimented by some misleading and distracting editing.
The week's first challenge required the men and women to each prepare three dishes based on leftovers. From what we saw, the men worked efficiently as a team and the women didn't start cooking until only 10 minutes remained. Somehow, though, Chef Ramsay thought that Bonnie's chicken soup, which looked thin and uninteresting to me, was the equal of Brad's curried bass, a dish that left even Bonnie impressed at its ambition. Then Chef Ramsay called another draw, deciding that even though Josh's sauce was acidic and his chicken was undercooked, it was still the equal of Jen's uninspired steak and eggs. That left Rock against Julia and Chef praised the "finesse" of Rock's surf-and-turf. Julia was ready, though, telling the camera "I don't really see anything that could go wrong with my dish," followed by a cutaway to Chef examining her dish, swearing and saying "Holy smokes." When we returned from commercial, though, Chef Ramsay again lifted the cover from Julia's dish, but this time there were no expletives or shock, because really she'd just made fish and chips. Chef liked the fish and chips, but decided that it wasn't "fine dining" enough and went with the surf and turf, giving the challenge to the men. Every choice in the challenge felt off (not a single one of the women's dishes showed an iota of creativity), but the prize was a paintball trip, so of course Chef chose the men.
That was bad, but the elimination decision was even worse.
They're supposed to be preparing for a career in fine dining, something that Chef Ramsay mentioned on several occasions this week, going so far as to penalize Julia for not being "fine dining" enough. But when they attempt to actually do a little fine dining, they're doing it at a fake restaurant that caters to people who want to be involved with a FOX reality show and who wouldn't know fine dining unless it were the name of a show that aired after American Idol. So despite Chef Ramsay attempting to take Julia down for her kicked up fish and chips earlier, her New York strip steak (hardly fine dining) was the hit of the night. And several of the patrons were classless enough to order their steak well-done. Ask Tony Bourdain what happens to people who order well-done steaks at nice restaurants. See where the signals might get mixed?
Brad's sin was overthinking the room, which Rock, to his credit, tried to avoid. As an example, Brad wanted to call his mac-n-cheese a "cassoulet," while Rock just wanted to make it some tasty mac-n-cheese. They weren't disagreeing on the food they wanted to prepare, but one was trying to aim for fine dining and the other was trying to give the people what they wanted to eat.
For me, though, I look at Brad's attempts to think of creative menu choices and I wonder how Chef Ramsay could justify keeping Bonnie over him, particularly since Chef must have heard the story of Bonnie messing up the supply shipment that afternoon and he watched her try to cook without the gas on (a bit like watching her try to think without her mental lights being on). Bonnie's only defense at judging was to mention her great palate, a reference to her only real challenge triumph of the season. Brad didn't do much better, announcing, "I think I'm remotely good at what I do." That somehow prompted Chef Ramsay to boot Brad, saying "He lacked finesse to become a great chef." Is that a finesse that Bonnie possesses? That must be in the footage the editors didn't feel like showing to us.
Other quick takes on this week's episode:
So did the right aspiring chef go home? Does anybody deserve to win? Would you eat at a restaurant run by any of these people?
Rock may deserve to win, Josh should have gone home this week, and no, I wouldn't eat at a restaurant run by any of these contestants. The first two seasons had decent winners though.
Andy | Jul 16, 2007 11:41:39 PM | #I'm almost ready to just say "give Rock the prize, send the others home, and put everyone (including the viewers) out of their misery". This show gets more contrived and stupid with every episode this season. The only woman left who's even remotely likeable is Julia, but I have my doubts Ramsay is going to give her the prize. And "Josh" stays over Brad??? sigh
The dwindling cast of idiots is captivating like a catastrophic accident. You just can't look away even though your better judgement begs it.
This episode made me dislike Jen. She kept whining about the menu the girls were putting together but she never had any suggestions. Then she gets all mad when Bonnie "forces" her to make the banal steak-and-eggs. Jen is the one with chef experience in that group so I am surprised that she does not seem to want to role of Leader, which it needs. And then she blames her crummy dish on Bonnie. Puh-leeze.
Rock annoys me to no end. He's a brat who gets his feathers ruffled whenever anyone tries to lead the team, yet he refuses to step up to the challenge. Weeks ago when he put Josh up, it was because Josh tried to take control. Now he doesn't like Brad because Brad puts forth effort to make the menu. Has Rock never been on a team before? Or has he never had a job with a boss? He has a lot of growing up to do.
Brian | Jul 17, 2007 10:36:25 AM | #I am still rooting for Julia. Of all the reality shows this one seems to truly be scripted.
Trupen | Jul 17, 2007 10:56:44 AM | #The show isn't scripted, but Ramsey certainly is fixing it more and more for "dramatic" effect. The last 2 weeks have been amazingly awful. This is what happens when you have one person acting as judge and jury. (And yes, I have the same issues with The Apprentice, however, Trump has never been so blatantly biased.) I think I'm bailing on this show come Season 4.
Mark | Jul 17, 2007 2:04:18 PM | #Everyone do yourself a favor and watch Top Chef on Bravo. Not one of the contestants on that show would be caught dead on this show! The reason season one and twoof HK had better contestants was because the contestants didn't realize what a contrived sideshow this is. Top Cgef is all about the food, and is the best reality show on TV.
Matt | Jul 17, 2007 9:48:22 PM | #
Zap2it Twitter Talk
