'Hell's Kitchen': New chefs, same old show

Hey there, donkeys, donuts, and [bleep]-heads! It's time for another season of "Hell's Kitchen," the show that supplies 95 percent of the world's overcooked risotto! If you're new here, I'll sum up: 16 delusional chefs, one guy who's a brilliant chef but a jerk, and a bunch of people whining about not getting their free gourmet food fast enough. And more bleeps than you can shake a [bleep] at.

Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Meter: 50
Contestants' Bleep-O-Meter: 30
Contestants with Weird Hair: Four

We start with a lot of Coming This Season action. Apparently there will be shouting. And a giant fish. And hot tub shenanigans. And a blimp! The addition of airships means this is a steampunk show now, right?

Jason, 37, is a personal chef who says he's not nervous. Stacey, 38, is a private chef who says she's going to win. What's the difference between a private chef and a personal chef? While you ponder that, also ponder who the "representatives from the media" are that take the chefs' pictures as they walk into the dining room. Oh! And here's Ed, 28, a high school cooking teacher, which means they've renamed Home Ec, I guess. Scott, 32, is an executive chef. Man, there's nothing like a well-cooked executive.

The fake paparazzi have been joined by fake fans so that the chefs get a lot of cheering as they enter. Nilka, 28, is a line cook and claims to have been dazzled by the experience. I'm kind of dazzled by her hair, which is kind of like a pompador. Anyway, since she's a line cook, I figure she'll be fine for the next ten or eleven episodes as we eliminate the people who can't work on a line. Then she'll get eliminated as Ramsay says nice things about how hard she works. She's only third in the Interesting Hair Stakes, though, as a guy from Maui has a big weird mohawk but only on the front of his head, and someone from Boston has blue hair. The fake media pretends to write down everyone's credentials.

It's time for the first Big Fake Dramatic Moment as Gordon officially guarantees that they'll finish their first dinner service. Jason (we've already had him!) seems skeptical. Autumn, 29, personal chef, is also not confident. Anyway, it's time for the Signature Dishes and also the credits. I'll run through them this one time so that I don't have to remember which contestants I've introduced already.

Mikey has the mohawk. Holli is a cute brunette. Jason is a largish African-American gentleman with kind of a goatee. Ed seems perky. Siobhan seems very perky and has long hair, possibly in either cornrows or dreads. Nilka may well be sassy. Stacey looks like a soccer mom. Andrew has kind of a Kenneth-the-Page vibe. Fran is the one who just said she was 44 years old. Maria looks kind of like a younger Fran. Salvatore is younger than I was hoping for from his name. I like Autumn and I have no basis for that. Benjamin is the one I will confuse with Andrew a lot. Jamie gets short shrift here because I'm distracted by the little bat-winger Jean-Philippe there. Jay has blue hair and I'm pretty sure that's the only interesting thing about him. Scott winks at the camera so I hate him. I think that's everybody. I'm not going back to check.

Okay, here we go! Everyone's cooking! The men are in one kitchen and the women are in the other, because Gordon Ramsay has no interest in changing even one tiny aspect of his show from season to season. Stacey says she'll "make it work" (wrong show, but nice try) and brags about cooking for Nathan Lane and Don Rickles, among others. And Martha Stewart, for some reason. Holli can't find the trash can and pretends in an interview that she was "being cute." Holli has heels on and falls down. Always funny!

The dishes are finished and the press has been hustled outside to change clothes so they can pretend to be dinner guests later on. Gordon grills the contestants. Who will be this season's gag entries? One of them is a stay-at-home mom who writes cookbooks but has never worked in a restaurant. Her dish is scallopini of some sort and Gordon tells her it's delicious. Gordon gives her a hug and Maria tells us that it's completely un-Ramsay-like, which tells me she's never watched "F Word." Then Gordon kisses her on the cheeks. Then the lips. Then he starts making out with her. She turns out to not be a contestant at all! It's his wife in a wig! Feel free to make snarky comments about that affair he was supposed to be having. Incidentally, his wife really does write cookbooks.

So now that we've gotten the gimmick out of the way, Gordon assures the chefs that he only cares about the food, not the resume.

After the Signature Dishes cookoff (the men win) and a trip to the dreary dorms, there's a fire alarm. Is it a real fire alarm or just another wacky gimmick the show is throwing at them?

Ha ha! It's a gimmick, of course. Gordon is on a television screen showing them how to make the dishes. This one is the lobster risotto, and it's got rice, shallot, mascarpone, garlic, lobster stock, and white wine. That looks awesome. Less awesome is the way the contestants keep getting dragged out of bed at 2 a.m. to watch another video.

Prep! Maria is not great with the pasta. Over on the blue (men's) side, Scott is talking a lot and telling people what to do. End of prep! JP opens up the dining room and it's on. We're told that Chef Ramsay has "brought back to the menu some of 'Hell's Kitchen's' favorite dishes." That's fascinating! Also inevitable, since the menu does not change all that much from year to year to begin with! I mean, the news that there's a Lamb Wellington and a risotto doesn't exactly stun me, you know?

Oh, there's tableside Caesar salad action. That's Nilka and Ed. We'll see if that matters. Stacey messes up some scallops as she interviews about how great she is. Jamie talks a good game about everyone getting into the groove. Stacey's scallops are rejected for being uncooked and covered with too much curry powder. On the blue side, Salvatore burns a couple of dishes and gets sent down to salads.

The red team is running smoothly and they're getting food out. The blue team is having problems, though, because Benjamin and Salvatore are screwing up appetizers. And they won't answer when Chef Ramsay wants to know how long the last appetizer will be, so they get tossed.

Red side. Stacey says the salmon will take five minutes, which she immediately cuts to three upon being shouted at. No good; she's sent to the dorms. Mikey's got some cold halibut, and yet again, Chef Ramsay goes with "Do me a [bleep]ing favor. Get out!"

The red kitchen is down to four chefs and the blue kitchen has five. Chef Ramsay calls everyone together and says they're all [bleep]ing useless, but he's still determined to achieve what the voiceover guy calls "his dream of a complete service." You know, he might stand a better chance if he didn't keep throwing people out of the kitchen in an attempt to generate drama. Anyway, the surviving members are merged so that they can work together. I'm sure that helps everyone cook better. You know, constantly being in fear of getting fired in the middle of the service and then getting moved from kitchen to kitchen.

The dorms are full of ennui. The kitchens have pep. Ed is shouting a lot. He's also successfully cooking meat. Come to think of it, teaching high school might be excellent training for wrangling reality show chefs. So they finish the service, although we don't see any dessert action.

The chefs are lined up in the kitchen for the traditional dressing-down. Chef Ramsay decides, fairly arbitrarily, that the red team lost. They are to come to a consensus on two of them to nominate for elimination. Up in the dorms, Maria defends herself on the grounds that she got thrown out before she ever got to cook anything. Autumn suggests Fran and Stacey, and Fran gets extremely defensive. She accuses Autumn of "just standing there."

Down in the dining room, it's elimination tome. Chef Ramsay goes to Autumn for the names. Up first, Stacey, because service started badly. After the commercials and a long pause, Fran goes next and gives a lovely eye-roll. Fran, why should you stay? "I don't think I did the worst today. I don't know why I was sent upstairs." This just gives Gordon a chance to make fun of her again for not knowing the difference between lobster and crab. He asks her how many legs a lobster has, and she dries up. Her new excuse is "I was a kosher chef." Stacey, why should you stay? "I'm a team player and I have nowhere to go but up here." Fran threatens to show Gordon her testicles. Stacey is sent home. Fran vows revenge on Autumn.

Stacey admits that she screwed up and also gives herself kudos for being so great at admitting that. Jason claims that they "kicked the girls' butts," which does not really describe what happened. Gordon says that Stacey was a private chef because her food wasn't good enough for the public.

Read the full story at Television Without Pity.

Photo credit: FOX