Friday 6 February 2009

Kitchen Nightmares USA (Channel 4 9PM)


Wow, It's been a bad few months for Gordon Ramsay. A year or so ago Ramsay was the crown prince of British TV chefs; loud, brash, but ultimately an entertaining personality and an incredibly talented chef. Fast forward a few months and he's been revealed as a love rat ripe for a roasting on the casting couch of Jeremy Kyle. His adultery has not gone down well, and to be honest i wouldn't be surprised if he slowly melts off our screen gradually in a slow painful death; that would be a shame because despite his misgivings off screen, i do enjoy watching him on the screen. 

It got worse for Ramsay last week when his 'Great British Nightmares' vehicle, part of Channel 4's underwhelming 'Great British Food Fight,' caused a flood of complaints for the sheer amount of swearing pouring out of Ramsays gullet.  I'm not offended in the slightest by swearing; but to be honest 'Great British Nightmares' was a patched together, poorly made show, that gave free reign to some really unsavoury characters who swore more than Joe Pesci in Casino. 

Kitchen Nightmares is usually a great watch; seeing Ramsay transform the fortunes of a run down restaurant into a success story in a couple of weeks, and in the process creating some quality cooks is a joy to see.  Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the nauseating American version of the show.  

Since when did Gordon become a counsellor? The American show has him spend more time in dimly lit back rooms giving relationship advice to broken families and trying to save marriages on the brink, than actually teaching these deluded 'chefs' how to cook. 

In tonights episode he actually gets a son to write a letter to his dad, this is in between his usual impromptu demonstrative rants to camera in a back alley while the kitchen behind him explodes.

The show only comes to light when Ramsay gets in the face of a complete dunce of a chef who blames Gordon because he couldn't cook a fried egg.  Like many of these modern 'reality' shows real liberties are taken with the editing, creating situations and events that clearly didn't happen; its so obvious a ten year old could see the plot holes. 

Get Ramsay back in the Kitchen and out of the bloody Samaritans and we might just save this guys career before it explodes in all our faces. 

6/10

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