Hell's Kitchen

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Any other fans watching season 6? Anyone else thinking that Tennille is a pathetic caricature of a black woman written by someone who doesn't like black people (and by extension that Tennille, like Jen before her, is a plant to boost controversy?)

Anyone think that Joseph is either also a plant or the biggest douche on the planet, followed closely by Van?

Does anyone else get hungry watching the show?

 

I hear you - -I'm almost of a mind to not watch until it gets down to the final 4 or so once all the dipsticks have been eliminated.

 

It would appear that working in a fine dining kitchen is a high stress job, so many of them smoke to relax themselves.

I'd never want to work for Ramsay -- he may well be a great chef and all, but I don't believe there are any circumstances when belittling, insulting, or haranguing your staff is necessary or even useful. He's a tin plated little dictator with a God complex.

But it sure is fun to watch, especially the stunts that some of the chefs pull. Or, even better, the mean things Ramsay does to the losing teams -- my favorite one was when he made a chef named Rock come in and take out the trash -- the guy was so arrogant and Ramsay cut him down hardcore.

 

My wife records all of the seasons on the DVR. I can't stomach reality TV. Uck! But the very little I have seen of Chef Ramsay is that he is a gigantic a-hole.

 

On the recent seasons he's been a little bit nicer to people when having them leave the show, but in seasons past he's been brutal -- to people who've been nothing but deferential to him, he's said stuff like "take your jacket off and get the eff out of Hell's Kitchen." I see no call for that sort of cruelty. it's one thing when someone is acting like a prick and getting up in your face, or flat out ignoring you, but comments like "stupid donkey", "cow", and the like are not the hallmarks of a good leader. At least, not IMHO.

 

My wife loves all these shows. Our MySky is chockfull of all the restaurant/kitchen/fashion/top model/hair dresser/stylista "reality" shows like this, as well as anything with Gordon Ramsay in it. Strangely enough, we never watch Survivor.

 

Funnily enough I was having this very conversation with a friend yesterday, who kept insisting that Ramsay is very nice and polite on all his TV appearances. Even after I had given her examples of some of his not-so-nice comments, including explaining to her why one of his shows is (was?) called "The F Word", she insisted the F stood for Food and refused to see the double meaning. His arrogance and general obnoxiousness in The F Word and Kitchen Nightmare always stands in the way of me being able to see him as a competent chef.

 

That's exactly what I was telling her Tal

At first I thought the shows are edited differently in North America or that they do completely different restaurants (would make sense, as I can't imagine Americans being very interested in a restaurant in Brighton, or vice-versa) as I only watched him when I used to live in the UK. However from other people's comments here it's clear they're either the same shows or if they're not he's got the same rude and obnoxious personality on both sides of the pond. So yeah, I've no idea where she got that idea from.

 

I don't watch the show anymore, but Ramsay is awesome. I always love it when he was a guest on Jay Leno. One time they were making pasta together on the show...funny as hell!

"Jay...what the F*** are you doing?!?!"

 

I have been almost a fanboy of Gordon Ramsay and watched pretty much everything but the earlier stuff is far superiour to the later. Now he is more or less just a cariacture of himself. Try to find the original British "Kitchen Nightmares" if you want some top class Gordon Ramsay, much better than the American "extreme kitchen make-over" version where the problems are fixed by a big pile of cash from the network instead of changes and hard work.

As for Hell's Kitchen I have enjoyed it a lot but as has been pointed out each season is a little duller and more generic than the previous and Ramsay seems to be more of an actor than just himself.

 

I agree completely, jaoquin. I became a big fan of his last year when I stayed a month with a relative who had BBC America, and they showed reruns of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares every day. I love the original, since it's shot in a more documentary style and humanizes the characters.

The Americanized version - titled simply Kitchen Nightmares - isn't near as good, since they play up the drama and use all sorts of dorky reality-TV-cliche quick cuts and overdramatic music. Hell's Kitchen is OK, but all it is is Ramsay being a dick. There's no heart in it, all drama - and therefore you don't really want the contestants to succeed; the best they can hope for is to survive. I hate that kind of television.

 

Oh, I don't know about that -- there's some contestants I want to succeed and others I love to hate and cheer when they go down in flames. Last time I was deeply disappointed when Petrozza lost to that snotty little girl, as I thought the guy had class, style, skill and moxie. And I didn't like her as much, though I didn't dislike her as much as I did Jen or Matt.

 

You're probably right. I've admittedly only seen a few episodes of HK, and the emphasis seemed to be on Ramsay berating remarkably untalented chefs while dramatic DUN-DUN-DUUUUH, SWISH!!! music plays in the background. I prefer Top Chef, personally. These are (usually) real chefs who get sophisticated and constructive criticism, which considering my art school background is far more engaging, for me anyway. In that kind of situation, if a contestant gets berated and humiliated, they really deserve it. Ramsay seems to unleash on people for taking 3 whole minutes to make a Risotto rather than 2:35. But hey, ratings is ratings.