Kitchen Nightmares - 10/03/07

Not a bad episode, I suppose.

This episode seemed to be more "reality TV" than the previous two episodes. The way it was edited makes me believe that the shouting event did not actually occur during the dinner service... it looked like they cobbled together 2 or 3 "diner being surprised" shots with the footage they recorded earlier in the day.

I think this week really showed me what bugs me about the ending to these episodes. In the US version, there's lots of overly dramatic narrator telling us about how well everything worked out... but in the BBC version, they simply show Gordon going back after a few weeks, and you can instantly see what worked, and what didn't (particularly evident in the BBC episode where the restaurant had gone into receivership). Like any good storyteller would say, "SHOW US, don't tell us!"

Plus, this week seemed like they went way, way overboard in trying to sell the "happily ever after" ending... the bit about "their marriage is as strong as the restaurant" was completely ridiculously schmaltzy... and the whole bit with Gordon Ramsay sponsoring the race? It might have happened, but it just seemed very staged and fake.

BBCA aired an episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares this afternoon. After watching them back to back, all the reasons why I hate the FOX version become even more apparent.

While it definitely seemed like they toned down the music this week, it still relies far too heavily on canned diner reaction shots to get its point across and those ridiculous "Still to come" previews for the ADD crowd among us.

I still hate the fact that they establish a clear villain so early in the show and subsequently fail to examine other possibilities for the restaurant's failure, at least not in-depth. The BBCA version showed us examples from the misguided menus and focused more on the shortcomings of the restaurant's daily operations.

They need to cut down on the schmaltz and do a real "x weeks later" segment, rather than throwing that in as an afterthought. Getting out of New York should be a priority, but looks like they're in Long Island next week. And I'll say it again: that narrator needs to go NOW.

It just sucks to see a show with so much potential fail so spectacularly.