For the past three summers, Fox has whipped up a deliciously spicy little reality treat, Hell’s Kitchen, starring the inimitable Gordon Ramsay as a complete and utter SOB.

The premise is simple: take 16 chefs (or wanna-be chefs) that want a big time restaurant of their own, make them work together in a restaurant while yelling at them every second of the day and night, and kick one off the show every episode, last person standing gets the restaurant.

It’s Survivor but with Simon Cowell replacing Jeff Probst and getting to be judge, jury, and executioner. Hell’s Kitchen does not play at letting the audience decide who will be eliminated, that choice rests with Gordon Ramsay alone.

On June 4, the third season of Hell’s Kitchen started up, and Ramsay was back to his old ways, ridiculing all 16 chefs, finding the weak members of the pack and picking them off. The teams were separated into the now traditional men versus women, and informed that the restaurant would open the next night.

True to form, once the restaurant opened, Ramsay was disgusted by the way the chefs were performing and shut down the kitchen and restaurant before even finishing serving the appetizers for all the tables. This ought not to have come as a surprise to the diners, as this happens every season, but more than a few seemed shocked by the poor quality of service. Ramsay declared the losing team to be the women, due to their inability to talk to one another, a huge pet peeve of the Chef’s, and to fry an egg. Ramsay, for some reason we are not privy to declares Melissa to be “the best of the worst” and asks her to nominate two people to be booted off the show.

Melissa meets individually with members of her team; everyone she speaks to wants Julia nominated because she’s a short order cook at a Waffle House (how do these people not like Waffle House?). Instead, Tiffany and Joanna are nominated, the first for not being able to fry an egg and the second for her lack of communication.

Nominating Tiffany is just wonderfully fun, because Melissa had specifically promised Tiffany during their conversation that she was safe, that there was no way she would be going home that night. Then, of course, Melissa nominated her. Needless to say, Chef Ramsay booted Tiffany. What a great opening backstab to the season. And, the true genius of it is that no one heard Melissa tell Tiffany she was safe, and so no one knows just how two-faced Melissa is.

Some would argue that Ramsay is overly cruel and relishes his role a little too much. I completely disagree. As the season progresses, Ramsay will start to show a softer side and will start to talk to and open up to the contestants. Don’t think that he’s just playing at being tough up front though, he may open up to people later, but he’ll still flay them if they disappoint in the kitchen.If there was a weakness to last night’s episode, it’s that it traded a little too much on knowledge of previous seasons. The rules, regulations, and procedures were not fully explained. There really isn’t a lot to understand, but to help bring in new audience members, it might have behooved the show to do a little bit more of an introduction.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 10:43 am and is filed under Celebrity Gossip, Movie Reviews, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

“One of you is going to run a restaurant and yet you’re all wimping around… and if you think tonight you have got your butts kicked, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

Gordon Ramsay is not known for his delicate communication skills, which makes for a tense work environment and some pretty good television. That’s right, Hell’s Kitchen is back for its third season.

If the season previews are to be believed, this edgy reality series may be pushing the boundaries for how far the mouthy Brit can go in the coming months. But, as Fox is known to do, I expect that the contestant mutiny and ambulance lights may not be as dramatic as they are hinting.

Still, the season premier was full of backstabbing, cattiness, and tears — from both sides of the kitchen. As usual Ramsay asked the would-be culinary stars to prepare their signature dishes, of which only two didn’t make him want to vomit. This never surprises me since Ramsay is such an epicurean snob and most of the contestants barely have any cooking experience.

Does a short order cook or a nanny/personal chef have a snowball’s chance of running their own fine dining establishment? I think not. This season’s cast seems weaker than most, however. There are fewer people with relevant experience and more with huge attitudes to make up the difference.

Ramsay then divided the contestants into red and blue teams: the women on red, the men on blue. Both teams were abysmal in the kitchen, with the red team exemplifying that cliché image of women baring their claws during competition, while the blue team overcooked all of its food and I don’t think even got an appetizer out to the dining room. Tears flowed on both teams, though it was Aaron, the Asian cowboy, who started things off and nearly seasoned his dish with snot.

But despite the men’s poor performance, it was the ladies who lost, probably due to their inability to work together. I don’t really think that was fair, since they sent a lot of their food out to mixed reviews while the blue team struggled the whole time.

Melissa was deemed the best of the worst and was tasked with nominating two to go home. After promising Tiffany she wasn’t going home, Melissa nominated her in the end and Ramsay sent her packing. This was a ballsy move for the first episode and it put Melissa on my radar as a formidable contender.

On the blue team, Rock is my favorite for winning the season. Last summer I predicted Heather would take the grand prize from the first episode. Rock, who is already an executive chef, seems the strongest player at this point. He knows the kitchen and the etiquette. But even he messed up on his signature dish. I guess we shall see.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 10:09 am and is filed under Celebrity Gossip, Movie Reviews, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.