Review: FOX's Kitchen Nightmares

I know this is a bit off topic for E.R. but I wanted to share some thoughts on a television program.  I have insights about others I'll likely share in the near future.

Typically, Americans crave ridiculous, over-the-top antics, makeovers of the mindless, and the idea that some outsider will come and save them in their hour of need.  Most don't want to be bogged down with the minutiae of accounting, receipts, and details necessary in running a successful business, they want quick, 45 minute answers. 

Television, reality television in particular, is often reflective of certain aspects of America itself.  "American Idol," for example, mirrors the U.S. political system with the "elites" Simon, Randy, et al choosing the candidates and then encouraging the masses to cast their votes, demonstrating their buy-in to this ludicrous system of promoting "talent."  The events are rigged for certain contestants to look the best and in the end, it isn't really a choice at all, but something pre-ordained by those behind the scenes with either winner being perfectly acceptable to the powers-that-be.  Sound familiar?

FOX's "Kitchen Nightmares" program is a show that includes all the worst elements of the evening news, the stingers before commercial breaks, the worthless interviews, the needless recaps, the time wasted giving advance notice of what is going to be on the program, the waving of the U.S. flag and the titillation of censored violence and then combines them with ridiculously "intense" music, zero-to-hero character arcs, and easy dispatching of the cardboard-cutout villains by the white knight, Ramsay himself.

BBC's "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares," on the other hand, has a slower, more thoughtful pace, better development of the owners and operators (even the "bad guys") as actual people, more intimate coaching sessions and better grasp on the nature of the restaurant business than its unsophisticated American counterpart.

On the FOX version, the episodes themselves are painted as such life-or-death, earth-shattering stories that you lose sight of the fact that these are restaurants, places in which you dine.  Yes, in many cases the owners have dumped all of their savings and dreams into one basket with the hope that it all pays off one day, but these are risks of business, and much like gambling, don't play with what you can't afford to lose.  The greater the risk, the greater the potential for gain.

By contrast, BBC's version allows the viewers to maintain a much more appropriate perspective and may even prove insightful to those mulling over entry to the dining industry.

Ultimately, I watch the FOX Ramsay programs because I enjoy Ramsay himself (although the "Ramsay Live" show was insipid), but if there were a way to raise the IQ of the show (and even Hell's Kitchen could use a little work) and make it less melodramatic I would enjoy the watching quite a bit more.

--M.A. Hargett