yep, you got dat one about right eric.

me & the wife watched it and couldn't believe how bad it was.

some of the premises are just so absurd, right down to the prize that the winner gets: let's face it, many of the contestants, no matter how well they do during the 'competition', just are NOT equipped to run a restaurant (well, maybe that executive chef dude).

it made me wish i was on the show, cooking him my "pasta from hell"...so that i coulda shoved it in his face. those habanero peppers burn baby!

I'd rather eat 'paste' than read another of your banal, misguided reviews on anything EVER, and why is it that you insist on referring to everything be it animal, vegetable or mineral , as a "bunch", "I've got a bunch of cleaning to do", "ooh there was a whole bunch of emotions going on", "so and so gave me a bunch of advice", BANANAS COME IN BUNCHES MATE!!!!! you should learn from Gordon Ramsay.

'Hey kids' go and learn how to float an idea and write a structured review, oh and while you're at it take the time to look up Gordon Ramsay's career, as unlike your own, it isn't a whole bunch of arse!.

Thanks Mark -- I should have mentioned that the show reminded me a lot of Andy Dick's The Assistant on MTV. It was basically an excuse for Andy to berate others for comic effect. I like Andy (I'd say I like Dick, but then we'd all get distracted, wouldn't we?) but that show was terrible. And Hell's Kitchen was worse as it landed zero comic effect.

Feed the Fat -- You caught me: I used the word "bunch" twice in this piece.

By the way -- I didn't quite catch what you thought was apparently great about the show.

hey ftf, why should we care about ramsay's career? the fact is that this show is just plain terrible.

hell, i'd rather watch al roker stuff his face fulla pork shoulder every night of the week.

at least it'd be genuine.

just seeing the commercial for the show made me want to gouge my eyes out. I mean, seriously. SHAME ON YOU, FOX. You cancel Futurama, yet this crap slide through.

The fact is that this is Ramsay's personality, not some act. Check out his British series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. He's a perfectionist, and the first thing these people need to learn if you're going to get your own restaurant is that you'd better damned well be a perfectionist because serivng crap will have you broke in a year like 90% of all the restaurants that open. Being a perfectionist is what got six of his seven restaurants one Michelin star and got the seventh three Michelin stars. That said, the only reason for watching this is to watch Ramsay.

Ramsay may run a good restaurant, but there's no compelling reason to watch the show. The reason why The Apprentice works is because Trump gets out of the way for 80% of the show and let's the players compete. Then he comes in at the end to joke/cajole/chastise/fire.

Some people may enjoy watching others brow-beaten for no reason (i.e. they're thrown to the wolves from Moment One and expected to be "perfect") but I just didn't find it very interesting.

I actually really liked The Restaurant and was disappointed when it was cancelled. It had a real element of human drama, and I felt an emotional stake in what was going on. With Hell's Kitchen, I could care less.

Eric,

You're right on target with this one. Also, I don't know how reality fans can trust Fox with another elimination/reality show after they pulled the plug in the middle of Big Fat Obnoxious Boss. That's inexcusable.

The show is the weakest (sausage) link ....

It's the clipped tones.

My girl described the set up and I knew it was a fake. Isn't Iron Chef much classier, better and resolved each week with another "battle" ready to serve up?

Without a ... bunch ... of smarm.

Temple -- You're right: Iron Chef is both fun and intense without the basic meanness that Hell's Kitchen serves up. Plus, it's got that wacky Asian TV vibe going for it.

Richard -- I didn't know that Fat Obnoxious Boss got pulled mid-stream. That's hilariously awful. And I'm not surprised at all that Fox was the culprit.

But that's interesting though. Wasn't Fat Obnoxious Boss basically a show where someone in authority basically demeans the contestants? Interesting that they'd go back for one more round of same with the H Kitchen.

And IC has a witty, handsome host many viewers love to watch. For all Ramsay's success, I find watching him in action unpleasant. Relentless cruelty, whether intended to be taken personally or not, is not fun to experience; it is torture to have to watch it. Thankfully, there is always the channel flipper. I saw the last half hour of the premiere of Hell's Kitchen. Never again.

That said, Spousal Unit thought it was funny. Then again, SU likes Bobby Knight, thinks he's a "character." Ugh.

Yes, I can imagine Hell's Kitchen being very popular with Bobby Knight fans!

I love the word "hella." The promos for this were enough to make me run screaming from the room: sounds like truth in advertising. Thanks EB!

The first time I heard "hella" was in the Bay Area in the late '90s. I do believe I said, "What the hell?" It rubbed me the wrong way for a spell, but now I kind of dig it. Same goes for "rad," I think.

There's a great South Park episode that features a lot of hella talk. I forget what else it was about.

South Park and No Doubt

feed the fat plank, i'm guessing you went through each and every one of Eric Berlin's articles and reviews both here and at dumpsterbust.com before you came to any conclusion with regards the worth of his writing. The thought of someone trashing a writer's work based on one review out of hundreds seems to me something of an act of arsery, especially if said someone were to then berate said writer for not taking the time to look over Gordon Ramsey's C.V before commenting on his latest work.

That would be a fairly ridiculous turn of events, i'd wager.

Nonetheless, Eric, whilst i haven't seen the US version of Hell's Kitchen, the UK one was incredibly succesful, although we didn't bleep the fuckery.

Your review works just as well for our version, alas.

Thanks Duke. And just so it's clear, I give Ramsay full credit for being very successful. I judged his new TV show on its own merits, however, and found it lacking. But if it floats your boat (or plank) I'd love to hear why.

I found the show thought provoking. Loved Dewberry, he is not 'everyman' but 'every(beaten-down)man'. Interesting character and I'm wondering where they will go with it. If only he could win against Satan and beat him at his own game. But I doubt that will happen.

I found it interesting when he was rude to the customers. Very pushing-the-envelope. Do some customers like to be abused? I wondered if he did that where he got famous - maybe it's all part of his schtick. For instance, if you got abused by Simon Cowell, you'd have bragging rights now wouldn't you?

Everyone gets abused by Cowell, so where's the bragging rights there?

The rudeness to the customers was obnoxious and hypocritical. Here we have Ramsay preaching his Doctrine about professionalism and excellence, and then the next moment he's far over-the-line rude to customers waiting several hours for "perfect" food to come their way.

Then we get into the issue of the nature of the customers -- and that's where I, as a viewer, feel I've been duped to the point of changing the station.

Where's Dewberry going? He's going to be sent home one of these weeks. But I'm not going to be around to see it.

You couldn't be more wrong about this, Berlin.

This show was quite entertaining, especially as summer reality fare goes.

Cruelty = ratings in reality TV and Ramsay was cruel but fair, which is probably why this show's being picked up for a second run next summer.

I'm a sucker for reality TV and cooking shows, but the high-pressure dinner services and the various cooking contests and the well-planned finale were all above-average as reality contests go. And Ramsay was entertaining.

The one quibble I had with the show was that the cast of contestants were mostly stupid, with no culinary background. And, quite predictably, it came down to the professional chefs. How can you expect people with no knowledge of a professional kitchen to learn and be inspired to cook? And you rarely saw Ramsay do any actual instruction or training in how to cook, just a lot of yelling when it wasn't done right. Some people (like fat, effeminate load Dewberry) were clearly there just as foils and they should really get a better, more competitive cast of characters for next summer.

I enjoyed watching this show, I admit.

That is all.

I only watched the first show, so perhaps it improved. However, by your comments, it sounds like the formula of super obnoxious task master meets stupid, servile underlings continued. That's one thing, but it was the obvious attempts to manipulate the audience (contrived heavily scripted scenarios, paid "diners," etc.) that really drove me away.

If people like this kind of low grade reality fare, all good and well for them. However, I'd much rather have something approaching a real competiton. For the time being, I'll stick with the two Apprentices and the stellar shows Bravo pumps out, such as Project Greenlight.

This show would have made sense if there were TRAINED CHEFS who knew what they were doing!

ON THE SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY I CANNOT GET THEM TO ACCEPT MY ZIP CODE. I KNOW IT'S THE RIGHT ONE.. TELL ME HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

I watch Hell's Kitchen every week!

You guys are lame for not liking it!

First of all, this show is definitely staged - you only have to look at the restaurant, the over-the-top behavior of everybody involved and the rest of the settings to realize this is fabricated for either our own "entertainment." Nevertheless Ramsay makes a complete ass of himself, even worse if you watch other programs involving him you'd realize how much of a two-faced prick he is.

To nunya, I think it's rather lame that Ramsay preaches professionalism for customer service in both the UK and US versions of Kitchen Nightmares, and yet in this show he abuses the customers. Even if this idea is admittedly funny, it still makes Ramsay look really bad.

Of course, any chef should be telling off their employees if they are found to be lagging behind in the kitchen or whatever but really, that shit with shoving dishes into contestants' chests and all the abuse that isn't even merited most of the time is just embarrassing and uncalled for.

Personally what makes this worse is ever since I discovered Ramsay on Nightmares, I enjoyed watching him and the show. In both the UK and US (although the American version is heavily edited) versions of Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay behaves like a consultant, giving appropriate advice and only lashes out against those who seem to deserve it. That was the message I was getting at least.

Hell, in one episode of the original Kitchen Nightmares, he confronts a co-owner of a restaurant in Wales and tells his concern for her fiery temper inside the kitchen and even towards customers; claiming she is ruining the business. Yet in this show he contradicts himself looking like a complete jackass, and you get the word "hypocrite" stuck in your head.

I love watching this show and I hope it stays on the air. There's certainly nothing wrong with Ramsay's being a perfectionist. As one of the above comments were - it wasn't a slacker that earned several of his restaurants the Michelin star. Ramsay is certainly somebody I'd want to prepare my next meal because I know for sure it would be great! So what the show is staged - that's what people want. If they didn't, they wouldn't watch!