Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares
Posted: January 23rd, 2008, 23:15
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is one of my favourite programmes on TV. Having worked in pubs and restaurants since I was 15, I've always been really interested in how different places run, and therefore seeing how Ramsay turns really shit places around appeals to me. There have been a couple of series in the past which were really good, and on Channel 4 just now was the first episode of the new American series. It fucking sucks the big one.
I knew it would be a bit different, but what I hadn't appreciated was that it would be such an American programme made solely for an American audience, and then screened here regardless. Therefore, in my opinion, it was farcical compared to the previous series. Every 30 seconds, it cut to a piece-to-camera done by whichever member of staff is involved in the current issue, and each fucking one had their name and job title at the bottom, just in case you couldn't remember who the owner was when you're 40 minutes into it. Loads of things were blurred out, such as various (but not all) customer's faces, the restaurant's phone number, car license plates, photographs on the wall. The programme didn't have the same flow or natural progression as was the case in the previous ones, and just all seemed a bit disjointed. As ever, the number of advert breaks didn't help either. In fact, even though they only had the normal UK number of breaks, the title screens for all the extra American ones had been left in, along with teaser bits for some exciting shouting that happens 3/4 of the way into the programme. That meant that when I saw that scene, it was the 4th time it had been shown in the programme.
Also, there wasn't the same initial emphasis on the food as as been the case in the past, and Ramsay does relatively little in the kitchen. This is something of a fundamental change as far as I'm concerned, and I think that the programme slipped into that trap of Jerryspringeritus, similar to Kill it, Cook it, Eat it.
The whole thing was just such a change from the previous series in the UK that I was really disappointed by it, and actually ended up switching off after a while. I'll certainly not bother with any more of the future episodes, and this makes me sad.
I knew it would be a bit different, but what I hadn't appreciated was that it would be such an American programme made solely for an American audience, and then screened here regardless. Therefore, in my opinion, it was farcical compared to the previous series. Every 30 seconds, it cut to a piece-to-camera done by whichever member of staff is involved in the current issue, and each fucking one had their name and job title at the bottom, just in case you couldn't remember who the owner was when you're 40 minutes into it. Loads of things were blurred out, such as various (but not all) customer's faces, the restaurant's phone number, car license plates, photographs on the wall. The programme didn't have the same flow or natural progression as was the case in the previous ones, and just all seemed a bit disjointed. As ever, the number of advert breaks didn't help either. In fact, even though they only had the normal UK number of breaks, the title screens for all the extra American ones had been left in, along with teaser bits for some exciting shouting that happens 3/4 of the way into the programme. That meant that when I saw that scene, it was the 4th time it had been shown in the programme.
Also, there wasn't the same initial emphasis on the food as as been the case in the past, and Ramsay does relatively little in the kitchen. This is something of a fundamental change as far as I'm concerned, and I think that the programme slipped into that trap of Jerryspringeritus, similar to Kill it, Cook it, Eat it.
The whole thing was just such a change from the previous series in the UK that I was really disappointed by it, and actually ended up switching off after a while. I'll certainly not bother with any more of the future episodes, and this makes me sad.