Friday, September 21, 2007

BOTTLE OF WHITE, BOTTLE OF RED, PERHAPS A BOTTLE OF ROSE INSTEAD: Unfortunately, the American version of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares is a hideous failure in every possible way, with none of the charming stories of people in over their heads, none of the angst of folks whose dreams and livelihoods are tinkering on the edge of the dole queue, none of the brief glimpses into the nightmarish world of restaurant economics.

I love the original version, mind you. Gordon Ramsey would drop in (with a camera man and a sound guy) on a once-great restaurant in England or Wales, look what was going wrong, and try to help the owners turn things around. After abusing them for 10 or 15 minutes on the show, he'd find a few things that work and try to rebuild the restaurant from there. Strip down the menu, emphasize a new special service, get the kitchen staff to talk to one another, that sort of thing. Then he'd go on his merry way and see if those guys could put it right. Often as not, the restaurants would still fail. But other than the advice and perhaps some long-term publicity, the restaurant folks were there to make it on their own.

In the US version, Gordon Ramsey drops into an Italian restaurant on Long Island, and cleans up their mess for them. The show is heavy narrow shots of Italians screaming at one another and light on just about everything else. Sure, Ramsey tries to show the owners that the big brother is a lout whose both stealing money from the till and trying to regulate an untreated case of diabetes with bronzer and pineapple juice. But there's no analysis here, and no effort not to interfere. Instead, he tells them to switch to a family style menu, installs the business end of a Soviet N-1 in the kitchen, invites 150 people from central casting in to eat, declares victory and goes home.

Just as importantly, the emphasis on reality-style drama - overly long character sketches, the climax of a dispute with the out the build up - takes the show away from the very point. That is, what makes a restaurant work, and what doesn't. You may not have learned much from the UK version. You'll get nothing of that from this.

I love the original and may give this show a second chance. But I'm not very optomistic.

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