I’ve got a massive deadline looming and a five-month old who insists on waking at 4:30 a.m., so I spent tonight doing the only conscionable thing: I watched the finale of Hell’s Kitchen. To be sure, this isn’t that unusual. Reality television, even the non-sweeps stuff, consumes an ungodly amount of my leisure time. Scotsman Gordon Ramsay, the brutal Calvinist head chef who runs Hell’s Kitchen with a studied authoritarianism, is a compelling host. Like any good Great Leader, he inspires fear and respect. (To be sure, the Fox show doesn’t really compare to Ramsey’s far rawer, far more authentic BBC show, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares Revisited.) It goes without saying, but Hell’s Kitchen suffered from an extraordinary number of the genre’s clichés. I wasn’t surprised in the least when the vanquished contestants returned (Apprentice style) to assist the two finalists in their showdown. Nor was I left hanging on my seat when Fox cut to commercial breaks at all the tensest moments. That said, the show has a whiff of meritocracy that makes it rare in the reality genre. Ramsay, unlike, say, Donald Trump, isn’t a poseur. He wanted to reward quality and fairly searched it out. There were no unreasonably good-looking contestants who survived deep into the competition. The winner, Michael, is covered in rather unseemly tattoos. (Do you really wanted those inked up hands working their way through your foie gras?) As far as I could tell, he is an arrogant ass.
The show raises a question that you might help me answer. What is it about the nasty, priggish Brit–here I’m thinking of the Weakest Link bitch, Simon Cowell, and those omnipresent nannies–that makes them such a stock character on American television?
posted by Frank.
The Dish 