Hell’s Kitchen is back on Fox for its 11th season and last week I was on a conference call with Gordon Ramsay who talked about the changes for the show that airs tonight at 8p.
Unlike some other reality shows producers/stars, Ramsay is willing to learn from his competition. The renowned chef talked about his own network competition helped him to change things for the better on his show. He said, “I insisted this year that we have a little bit more mentoring, and you’ll see sort of week six or seven when we sort of start focusing on the real talent. You’ll see how we almost took a leaf out of Idol’s book and X Factor. I really wanted to get these guys good, because the better they look, the better we look. Yes, I’m always sort of defensive when they get criticized they’re not real chefs. They are real chefs. They just want an amazing break.” It will be interesting to see him play a bigger part in their prepping for the ultimate job of working for him in the upcoming weeks.
Then there is a show on another network that influenced him. He said “I also like The Voice. Over the last 18 months where the actual judges physically get off their chairs and stand up on the stage and perform in front of their contestants. And that’s exactly what I started doing in Hell’s Kitchen the way that I thought, look, you just see me now as this guy that is fronting a program, but you’ve got no idea I’ve made more mistakes than all of you put together. I continue pushing myself to the full extent, and more importantly I can cook and here’s why. So I like that vulnerability and I think you’ll see that after sort of maybe week six or seven when you start honing in this talent to how good they are.” A good chef is always to learn from others and we all know he is a good chef.
But one thing he doesn’t learn about from Hell’s Kitchen is something that might surprise you as much as it surprised me. Does he watch what the contestants do when they are not in the kitchen? He said “I based only and purposely took a decision eight years ago not to get engaged with what happens off set. I’ve always maintained, I run a restaurant and Fox runs a show, so it’d be very unprofessional of me to start delving into what goes on in terms of the characters and the personalities. I judge everyone from an equal playing field.” Then he explained even more so, “It’s too easy to get obsessed with what goes on in the dorm, but that doesn’t interest me because that doesn’t sort of make any difference to me. When I open that restaurant, when we do the challenges, when we set the menu, which I’m totally involved in far much more this year than ever before, it’s always done as a professional chef basis, so I don’t want to look like I’m two-faced. I’m sneaking sort of behind the scenes to find out what I like, so I can have a different view of them when they walk back into the kitchen, so no.” After watching what goes on in the dorms, I think he should reconsider that. There are people on the show I would never want to work with because of all the tension they cause with their fellow competitors.
And he should pay more attention to what goes on when they are not with him especially if he plans on going on the road with a few of the contestants from the show’s long run. That’s right, he ended the call with this little tidbit, “You know, it’s a very good question. I’m looking at a potential live tour in the summer of 2014 where I’ll actually go around sort of 25, 30 cities and actually do a sort of Gordon Ramsay Live.” I’ll be there, just like I have been with him every Tuesday at 8p with Hell’s Kitchen and Fridays at 8p with Kitchen Nightmares and this summer with Hotel Hell and MasterChef!
Hell’s Kitchen is back on Fox at 8p tonight with a 2 hour premiere and you don’t want to miss a yummy second of this show.
Over the years I have watched many reality competition shows and little by little I have given almost all of them up. The only ones I can’t get enough of are the ones that Gordon Ramsay is a part of, and I won’t be parting with Hell’s Kitchen anytime soon.
The 20 hopefuls, who are vying to be a head chef at Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, are flown out to LA, but they never leave the airport. That because Ramsay is flying them all out to Las Vegas to try something different. He is going to make them to do the signature dish competition in front of a live audience there. How will they handle the pressure? Let’s just say it gets their burners started. Especially the losing team that suffers greatly as they head back to LA. The winning team on the other hand will experience the life of luxury in the city of sin. And yes what happens to them in Vegas won’t stay there because they will share every hot detail with the losing team.
Now that the teams have moved into their dorms, we find out that one of them is little “coo-coo” even thought she claims she isn’t. When you see what she does, you will side with all of her roommates and me. The next morning she will wake up sick and assume the team put something in her orange juice. Will she be well enough to continue on or will she go home?
We will find out in the second hour when the show really starts cooking. The 20 contestants prepare a dinner service and it goes just as you would expect it to on Hell’s Kitchen. Let’s just say Ramsay screams “Get out!” a lot and not everyone is going to listen.
Then it is time for someone leave the show. Which team do you think will be sending someone home, the men or the women? You have to tune in for a shocking elimination on a show that gets better with each season.
Even though the show is in it’s 11th season, Ramsay understands you have to change things up and he does them for the better. So watch the one competition show that keeps getting hotter the longer it is on!
BTW Gordon Ramsay and the 20 contestants will be live Tweeting during the show, so if you want to follow the contestants then click here!
Tonight at 8p on Fox Gordon Ramsay goes to Salem, Massachusetts to help one of his scariest Kitchen Nightmares so far. La Galleria 33 is owned by two sisters who thought they could open a restaurant because their parents have one across the street. Well they are wrong and they desperately need Gordon’s help. Only problem is they really don’t want to hear what he has to say even though as usual he is right. Their food is so bad the staff tries to warn the costumers about it. The once fired bus boy acts like he manager and the owners refuses to fire him again. Then there is the kitchen staff that think it is OK to serve food that fell on the floor. When Gordon tells the owners about it, they don’t see anything wrong about that. Seriously it is more shocking to watch then to read about. By the end of the night, Gordon has had it with these sisters and we won’t know what happens next because that part airs next week. When you see how delusional these sisters are about their restaurant, you will understand why the season premiere has to be a two parter.
Then at 9p on Fringe, Walter thinks he knows where the secret to save the world is hidden after they uncover a new tape in the amber. Peter, Olivia and Etta will risk their lives to go where he thinks it might be. On the way they will hook up with Agent Broyles and we find out a secret about him. Then by the episode someone’s name who I mentioned above will not make it to the series finale. That’s right someone dies and be prepared to have your heartbreak even more than it did when you found out this will be the Fox show’s final season. Fringe is definitely going out with a bang and tonight’s episode is strong the from beginning until the end.
Tonight is the season finale for MasterChef on Fox at 9p and one of the final two contestants was actually eliminated from the show. 6’11” Josh Marks was actually eliminated midway through the run of the season and then he got a phone call that changed everything. Last week I was on a conference call with him and I asked him what that was like. He said, “Well, I didn’t know I was coming back to compete. I thought I was coming back to cheer. They said we were coming for some press and media stuff, so I was under the impression that I wasn’t competing anymore.”
As we know he competed with several other eliminated contestants and won his way back on to the show and into the finals. So does he feel he deserves to be up there with fan favorite Christine Ha? He said, “It just feels right, because my elimination to me I felt like it was the bad situation, but I feel like I proved myself leading up to my elimination, and even after my elimination, I deserved to be there no matter what anybody says.” You know I actually thought about what he said, and I think he is right. He was the only Chef who constantly took a risk by changing up what he was given and Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliot all enjoyed what he served them. I might be Team Christina, but he definitely earned the right to be in the final two and we will have to tune in to see if an eliminated contestant could actually win the whole thing…
Tonight is already the season finale of Hotel Hell and Fox is giving it a two hour send off starting at 8p. In the first hour Gordon Ramsay goes to the River Rock Inn in the Poconos that when he uses a blacklight in his room it looks like an episode of CSI. Not only are the sheets covered with stuff you don’t want to know about it, there are also living and dead bugs all over the place. In fact a roach does a dance for him as he sits on the toilet. It is so bad, that you think this might be the hotel that does Ramsay in. Will he be able to turn Hotel Hell into a place you will want to stay at, or is this Inn that just can’t be saved? You have to tune in for an episode that will make you bring a blacklight with you whenever you go on a vacation.
