Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)
| Hell's Kitchen | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Gordon Ramsay |
| Starring | Gordon Ramsay, Scott Leibfried, Mary Ann Salcedo |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 30 |
| Production | |
| Producer | Granada America |
| Running time | Approx. 42 minutes (60 minutes with commercials) |
| Original release | |
| Network | FOX |
| Release | May 30, 2005 – Present |
| Related | |
| Hell's Kitchen (UK) | |
Hell's Kitchen is the name of a cooking-based reality show. It is based on the original Hell's Kitchen, broadcast in the UK.
The show debuted its first season in May 2005 and has since debuted a new season in June of every year. FOX recently casted for seasons 4 and 5.[1] Both seasons are currently in production due to the Writers Guild strike with season 5 estimated to air in 2009.
Broadcasting
The US version of Hell's Kitchen stars Gordon Ramsay. Its theme song of the show is "Fire" by the Ohio Players.
The show was taped in Los Angeles at KCOP, in a converted former television broadcast facility that previously hosted shows such as The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough in the late '70s to the mid '80s.
Profanity
Profanity by Ramsay at the chefs, and sometimes even at the customers, is quite frequent on the show. Due to regulations in the United States regarding profanity and broadcasting, the episodes as aired in the United States employ bleep censoring and pixelization to mask the profanity.
In Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Finland, Korea and the Netherlands, all the profane language is transmitted uncensored. After the season is complete it is aired in the UK a few months later. It airs after the UK 9pm watershed and therefore all profanity is also transmitted uncensored.
Format
The format of the program was the same as the UK version, with a red team and a blue team competing in various cooking challenges for most of the season; once the number of remaining players are small enough, they become a single black team and compete individually. The restaurant's Belgian maître d’, Jean-Philippe Susilovic, came from Petrus, one of Ramsay's London restaurants. Jean-Phillipe was also the maître d’ for the first UK series of Hell's Kitchen. Each team also had the services of one of two sous-chefs: Scott Leibfried and Mary Ann Salcedo.
Each episode includes a team or individual challenge; the winning chef or player may get a reward, while the losing team or players are required to perform some kitchen duty in preparation for the dinner service. During dinner service, teams are responsible for preparing food to Ramsay's very demanding taste and appearance requirements as well as within a limited time frame. Ramsay may throw away a complete dish due to one element being off, requiring the team to reprepare this dish. If Ramsey sees failure in the kitchen, he may force one player to take over for another. If the entire kitchen is in a debacle, Ramsay may completely shut down the dinner service prematurely. After the dinner service, Ramsay will select the winning team who may get an additional reward, and then will select the best player on the losing team to make a decision about which two fellow teammates to nominate for elimination. Alternatively, if the service is so bad, Ramsay may declare no team the winner, or no specific player on the losing team as the best, requiring the team(s) to nominate someone for elimination. When the game is down to a single team but still more than three people, the winning player will select the two to be nominated. Each nominated player has a chance to plead their case to Ramsay, but Ramsay makes the final decision, at which point the eliminated player hands over their chef's jacket.
When the competition is down to the final two players, Ramsay will split Hell's Kitchen into two sections, each their own separate restaurant, with each contestant allowed to choose the decoration, style, and menu for their restaurant. Six previously eliminated contestants return to help the two finalists to prepare the meals. Ramsay will use his observations of how the finalists worked in the kitchen and with their teams, as well as feedback from the patrons of each restaurant, to select the ultimate winner of the show.
Seasons
Season 1: 2005
The first season premiered on May 30, 2005 and was completed on August 1, 2005. The winner of this season was Michael Wray, while the runner-up was Ralph Pagano.
Season 2: 2006
The second season premiered on June 12, 2006 and was completed on August 14, 2006. Starting this season, teams were divided by gender. The winner of this season was Heather West, while the runner-up was Virginia Dalbeck.
Season 3: 2007
The third season premiered on June 4, 2007 and was completed on August 13, 2007. The restaurant got a makeover since last season. The winner of this season was Rahman "Rock" Harper, while the runner-up was Bonnie Muirhead.
Season 4: 2008
The fourth season of Hell's Kitchen will begin on Tuesday April 1, 2008 at 9/8c.[2]
Critical reception
Reality television journalist Andy Dehnart has called Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen television series a boot camp for aspiring chefs and has stated that the show is mostly about humiliation. However, he finds the humiliation entertaining and often funny.
To cite an example, Dehnart writes that Ramsay replied to a rude customer who asked for more pumpkin by saying, "Right. Well, I’ll get you more pumpkin and I’ll ram it right up your (explicative) arse! Would you like it whole or diced?" Another example is when a chef misheard an order, forcing Chef Ramsay to repeat it. Ramsay yelled, "Would you like me to (explicative) email that to your BlackBerry? Move your arse!"[3]
References
External links
- Official Website at FOX.com
- Gordon Ramsay Podcast Interview
- Hell's Kitchen USA at itv.com