Cable TV Cooking Reality Shows

Well…they’re back. Looks like Battle of the Cable Cooking Reality Shows. I read somewhere that Top Chef was the all time high rated show of its type last year. So I guess that the other shows want a piece of that action. Looks like the new Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen and Next Food Network Star shows are all starting around the first of June.

I hate to admit it, but I like these shows. Now, if only they can find some contenders with a bit of class? But maybe they need a few troublemakers and primadonnas thrown in for drama.

Richard

My favorite TV cooking reality show was the very first seasons of The French Chef back on educational TV (before it was called "public television"). The budget was too low to allow re-takes of anything that didn't come out right, so it was "reality TV" in the true sense of the word. You got to learn all sorts of little techniques for correcting things that have gone wrong.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Didn't like the second and avoided the third, but I did enjoy Top Chef.

Do you watch other reality shows, Richard? I will admit to having become quite enamored with the concept and also watched every episode of Top Design on HGTV thanks to my new DVR.

Do you watch other reality shows, Richard?

Nope, just these Jenise. I've managed to not get hooked on any others. So far anyway.

But the era of digital recorders makes it almost too easy to try out different programs. Just record, then watch at your convenience..turn on... fast forward for a brief preview...then go back and watch if you like it or erase it

Richard

[Jenise]

Richard, the DVR does make it easy. Another show I watch, thanks to that machine, and which I didn't think of as a reality show but probably fits in that genre, is After Hours. It's a half hour program on which Daniel Boulud organizes after hours (midnight or later) dinner parties in top New York restauarants. The guests are a collection of other chefs, media people and celebrities. You don't learn anything, it's more of a fly-on-the-wall kind of experience, and an episode lasts about as long as it takes me to eat a late morning meal. It's showing on some channel called Mojo, and I don't know when except that it's not regular--I set the DVR to pick up the series, but some weeks it gets no episodes while others it picks up 2 or 3.