Hell's Kitchen
 

Hey,

Anybody watch Hell's Kitchen? I have watched a few episodes here and there, but after watching one of Ramsey's "Kitchen Nightmares", I thought I would like to actually watch a whole season of Hell's Kitchen and what better way than to start at Season 1?

Anyway, I just wanted to see what you thought of the show if you watched it, what is the best season, etc.

I enjoy it quite a bit, even though sometimes Ramsey goes a bit overboard. ;)

I keep up with the current season (5) whenever new episodes get uploaded to Hulu (typically late Thursday/Friday). I watched a bit of season 4, but mostly skipped around instead of watching entire episodes.

Really, the only reason to watch this show is to see Ramsey blow up at the incompetent chefs. There's not really much interesting cooking going on to speak of, and I'm fairly sure the producers select candidates based on their potential for being huge annoying douches on camera. I guess the only reason I keep up with the current season is to see if the person I want to get owned gets canned by Ramsey.

In any case, pretty standard entertainment for this sort of thing. I've also watched a couple episodes of Kitchen Nightmares and I think that has a lot more merit. Same amount of Ramsey wringing out incompetent people, but with more meaning. I wonder when the third season will hit?

I love Gordon Ramsay, so naturally I watch this show here and there. Actually, I've pretty much kept up with the 4th and 5th [current] seasons, but didn't really watch before then. Between this and Kitchen Nightmares, there's enough Chef Ramsey explosions to go around. :tpg:

Hell's Kitchen is probably one of the few shows I make a point to catch, and I have watched it since the beginning. It's always entertaining to hear Ramsay call someone a stupid fucking donut donkey. But yeah there isn't actually a whole of lot amazing cooking going on, there's probably 2 or 3 chefs on any given season that seem really competent..the rest flounder and fuck up a lot. Like that one girl on this current season, Lacey..she was a waste of time and a spot on the show, but good TV.

I like Kitchen Nightmares as well, but I prefer the UK version mainly because it seems to be more about the struggle/process with Ramsay to bring the restaurant up to standards and help the cooks rather than showing people yelling at each other with lots of drama in the US version. I watch HK for the drama.

I really liked seasons 3 and 4. Had the most "interesting" people to me, most entertaining drama. s3 had that Asian guy who cried a lot, and s4 had that loudmouthed bitch Jen+cute little toilet brush Louross. I was going to say season 2 until i realized I don't remember shit from it other than that one female competitor that was good friends with the winner died.

I watched the UK version as well. I haven't seen the US one.

I've been watching since late in the third season, and I have to say it's definitely worth watching more for the hilarity than any other aspect (this is not high quality television by any standard, but it's certainly better than most of the crap found on VH1 and the like these days). As for Kitchen Nightmares, I've seen both the US and the UK version, but I just can't really get into it.

Don't spoil it Rock! I have to get through the seasons first... Please spoil cover if you can. :D

Should be exciting nonetheless.

I didn't think that would be considered a spoiler since most people said they were watching the current season, but I guess I'll spoiler it for you.

Wicked, thanks. :D I will try and get through the rest of the seasons ASAP and then we don't have to worry about that.

I wouldn't put Paula out of the running to win.

Man, I am on the last couple episodes of season 1... Man, episode 7 and 8 were awesome! Down to the final three! I have no clue who is going to win this one! On to Season 2 this weekend!

Well, season 2 was a bit of a let down. Definitely not as good as season one. Getting Season 3 right now! Should be able to catch up in the next week or so and then I can read all the spoilers! Yay!

So

Absolutely sucks. Would've loved for that guy to stick around. Only got to catch the ep recently. Now left is two guys full of themselves, one consistent girl, and one fucking lucky ass wreck who really should've gotten the boot by now. Damn. And of the two guys, one fucked up a bit and was at big risk for going home... I'm pulling for the consistent girl at this point, and I guess the guy who didn't screw up for runner-up since he is actually pretty good..

I didn't know Ramsey still did Hell's Kitchen in America. Over here he was replaced by Marco Pierre White, who is a fucking legend. Sadly, they focus more on the celebrities than the cooking but it's still pretty entertaining.

They recently showed a load of the American Kitchen Nightmares over here and it's a quite different programme to the UK version. As has been said, the US version is more about people shouting at each other, then one night of service and the end. In the UK version it's more about incompetent people than angry ones and Gordon revisits the restaurant a month or so later as part of the show so you can see if they actually stayed successful. One thing the US version is better for is how hilariously arrogant some of the restaurant owners are, presuming they know their (Failing) business better than the guy with Michelin stars and a string of very successful business. I don't think Americans are quite as used to being sworn at either. Also, there are like twice as many obvious advert break spots in the US version and NTSC programmes are ugly as sin.

But yeah, Ramsey's a legend, it's between him and Heston Blumenthal as to who my favourite chef-turned-tv-personality is and I'd love to eat either of their food.

I prefer the European one by a pretty fair margin as far as Kitchen Nightmares goes. Like you said, the American one is basically all about Ramsay yelling at ridiculously arrogant owners and them getting all pissed off. It's good for a laugh now and then, but I'd rather they didn't focus as heavily on the artificial drama.

The American version of Kitchen Nightmares does have Ramsay return to some restaurants to see if they've stayed successful, though I think it only happened once. Maybe most of the restaurants tanked, I dunno. Either way, it was great to see the ones that were successful. Ramsay's a tyrant in the kitchen but so charming outside of it, and it's nice to see him be happy for those who've managed to turn things around.

Hell's Kitchen: