THE TASTE: First Thoughts on ABC’s New Kitchen Nightmare

The Taste (2013) – Episodes 1 and 2 – Starring Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre, and Brian Malarkey.

What the hell is this amateurish piece of dumbness?

ABC does drama very well, but reality shows very poorly. Much like their ill-fated and idiotic Duets reality show from last year, THE TASTE is another attempt by ABC to re-fashion NBC’s enjoyable The Voice into something similar. THE TASTE is not quite as awful as Duets, but that’s because watching people make food is more enjoyable than watching people sing.

THE TASTE is as poorly put together as you can imagine in a network reality show. The idea is a solid one – professional chefs and home cooks make four exact spoonfuls of food and four judges taste them without seeing the chefs. Like The Voice, the four judges press a button if they’re interested and then the chef/cook can decide which of the judges they want to work with in the second part of the competition. Once you get past the idea, however, THE TASTE completely falls apart.

Let’s start with how poorly the show is cut together. In the first episode, contestant after contestant is rejected by all four judges. It takes 43 minutes of pay time for every judge to get a contestant. The producers absolutely waste our time with pointless “get to know you” segments (something The Voice is guilty of, too), only to have them then get rejected across the board. What’s the f*cking point of getting to know people who are immediately cut? Do it once, sure, but time after time? Ugh. THE TASTE is assembled by people with no clue on how to build effective tension or characters. Here’s a thought – save the character development until you’ve actually added the cook to the show.

Second problem – cooking is not singing. We can all judge singing for ourselves, but we can’t judge cooking just by watching the cooks prepare it. We watch them cook, watch the judges eat, watch the judges give quick comments to each other, and then watch the judges give quick comments to the contestants. The comments to the cooks are really dumb. Over and over, it felt like I was hearing judges say things like, “The dish tasted fine, but that’s a no to me.”

What?

There was also several times that the judges (especially Nigella and Bourdain) said things like, “I wish we had a wild card! I made a mistake! I’m already regretting my decision!”

Why not have a wild card? It makes sense and it adds a level of tension. Given how many people get rejected, it would help get us through this tedious blind audition process quicker, too. And if these are professional food people, why are they so flipping wishy-washy – one minute the food gets a no and then after they see the person and talk to them it gets a yes?

There’s no host to THE TASTE, and as noxious as I find Carson Daly, THE TASTE could use someone standing by the cooks and hassling them as they rush to make their food. Absent that, THE TASTE could use a bit of urgency in the kitchen. This something MasterChef does really well; THE TASTE has a countdown clock but there’s no urgency here. I get no sense that these cooks are in any hurry to make anything. They all seem to be able to take all the time they want and then send up their food. Maybe that’s a more realistic and proper way to judge food, but reality television isn’t about the totality of reality, it’s about the manipulation and simulation of reality. Plus, why have a clock if you’re not going to do anything with it? Pointless. Utterly pointless.

That brings us to the judges. Having the right judges makes a huge difference; they need to work individually and with each other. That’s what The Voice does better than any other reality game show. Adam Levine, Cee-lo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton all have distinct, individual personalities that mesh well together, and the show is smart enough to subtly manipulate those relationships from season to season. While Blake spent much of Season 2 flirting with Adam, in Season 3 he spent more time flirting with Christina. You have four judges that people know, that have strong (if not totally positive) personalities, and they mesh well with one another.

MasterChef does an excellent job with judges, too. Gordon Ramsay has more TV shows than I have socks, but he’s become subtly different on each of them. Hell’s Kitchen Ramsay is the cartoon. Kitchen Nightmares Ramsay starts off as the cartoon and then becomes caring. Best Restaurant Ramsay is the food lover. And MasterChef Ramsay is the expert chef, paired with the ultra-serious businessman and the wacky, super-sensitive chef.

The judges on THE TASTE are a failure. Anthony Bourdain is a great writer and a great host, and he’s been a perfectly enjoyable guest judge on other shows, but he’s completely out of his element here. What Bourdain does best is to go out and engage food and culture; strapping him to a sterile desk and making him crush people’s dreams doesn’t work nearly as well.

To his right sits something called Brian Malarkey, who was a contestant on Top Chef: Miami back in the day. He’s the zany one, I guess? I don’t know. Every so often, he yells and pumps his fists and laughs like the most annoying person on a sitcom. He reminds of Willie Aames on Charles in Charge, except with a speed addiction.

Next to him is the only female judge, Nigella Lawson. She’s the nice one who is always waving the flag for home cooks. She’s nice and British and two seconds after she says something you forget if she’s talked or not.

The final judge is Ludo Lefebvre, who speaks with such a thick and unintelligible French accent that Batroc Ze Lepair can’t understand him. What’s most damning is that I think he’s the one real breakout personality here, but f*ck if I know what he’s saying half the time.

There’s almost no chemistry between the judges, either. Malarkey and Ludo have a bit of a back and forth, but it feels completely fake and contrived. It feels like no one here knows each other and thus they don’t know how to talk to one another.

The confrontation between the judges and the contestants are also completely insipid. They put the contestant in a freaking box (Bourdain calls it the “Chute of Terror” at one point) and have them listen to the judges talk to each other, and then the front panel opens so they can see the judges, but the producers keep the contestant in the box. It’s moronic and stupid and keeps the contestant at such a distance from the judges that it totally disconnects the person from their food. It’s just too much of a gimmick. There’s no reason why after the door opens the contestants can’t come and stand right in front of the judges. It just looks totally stupid, too, to have them stand in a box while they’re talking about their food.

Of course, looking stupid is what this show excels at. I absolutely hate the set of this show, which is total game show schlock. On The Voice, the people sing, and it’s done in a theater. That makes sense. On MasterChef, the people cook, and it’s done in what looks like a kitchen. On THE TASTE, the people cook, but it looks like a … a … spaceship, with all its silvers and blues. I know complaining about the color palette on a cooking show seems like a silly thing, and the idiocy of this kitchen isn’t what ruins the show by any means, but it’s like the person who put the set together didn’t realize that all that blue in such a cramped space with all that silver makes the food preparation look technical and soulless.

Honestly, why are they cooking in a spaceship?

Okay – an aside. I’m writing this as I’m watching the second episode and Anthony Bourdain just said the following:

“I love shrimp. I love shrimp and grits. I love your shrimp and grits. Unfortunately, I didn’t pick you for my team.”

Then what the heck is the point of the show? If you love someone’s food, why aren’t you selecting them for your team? This show is called THE TASTE – if you like the taste of someone’s food and you aren’t rewarding them for liking the taste of their food, then what the hell am I watching?

That just makes this show insanely frustrating. Time after time this happens. It is maddening. Utterly maddening. And it makes me not give a crap about this show.

Maybe I’ll check back in when they get past the auditions.

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My latest collection of reviews, ATOMIC REACTIONS: MARVEL COMICS ON FILM, is now available for purchase. I cover every Marvel comic movie, from The Avengers to Howard the Duck, from Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk to Ed Norton’s Hulk to Eric Bana’s Hulk to Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk. All the big budget movies are reviewed, all the 1970s made-for-TV movies are reviewed, and all the straight-to-video animated titles, too. Thanks for checking it out!

TAKE IT ALL: First Thoughts on NBC’s Utterly Repulsive, Mean-Spirited Game Show

Take it All (2012) – Season 1, Episode 1 – Starring Howie Mandel.

I hope everyone involved in making TAKE IT ALL walks outside tonight and every bird in the area sh*ts all over them at the same time, because that’s basically what this show does to their contestants.

As anyone who has read more than a single review on this site knows, I am not some kind of extreme moralist. There are some things that offend me to the point where I won’t watch them, however: Faces of Death, The Human Centipede, and TAKE IT ALL.

Do you see what I did there? Or rather, what I didn’t do? I didn’t say that I won’t watch offensive productions like Faces of Death, The Human Centipede, and Cupcake Wars. “The weather outside is frightful and we want cupcakes that are delightful,” said the smarmy host of Cupcake Wars just now on my computer. I’ve been watching Cupcake Wars for 24 minutes and it makes me hate cupcakes (which I used to love), corny one-liners (which I have a love/hate relationship with), and cheeseball hosts (which, honestly, I’ve always hated – I don’t know who this smarm in a scarf is, but he’s like Carson Daly mated with himself and raised the child solely on Carson Daly programming). Based on 24 minutes, Cupcake Wars is a horrendous show, but it’s problem is that it’s just dumb and overwrought and amateurishly put together.

That’s just a bad show; it’s not offensive.

By the way, if you’re the kind of person who routinely gets offended by entertainment – you know, if your’re a religious fundamentalist or part of the George Lucas Raped My Childhood crowd – go swim up a waterfall.

TAKE IT ALL, however, is offensive. It’s offensive because it’s a mean-spirited, emotional gladiatorial contest masquerading as a game show-slash-uplifting entertainment. It’s utter bullsh*t. It’s so bullsh*t, I actually ended up feeling kinda bad for Howie Mandel, who seems genuinely surprised when the losing contestants get upset.

And they get amazingly upset.

Here’s how TAKE IT ALL works: contestants select a gift and get a prize. Other contestants have an opportunity to steal that prize. The goal of each round is to not end up with the prize with the lowest retail value. In other words, it’s a Yankee Swap glitzed up for TV by adding bells, whistles, Howie Mandel, and crying. Lots and lots of crying.

I’ve never really liked the idea of a Yankee Swap (which is what we call it in New England – other regions apparently call this game “White Elephant,” which is not a good name for anything) going back to the Boy Scout Christmas parties we had when I was a kid. I just thought they were ridiculous and the antithesis of the Christmas spirit. Nothing about TAKE IT ALL changes my mind in that regard, and the fact that the goal of the show is not to end up with gifts you actually want, but simply the most expensive gift adds a layer of repulsiveness to the proceedings. At least most Yankee Swaps have a reasonable price limit: $5, $10, $20 – not $250,000 f*cking dollars. When a kid took your Hot Wheels it was because the car was awesome not because of the price tag. So score one for Yankee Swaps. Score two for Yankee Swaps in that most of them do not come with Howie Mandel blathering on in your face.

But I digress. Mandel is not the biggest problem with TAKE IT ALL, except as the show’s ringmaster he’s the guy manipulating everyone’s emotions. That manipulation merely exacerbates the underlying meanness of TAKE IT ALL, however, so whether contestants had Mandel or Daly or Seacrest or Philbin yammering away at them, the damage is done because of the show’s “take it all” format.

There’s nothing fun about this show because of the stakes involved. Mandel repeatedly tells contestants that winning this show, “can change your life!” The producers have chosen contestants, too, whose lives really will be changed if they win this show. The first episode had a female teacher whose husband lost his job over a year ago, a recent law school grad who’s interning and so doesn’t even have a paycheck coming in, a soon-to-be-father who shouts a lot, a Santa Claus-looking dude who plays the good Christian card, and a woman who screams and gets eliminated first so we can forget about her. The teacher and the would-be lawyer cry a bunch because their real lives are in tough spots and here they are, getting all of these expensive gifts given to them and then taken away.

It’s awful to watch.

Each round eliminates the person with the cheapest gift, but just because you survive a round doesn’t mean you get to keep your prize. If you get eliminated at any time during the competition, you lose everything.

Oh, get f*cked, Howie Mandel.

The lawyer makes it to the third round. She’s already won a beer cave and a mechanical bull, which, yes, are completely worthless gifts to this person, but hey, they weren’t the gifts with the lowest retail value, so obviously they’re better than the f*cking new Smart Car that got the male screamer eliminated. The lawyer made a point to mention she was single during her intro, and Howie referenced this constantly throughout the show. “A beer cave and a mechanical bull,” he blathered at one point, “you’re becoming closer to being every guy’s dream!”

Right, because her being a hot lawyer is a total turn off for guys.

The really repulsive part of the show came next, however, when Howie pulled the rug out from under her by taking away her beer cave and mechanical bull.

Sorry, Lawyer Woman, I guess no man will ever find you attractive enough to mate with!

The lawyer cries, though, because even if she didn’t want these gifts (and she clearly did not want the bull, as she tried to entice other contestants to steal it), having them represented a win a life that clearly (from her perspective) needs a win. And she had not one, but two wins, on the show, and then Mandel rips it all away and she cries and Howie F*cking Howie Mandel steps in and asks, “Why are you crying?” He says it in a way that seems to indicate he’s surprised that this woman is actually crying, and I don’t know if this makes me like him or hate him.

I think this says something about how bullsh*t has so totally enveloped certain aspects of our society that Mandel can, on the one hand, play up the “winning will change your life” angle, and on the other, be surprised when people are upset that their lives aren’t changed.

In the final round, there are two contestants left. They each have their stash of goods and they each have to make a choice, whether they want to take it all, meaning take both stashes, or just keep their own. If both contestants choose to take it all, nobody gets anything. If both choose to just keep theirs, they both get to keep their stash. If one chooses to take everything and the other chooses to just keep theirs, then the one who chose everything gets, well, everything, and the “keep it mine” contestant gets nothing.

This is entertainment?

Maybe if we were watching rich celebrities this would be humorous, because then it really wouldn’t matter if Richard Branson tricked Oprah into losing her new Prius, or if it turns out that Tom Cruise and LeBron James are really decent guys who want both of them to go home with some prizes.

We don’t get this, however, because we get people who really need some cash infused into their lives. At the end, Santa tells the teacher that he believes God has chosen for them to be here and for both of them to get something and he votes to just keep his. The teacher, who’s been crying and lamenting everything all show, tells Santa she doesn’t know if she can trust him and she’s almost crying again and blah blah blah.

She picks the “Take it All” option and he takes the just keep his option, meaning she gets everything and Santa gets nothing and, well, Winner Lady, congratulations on being a total b*tch. I’m sure you can buy lots of books with all that money you won, but all you really proved is that you were a really horrible person on a really horrible game show.

Enjoying crap like this probably means you enjoy seeing bad things happen to good people or love going to dog fights. Either way, you suck, just like TAKE IT ALL sucks. I would be hard-pressed to think of a show that has less holiday spirit on the air right now than TAKE IT ALL. I only watched this show because they had Mandel pop up on an episode of The Voice to plug it. I like The Voice because it’s a show about genuinely talented people who realize they’re lucky to be in this position. No one mocks them or tears them down and while they get emotional (and while Daly does do some emotional jerking around), The Voice is a show that celebrates talent.

TAKE IT ALL celebrates misery, so f*ck you, TAKE IT ALL, and here’s me wishing good aim to all the birds in your neighborhood.

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THE VOICE vs. DANCING WITH THE STARS: The Discovery and Recovery of a Career in the Showbizness

The Voice, Season 2 and Dancing with the Stars, Season 14 – Starring Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine, Christina Milian, and Carson Daly (The Voice); Tom Bergeron, Brooke Burke Charvet, Jaleel White, Katherine Jenkins, Donald Driver, Maria Menounos, Gladys Knight, Melissa Gilbert, Roshon Fegan, and William Levy.

I neither hate nor love Reality TV as a genre. I don’t watch a whole lot of it anymore (in part, because I don’t have cable), but I’ve certainly watched my share of it over the years. Reality TV has become a very diverse genre, with all levels of actual reality depicted in the programming, and encompassing everything from the absurd to the ridiculous. THE VOICE and DANCING WITH THE STARS represent two of the genre’s main staples: the talent competition and the celebrity spectacle.

Together, they provide a fascinating contrast in having a career in the entertainment industry. It’s easy to say that THE VOICE is about up and coming talent trying to find a place in the business while DANCING WITH THE STARS is about “celebrities” trying to recapture their place but that’s too easy and, honestly, a bit false. (And not just because I hate when people refer to these people as “celebrities” instead of celebrities.) THE VOICE is a vocal competition featuring “unknown” talent, but many of the contestants have worked in the industry; one of the contestants on this season, Juliet Simms, has apparently already had five recording contracts that didn’t stick. Likewise, while it’s true that DANCING features celebrities whose careers are not where they want it to be, there is a wide variety in what stage those celebrities are at: some are on the way up, some are on the way down, some are stalled, and some have nothing to prove to anyone.

Honestly, Gladys Knight is on DANCING. She doesn’t have to prove jack to anyone.

I haven’t watched either show before this season (other than a few random moments of DANCING) and I came to watch them for different reasons: I gave THE VOICE a watch because I’d heard good things about it, and I watched DANCING because I was in the middle of a massive essay grading marathon and was out of options in my Hulu queue. And, I’ll be honest, I was in the mood for a celebrity train wreck and I just don’t have the stomach to sit through Celebrity Apprentice, a show designed to make celebrities look like idiots for the glory of Donald Trump.

I was pleasantly surprised by both shows – I’ve become a huge fan of THE VOICE, a genuinely surprisingly emotional and talent-rich show, and instead of finding a bunch of desperate fame seekers making idiots of themselves, the cast of DANCING seem to be having a genuinely good time and putting in genuine work. What was most surprising to me wasn’t that competitors on THE VOICE were emotional about being sent home, but that the competitors on often DANCING were; Gladys Knight might not have to prove jack to anyone, but she was noticeably moved by her exit from the show.

The two shows have a lot in common; they’re both competitions, sure, but they’re also shows about honing one’s abilities and growing as artists, and there’s something really honorable about that. If you’ve poked around the Anxiety much, you know that I like to write fiction, and I’m always trying to get better. On this level, at least, the only difference between me, Juliet Simms, and Gladys Knight is that they’re trying to get better while also being on TV, so don’t expect me to mock what they’re doing.

THE VOICE is the better show and not just because it displays people with a singing talent in a singing competition, while DANCING consists of people with non-dancing talents attempting to dance. There’s something very powerful about where the competitors on THE VOICE are in their careers. Instead of being a negative that these aren’t industry virgins, the fact that Simms has had multiple recording contracts and that Jermaine Paul has been singing back-up for Alicia Keys adds something to the show because it offers various narratives to follow. Instead of a show like American Idol where every competitor is coming from the same place, THE VOICE’s decision to allow in professionals, to not have age restrictions, and to have the singers assigned to teams allows us to get to know them better, and to allow them (and us) to know the judges better.

The use of the judges as coaches is really the most brilliant move THE VOICE makes because it not only gives us the now tried-and-true role of celebrities sitting in judgment of non-celebrities, but it also invites them into the show’s narrative. They become invested in their team and competitive with each other, so it’s not just a matter of them sitting back and dictating. During the Blind Auditions judges can decide to offer their services to the competitors, so it quickly changes from the singers trying to impress the judges enough to get them to hit their buttons and turn their chair around (hence, the “blind” part of the audition – the judges can’t see the contestants while they’re singing, thus ensuring it’s all about their voice and not their look) to the judges having to convince the singers to join their team.

One of the most interesting aspects of the show is watching the judges squirm as they have to eliminate members of their own team. There’s an aspect of fan voting to the show in terms of advancing singers to the next round (and it’s tied to phone calls, Facebook, and iTunes purchases), but the judges have most of the power in deciding who to send home. I know it sounds awful to enjoy watching them squirm, but it makes for great television.

It’s also fascinating watching the judges interact with their teams. Blake Shelton’s approach is very brotherly and supportive and he seems to favor his artists singing songs from the 1980s. Unlike the other judges, he prefers to have his singers perform without big production numbers going on around them, and there’s a wonderfully funny ongoing joke on the show of him being utterly perplexed by the Cee-Lo and Christina’s singers sharing the stage with dudes on stilts and shirtless men. Of all the judges, Shelton is also the most aware of who he is; which is to say, “the country guy.” During the auditions he seemed uncomfortable about being “the country guy” and the burden that came with judging every country artist that sang on the stage, and pushed to have a diverse team of vocalists.

Cee Lo Green is the real star of THE VOICE, though. While Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera come off as Mr. I Hate to Make a Decision (even admitting this week that they always say how tough it is for them to make a decision) and Ms. I Revel In Making Decisions (a couple weeks back she dumped Jesse Campbell, her most talented singer), Cee Lo is the most personally invested in his team and also the most brilliant participant on the show. It’s all sorts of incredible to see him working with his team and his effect on the show. More than any of the judges, Cee Lo sees the big picture and knows how to position his singers in the competition. He also has the widest knowledge of music, so while Blake prefers the 1980s and Adam prefers more recent hits, Cee Lo helps his singers pick songs that they can emotionally connect with, and he must do some real coaching because his singers seem more attached to him than the other singers do with their coaches.

Also, this week he apparently couldn’t stop farting.

Over on DANCING WITH THE STARS, instead of the group of “celebrities” people like to delight in ripping on, there’s a real mix of celebrities at different stages in their careers. While not as emotional or compelling as THE VOICE, DANCING is a diversionary enough watch that alternates scenes of the celebrities training with their agitated dancing partners with their actual dancing performances.

What works about DANCING is that the show doesn’t take itself too seriously; some of the dancers take themselves way too seriously, but the show itself has a fun vibe to it, and the celebrities seem to have a real affection for one another. Perhaps it’s an act, but there is something bizarrely cool about seeing celebrities as diverse as Katherine Jenkins, Donald Driver, Gladys Knight, and Jaleel White hanging out, enjoying each other’s company, and struggling to learn how to dance.

That struggle is a big part of DANCING’S strategy – showing celebrities failing during training and then (hopefully) succeeding during their live performance. There’s three judges who aren’t there to offer real real critiques as much to be live action cartoons. There’s Carrie Ann Inaba, who tries to be the non-insane one and in the process comes off as nitpicky and desperate. There’s Len Goodman, who’s old and British and generally likes to say things that makes the crowd angry. And there’s Bruno Tonioli, a deranged Italian Pinocchio puppet come to life who thinks the shows exists solely for the 20 seconds he gets to talk about each performance. He’s occasionally funny and sometimes incredibly creepy, like when he asked Maria Menounos and Derek Hough after a steamy dance if a) they wanted a hotel room, and b) if he could join them for a threesome.

Maria Menounos doesn’t get enough attention for being pretty darn close to perfect: she’s hot, funny, self-deprecating, likes wrestling, and is from the home state.

Tom Bergeron is the host of the show and he sets the perfect tone for the show, keeping things moving and keeping everything light. Unlike Carson Daly over on THE VOICE, who’s probably a really nice guy but always comes off as the Eternal Douchebag, Bergeron manages to be both professional and relaxed.

Both shows deliver what they promise, but for me, THE VOICE is a show that I look forward to watching and DANCING is a show that’s been added to the queue to watch in the background when I’m doing other things. THE VOICE just has that perfect mix of celebrity, competition, talent, and narrative; I end up rooting for the singers and liking the judges, while over on DANCING I just sort of watch to be diverted from doing work.