‘Hell’s Kitchen’ review: A structural flaw

In some ways, it’s hard to really write a blow-by-blow of Tuesday night’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” mostly because the show was by and large the same as it has been year after year: there was a dinner service, people messed up, and Gordon Ramsay repeatedly came up with a new way to humiliate some of the contestants during dinner service. He also managed to send out both teams from the kitchen, even though it would seem easier in theory just to send out the two from each group that were making mistakes. (Then again, the rules here constantly change.)

What we mostly want to talk about this week as a problem weighing down the show is simple: the edit. Specifically, the inane practice of revealing eliminated chefs at the start of episode, and then sticking a “to be continued” on the end.

Let’s look at it from this perspective: Jeremy was sent home at the start of this episode over mistakes that happened during the breakfast challenge, but so much has happened since last week that not everyone who is watching this show really remembers all of it. Therefore, his exit doesn’t mean as much. In eliminating no one at the end, there goes the talk of “did Ramsay send home the right person?” that we’re so used to having. Maybe there’s evidence that this boosts ratings, but from this standpoint it seems as though the people who watch “Hell’s Kitchen” are going to keep watching, and they don’t need two straight cliffhangers to make it happen. We sort-of understood the last one since the challenges happened on the same day, but this one is baffling.

Nonetheless, the four chefs in danger are Nedra and Mary (who both served up raw pork) along with Ray and Dan (who couldn’t get halibut together to save their lives). If we had to pick someone to leave, it’d be Ray thanks to his repeated struggles, and the fact that many of the older contestants on “Hell’s Kitchen” over the years fail to last very long.

If you want to read a further explanation as to why Jeremy was eliminated, be sure to check out the story over at the link here.

Photo: Fox