Andy DehnartCBS’ Big Brother gets additional competition tonight in the trashy, guilty pleasure reality TV genre from Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen, which returns for a sixth season starting at 8 p.m. ET. Back is season two winner Heather, who is the new sous chef for the women’s team.
This season’s winner gets to be the executive chef at Araxi in Whistler, British Columbia, perhaps because no more American restaurants are willing to advertise on the show that does nothing but illustrate how incompetent its future chef is.
During Hell’s Kitchen 6‘s two-hour premiere, Gordon Ramsay says “for the first time ever in Hell’s Kitchen” a lot, but that’s pretty much an impossibility at this point, because it’s the same show season after season. The redesigned dining room even looks like the exact same one from last year. After last season, I decided the show–once started off as a fun, if formulaic favorite because it was so ridiculous–quickly became no longer worth watching because it got boring, with the same thing happening season after season. Watching the first episode, I can’t imagine continuing to watch this season, either, at least not until little Gordon makes his guest appearance. There’s just nothing new for Gordon Ramsay to say or do besides, you know, stabbing one of the chefs. There’s nothing shocking about him yelling, throwing something, or kicking them out.
All this season really has is the potential for one of the chefs to get violent, because they’re now angry and incompetent. A former Marine gets confrontational with Ramsay immediately, and in the second hour, challenges him to a fight, which is somewhat interesting.
Otherwise, it’s the same as before. There’s a twist I won’t spoil, but let’s just say it’s obvious from about a half a mile away and is thoroughly scripted; the narrator even calls it Gordon Ramsay’s “plan.” Ultimately, it proves that the cast is just there as Gordon’s playthings, and as this clip illustrates, he’s played with these toys before: