Hell's Kitchen (U.S.)

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For other uses, see Hell's Kitchen.
For the British version, see Hell's Kitchen (UK).
Hell's Kitchen

Title Card for Hell's Kitchen
Format Reality
Created by Gordon Ramsay
Starring Gordon Ramsay, Scott Leibfried, Mary Ann Salcedo (seasons 1-3), Gloria Felix (season 4), Jean-Philippe Susilovic
Country of origin United States
No. of seasons 4
No. of episodes 37
Production
Producer(s) Granada America
Running time Approx. 42 minutes
(60 minutes with commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel FOX
Original run May 30, 2005 – present
Chronology
Related shows Hell's Kitchen (UK)
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Hell's Kitchen is an American reality-television cooking competition. It is a local version of the original series of the same name, broadcast in the UK.

The show debuted its first season in May 2005. The second and third seasons both debuted in June of 2006 and 2007 respectively. The fourth season debuted in April 2008.

Contents

[edit] Format

The format of the program is similar to the UK version, with a red team and a blue team competing in various cooking challenges for most of the season; once the number of remaining players are small enough, they become a single black team and compete individually.

Each episode includes a team or individual challenge; the winning chef or player may get a reward, while the losing team or players are required to perform some kitchen duty in preparation for the dinner service. During dinner service, teams are responsible for preparing food to Chef Gordon Ramsay's very demanding taste and appearance requirements as well as within a limited time frame. Chef Ramsay may throw away a complete dish due to one element being off, requiring the team to re-prepare this dish. If Chef Ramsay sees failure in the kitchen, he may force one player to take over for another. If the entire kitchen is in a debacle, Chef Ramsay may shut down the dinner service prematurely, often using his catchphrase "Shut it down!". After the dinner service, Chef Ramsay will select the winning team who may get an additional reward, and then will select the best player on the losing team to make a decision about which two fellow teammates to nominate for elimination. Alternatively, if the service is so bad (or good), Chef Ramsay may declare no team the winner, or no specific player on the losing team as the best, requiring the team(s) to nominate someone for elimination. When the game is down to a single team but still more than three people, the winning player will select the two to be nominated. Each nominated player has a chance to plead their case to Chef Ramsay, but he makes the final decision, at which point the eliminated player hands over their chef's jacket.

When the competition is down to the final two players, Chef Ramsay will split Hell's Kitchen into two sections, each their own separate restaurant, with each contestant allowed to choose the decoration, style, and menu for their restaurant. Six previously eliminated contestants return to help the two finalists to prepare the meals. Chef Ramsay will use his observations of how the finalists worked in the kitchen and with their teams, as well as feedback from the patrons of each restaurant, to select the ultimate winner of the show.

[edit] Main cast

The US version of Hell's Kitchen stars Scottish chef Gordon Ramsay. The show is narrated by Jason Thompson.

The restaurant's Belgian maître d', Jean-Philippe Susilovic, comes from Petrus, one of Chef Ramsay's London restaurants. Jean-Phillipe was also the maître d' for the first UK series of Hell's Kitchen. Each team also has the services of one of two sous-chefs.

Each team is assisted by a sous-chef. For seasons 1-3, they were Scott Leibfried and MaryAnn Salcedo. In Season 4, MaryAnn was replaced by Gloria Felix.

[edit] Differences from the British version

  • Unlike in the UK, there has not been a celebrity version of the US series.
  • In addition, the US series was broadcast weekly, unlike the UK version, which was a daily program.
  • The US version, even though it featured Chef Ramsay as the central figure, had no host emceeing the show (unlike the UK version, where Angus Deayton anchored the proceedings). The US version featured an unseen narrator describing the action taking place.

[edit] Broadcasting

The theme song of the show is "Fire" by the Ohio Players.

Profanity by Chef Ramsay at the chefs, and sometimes even at the customers, is quite frequent on the show. Due to regulations in the United States regarding profanity and broadcasting, the episodes as aired in the United States employ bleep censoring and pixelization to mask the profanity. An uncensored version of the show airs on the Food Network cable specialty channel.[citation needed]

In Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Korea, Netherlands, Ireland, Mexico and Brazil, all the profane language is transmitted uncensored.[citation needed] After the season is complete it is aired in the UK a few months later, as Hell's Kitchen USA. It airs after the UK 9pm watershed and therefore all profanity is also transmitted uncensored.

In Australia it was axed after only about 3 weeks on the Nine Network in June 2007, supposedly due to the very foul profanity, losing viewers to major rival Seven Network.

[edit] Seasons

[edit] Season 1: 2005

Main article: Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 1)

The first season premiered on May 30, 2005 and concluded on August 1, 2005. The winner was Michael Wray; he accepted an offer to work with Ramsay in London, but later chose not to go. Wray was formerly the head chef at Tatou in Los Angeles.[1]

[edit] Season 2: 2006

Main article: Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 2)

The second season premiered on June 12, 2006 and concluded on August 14, 2006. Beginning this season, the teams were divided by gender. The winner was Heather West; she was named senior chef of Terra Rossa at the Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino. Her contract has currently expired and she is now a chef at the Broadway Grill in Seattle, Washington.

[edit] Season 3: 2007

Main article: Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 3)

The third season premiered on June 4, 2007 and concluded on August 13, 2007. The winner of this season was Rahman "Rock" Harper; he was named head chef of Green Valley Ranch's Terra Verde.

[edit] Season 4: 2008

Main article: Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 4)

The fourth season premiered on April 1, 2008, an earlier start due to scheduling for the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. This season has fifteen contestants, rather than the usual twelve. The winner was promised the title of senior sous chef at Ramsay's London West Hollywood restaurant in Los Angeles. The final episode of this season is slated to air July 8, 2008.

[edit] DVD Releases

Season One was released on Region 1 DVD in the spring of 2008. Notable differences between the episodes as they aired and the DVD release included:

  • The theme song, "Fire", has been replaced by an instrumental track, due to extra compensation required for that song's use.
  • All profanity spoken by Ramsay, the contestants and restaurant patrons are uncensored.
  • The episodes are also cut more tightly than their original broadcast versions; many of the bumpers into commercial breaks have been removed entirely, which also eliminates the sometimes redundant content that precedes and follows the breaks. Some episodes appear to flow nearly seamlessly from start to finish, while others have only one or two breaks in the action.

[edit] External links