Monsters of Television

“He’s like the guardian angel of all the chefs.”

I’m going to go ahead and say it: I think The Next Food Network Star has been a massive failure for Food Network. At least in terms of creating stars.

With the start of its sixth season, the show has created one legitimate star in Guy Fieri, host of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Guy’s Big Bite (and, on NBC, Minute to Win It). Its other winners haven’t fared so well. The winner two seasons ago, Aaron McCargo (aka Big Daddy of Big Daddy’s House) (no, it’s not a Tyler Perry show), has done okay for himself in the network’s Saturday morning line-up, but hasn’t really broken out for the network.

The rest of its winners? Cancelled. Quit. Barely existing.

So why does the network keep putting audiences through this show? Is it so Bobby Flay can annoy me some more (and cash another paycheck (does he even work at his restaurants any longer?))? Is it so Bob Tuschman can continue to challenge Anderson Cooper for the Silver Fox of TV Award? Or is it so Susie Fogelson can…I don’t know, frown a lot?

It’s none of the reasons. Go back up to the first line. Notice the qualifying phrase? Yep, The Next Food Network Star doesn’t exist to find a star. It exists to sell audience on the idea of the network. It exists to showcase how the network goes through a(n absurd) casting process and then sell it to their advertisers. This way, even if the they don’t find someone that works (and they’ve only hit platinum blonde once), they’ve still made a buck off of all these people.

The brilliance of FNS is that is allows Tuschman and Fogelson to brand the network, remind the audience what Food Network is all about (whatever it’s about that year) as they judge the contestants. As a result, the contestants have the same conundrum that American Idol performers face: fit an established brand/image while remaining true to themselves. And this episode is all about the contestants picking an image and a culinary point of view (hereafter CPOV since I’ll mention it over and over again) and sticking with it. Later, the judges will have them mold that persona and CPOV to fit the network.

As is standard on Top Chef (because, let’s not kid ourselves, FSN is pretty inspired by Top Chef, but way less impressive), we get quick vignettes of each contestant (spoilers if you click that link) as they arrive at the very plush house they’re staying in during the competition. There’s Doreen, the East Asian woman (the network so desperately wants an East Asian personality); Aarti, the Indian girl (the network SHOULD desperately want an Indian personality); Paul, a young guy who I kept mixing up with Brad, the other young guy. Herb is the intense fitness and food guy; Brianna says she’s a bit of a diva, but doesn’t come off that way (yet); Tom is a refugee from a Judd Apatow film; Alexis farms and is boring; Darrell (aka Das) is pretty full of himself; Aria is mom; Serena is the pretty Italian lady; and Dzintra is little quirky and has tried three previous times to get on the show.

Did I just reduce these people to stereotypes? Yes. I can’t help that though because, well, there’s 12 of them and their little vignettes mostly did that work for me. Will I flesh them out? Absolutely. Just as soon as they dwindle to a manageable number.

So their first challenge is to display their CPOV using a chicken and some potatoes. For whatever reason, a number of them decide to cook their chicken in the oven even though they only have 45 minutes. Pan cook or grill that chicken breast, people!  Das, for instance, tries to do a stuffed chicken breasts that comes out raw. Aarti, likewise, delivers raw chicken topped with Indian spices. The judges expect you to deliver food they can eat! Luckily for everyone, this is just the first day, so raw chicken won’t get you sent home, or even really chastised.

What will have you put on notice is your on-camera  personality. After they cook, the contestants are forced to present their dish to the judges while staring into a camera! Most people seem pretty nervous about this. Almost as if they didn’t expect to have to be on camera. Which is odd, since THEY’RE ON CAMERA ALREADY! Even odder is that they’re nervous about being on camera when they’re IN A COMPETITION TO GET THEIR OWN COOKING SHOW! Geeze.

So everyone goes, and the food doesn’t matter too much. Aria comes out as the one to beat pretty quickly here. She’s great on camera and the judges like her food. Herb also does well here. Tom, however, in his aimless adult male persona, doesn’t make eye contact with the camera, though Tom likes his shaggy look (alert: Food Network wants to appeal to young men suddenly!). Das also flounders on camera. Aria and Herb win which gives them an advantage in the big elimination round.

I long for when the contestants on this show come to expect these things and don’t get thrown by them. Like any season of Top Chef since season 3 or 4.

But before they can get to that, the contestants have to do a 15-second promo that pitches their CPOV in the idea of a show. Andy Fickman, director of The Game Plan, is their director. Way to move up in the world, Andy (I kid; he seems like a funny and  nice guy). Again, everyone seems flabbergasted. They have 15 minutes to craft their script and idea, pick a setting, and choose any props. I long for when the contestants on this show come to expect these things and don’t get thrown by them. Like any season of Top Chef since season 3 or 4.

Anyway. Brianna goes for a party girl persona that doesn’t fit her at all; Doreen decides to improv it, but has no idea what her CPOV is; Dzintra does this food 911 one thing where she’s talking someone off a bad food decision on the phone, but it gets cut due to time issues; Paul wants to do “Cooking It Old School” (get it?) but is unfunny and boring; Alexis is slow and nervous, getting worse with each take; Brad wants to do his own version of another show already on, but is robotic; Tom is goofy with a life preserver and a chef’s hat; Aria is off-the-charts brilliant; Das confuses arm movement and thinking he’s awesome with displaying energy; Aarti wants to do a cooking variety show that I would totally watch; Serena acts like a puppet; and Herb is awful.

Ultimately, except for Aria, these people have clearly not prepared themselves for this show. But that’s okay. This is a learning process, and we’ll get through this together. After their promos, Aria and Herb gets to pick teams (since they had the best food presentations in the last round) to cater a 6-course power lunch for a major celeb chef and the judging panel (plus Giada). Now, I don’t where you power lunch, but 6-courses is not a power lunch. That’s a dinner.

The teams go about their power buying and their power prepping, but also their power drama. Dzintra, who is responsible for her team’s dessert course, gets something stuck in her eye (fiberglass, they say) and goes to the ER, leaving her team to figure out what to do for her dessert. Aria and Tom agree to work it together, but they have no idea what Dzintra was making and just kind of wing-it. Over on the other team, Das and and Herb can’t pick out food to save their lives, and deprive Serena of veal and asparagus and get Brad frozen salmon that still has the bones in it. Way to help your team, dudes.

So they get some time to prep and prepare, and then they must scuttle off to the posh digs. The topic of conversation is Dzintra, of course. Brianna, Herb, and Tom think she should’ve sucked it up and dealt with the fiberglass that was ripping into her eye (it ended up scratching her cornea), with Brianna going so far as to say she’d have to lose an arm before going to the ER. Is that all it’ll take? Good to know. Someone chop off her arm and see if she sticks to her word.

The contestants end up at Cut, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant. I love Wolfgang. He’s always such a treasure on TV. As they finish preparing their meals, they work under the knowledge that they will serve it to the panel, Giada, and Wolfgang and they will also have to watch and be grilled about their promos! The horror! Dzintra shows up, sadly without an eyepatch, but can’t stay in the kitchen, so she leaves her dish up to Aria and Tom.

Brianna going so far as to say she’d have to lose an arm before going to the ER. Is that all it’ll take?

Aria’s team goes first. Susie says she’ll buy anything from Aria based on her appetizer; Paul delivers an overdressed salad (it was a casual power lunch); Wolfgang offers Aarti a job based on her delicious soup and why she didn’t leave the show right there and then I don’t know; no one can figure out Brianna’s CPOV based on her promo or her scallops; Tom’s pork plate is okay, though Susie thinks his promo is way too goofy but Tom likes him; and Dzintra’s promo seems forced and she can’t claim her dish, leaving the judges befuddled.

Herb’s team does less well. Herb’s promo falls flat, but redeems himself by doing a really impressive array of push-ups; Doreen ran out of a time when finishing her dish so her soup loses some key garnishing, and her promo is a mess; Wolfgang thinks that Das needs an editor in his promo and on his dish; Brad delivers some kickass salmon, with Wolfgang calling it the best realized dish of the day even if his promo is timid; Serena delivers her homey Italian chicken dish, leading Wolfgang to suggest that the network should have two Italian princesses on the air (Giada seems okay with it, but I suspect she’ll kill Serena); Alexis’ beignets are raw in the middle, which results in Wolfgang tearing the guy apart.

At the Evaluation table, Aria’s team wins! Yay! And Aria, unsurprisingly, wins the episode, with Bobby calling her the one to beat. And even though she totally is, this isn’t just a cooking and a personality show, this is also a show wherein the demographics that the network wants to appeal to come into play. I think Susie’s opinion on people weighs a bit more heavily than Bobby (who evaluates cooking) and Tom (who is more of a big picture guy) since she’s ultimately the one that will market and brand the person in the ancillary products (read: where the network makes its money).

Dzintra gets a pass despite the fact that she didn’t cook anything. This proves how badly Doreen, Alexis, and Das screwed up in the episode. They’re in the bottom three for cooking bad dishes and having lousy promos; Dzintra didn’t cook anything and had an okay promo, proving that this show really isn’t about the food, but how well you play on camera and appeal to key demos. Alexis ends up going home because, well, the brass really want an East Asian personality on their network even though she has no CPOV or professionalism according to Susie. I’d assume Das stayed because they couldn’t eliminate two people.

Next week more things happen that these people aren’t prepared for and that their cooking will ultimately be the least important thing, but I’ll still write about it anyway.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• There seems to be a major love vibe for Bobby Flay among the lady contestants. Is he handsomer and less annoying in person?
• Giada is there to be the show’s Paula Abdul, supportive and loving of the quirky ones, but willing to admit when people screw up. I’m not sure how much mentoring she’s going to do, though. I was hoping she’d give some guidance in the cooking process, but no, not yet.