Hell's Kitchen (U.S.)

Infobox Television
show_name = Hell's Kitchen


caption = Title Card for Hell's Kitchen
format = Reality
runtime = Approx. 42 minutes
(60 minutes with commercials)
creator = Gordon Ramsay
starring = Gordon Ramsay, Scott Leibfried, Mary Ann Salcedo (seasons 1-3), Gloria Felix (season 4), Jean-Philippe Susilovic
country = United States
network = FOX
producer = Granada America; A. Smith & Co.
first_aired = May 30, 2005
last_aired = present
related = "Hell's Kitchen (UK)"
num_seasons = 4
num_episodes = 46
website = http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen
imdb_id = 0437005
tv_com_id = 29085

"Hell's Kitchen" is an American reality-television cooking competition, based on a 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.

On September 11, 2008, FOX announced that "Hell's Kitchen" would return for a sixth and seventh season, along with the fifth announced earlier in the year. FOX also renewed Chef Ramsay's other series, "Kitchen Nightmares", for a third season; as well as picked up a a new Gordon Ramsay series. [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117992083.html?categoryid=14&cs=1]

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. Ramsay may throw away a complete dish due to one element being off usually sending a barrage of insults and obsenities to the player or team and requiring the team to re-prepare this dish or the entire table if necessary. If Ramsay sees failure in the kitchen he may force one player to take over for another. If the entire kitchen is in a debacle Ramsay may shut down the dinner service prematurely, often using his catchphrase "Shut it down"! After the dinner service, 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), 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 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, 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. 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.

Main cast

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.

Differences from the British version

* Unlike in the UK, there has not been a celebrity version of the US series.

* The US series was broadcast weekly, whereas the UK version was daily.

* 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.

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.

In Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Korea, Netherlands, Ireland, Mexico and Brazil, all the profane language is transmitted uncensored.Fact|date=April 2008 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. However, it is often repeated at around 8pm a couple of days later, and that version is censored. [http://www.itv.com/TVGuide/TextOnly/default.html?tvgPageNumber=1&tvgChannelName=ITV%202&tvgDayOffset=3 See 20.00]

In Poland fourth season is currently broadcast by TVN Style. The channel also broadcasted season three. First and second season were broadcast in Poland by Polsat and kuchnia.tv.

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. However, in April 2008, Channel Nine began broadcasting the first season from the beginning, in conjunction with the UK-based Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Seasons 1-3 were screened on the 'Lifestyle Food' network (via pay TV) in early 2008, and season 4 started on the 19th Sept 2008, also on Lifestyle Food.

In Canada, it is aired on CityTV, simulcast with the FOX network, and is censored. However, Food Network Canada reruns the aired season uncensored several months before the season premiere.

Hell's Kitchen is also being shown in Malaysia on ntv7, every Sunday at 10:45p.m..

easons

eason 1: 2005

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, CA. [ [http://la.eater.com/archives/2007/06/07/tatou_wheres_michael_wray.php Eater LA: Tatou: Where's Michael Wray? ] ]

eason 2: 2006

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.

eason 3: 2007

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". Currently, he is no longer a day-to-day chef with the restaurant, and is instead handling public relations for Terra Verde and the Green Valley Ranch Resort.

eason 4: 2008

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 grand prize was a one-year contract as senior sous chef at the Gordon Ramsay at the London in West Hollywood with a $250,000 salary.cite web | url = http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2008/05/gordon-ramsay-l.html| title = Gordon Ramsay L.A. reservation line is open! | publisher = LA Times | first = Amy | last = Scattergood | date = 2008-05-01 | accessdate = 2008-05-29] cite web | url = http://tv.yahoo.com/gordon-ramsay/contributor/1280114/news/urn:newsml:cp.org:20080605:TV-65918035__ER:1| title = Gordon Ramsay opens news restaurant in West Hollywood| publisher = Yahoo |date = 2008-06-05 | accessdate = 2008-06-10] The season finale episodes of this season aired July 1, 2008 and July 8, 2008. This season's winner was Christina Machamer, a 25 year-old culinary student from St. Louis, Missouri.

DVD Releases

Season One was released on Region 1 DVD by Visual Entertainment 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 is 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 them.

References

External links

* [http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/ Official Website] at FOX.com
* [http://www.afewmomentswith.com/ Gordon Ramsay] Podcast Interview
*itv.com|id=entertainment/reality/hellskitchenusa|title="Hell's Kitchen USA"
*imdb title|id=0437005|title=Hell's Kitchen (U.S.)