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'''Hell's Kitchen''' is the name of a cooking-based reality show. It is based on the original ''Hell's Kitchen'', broadcast in the UK.
The show debuted its first season in May 2005 and has since debuted a new season in June of every year. FOX is currently casting contestants for the next season, the show's fourth.^[1]

Contents

Broadcasting

Profanity

Format

Seasons

Season 1: 2005

Season 2: 2006

Season 3: 2007

Season 4: 2008

Critical reception

References

External links

Broadcasting

The US version of ''Hell's Kitchen'', starring Gordon Ramsay, is broadcast on the FOX television network. In Canada, the show is simulcast on Citytv. It also airs across the world, in Finland on MTV3 ,Sweden on TV3, in the UK on ITV2, in Hong Kong on TVB Pearl, in Norway on ZTV, in Australia on LifeStyle Food, in Brazil on GloboSat GNT, and in the Netherlands on SBS 6.
The theme song of the show is "Fire" by the Ohio Players.
The show was taped in Los Angeles at KCOP, in a converted former television broadcast facility that previously hosted shows such as ''The Joker's Wild'' and ''Tic-Tac-Dough'' in the late '70s to the mid '80s.

Profanity

Profanity by Ramsay, at the chefs, and sometimes 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, Canada, and the Netherlands, all the profane language is transmitted uncensored. After the season is complete it is aired in the UK a few months later. It airs after the UK 9pm watershed and therefore all profanity is also transmitted uncensored.

Format

The format of the program was the same as 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. The restaurant's Belgian maître d’, Jean-Philippe Susilovic, came from ''Petrus'', one of Ramsay's London restaurants. Jean-Phillipe was also the maître d’ for the first UK series of Hell's Kitchen. Each team also had the services of one of two sous-chefs: Scott Leibfried and Mary Ann Salcedo.
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 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, requiring the team to reprepare this dish. If Ramsey 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 completely shut down the dinner service prematurely. 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, 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 Ramsay 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.

Seasons

Season 1: 2005

Main articles: Hell's Kitchen (season 1)

The first season premiered on May 30, 2005 and was completed on August 1, 2005. The winner of this season was Michael Wray, while the runner-up was Ralph Pagano.

Season 2: 2006

Main articles: Hell's Kitchen (season 2)

The second season premiered on June 12, 2006 and was completed on August 14, 2006. Starting this season, teams were divided by gender. The winner of this season was Heather West, while the runner-up was Virginia Dalbeck.

Season 3: 2007

Main articles: Hell's Kitchen (season 3)

The third season premiered on June 4, 2007 and was completed on August 13, 2007. The restaurant got a makeover since last season. The winner of this season was Rock Harper, while the runner-up was Bonnie Muirhead.

Season 4: 2008

The fourth season is set to premiere in the summer of 2008.

Critical reception

Reality television journalist Andy Dehnart has called Ramsay's ''Hell's Kitchen'' television series a boot camp for aspiring chefs and has stated that the show is mostly about humiliation. However, he finds the humiliation entertaining and often funny.
To cite an example, Dehnart writes that Ramsay replied to a rude customer who asked for more pumpkin by saying, "Right. Well, I’ll get you more pumpkin and I’ll ram it right up your fucking arse! Would you like it whole or diced?" Another example is when a chef misheard an order, forcing Chef Ramsay to repeat it. Ramsay yelled, "Would you like me to fucking email that to your BlackBerry? Move your ass!"^[2]

References

1. If You Think You Have What it Takes to Win "Hell's Kitchen"....Then We Want to Meet You. Fox Television.
2. Chef Ramsay offers to insert pumpkin into a Hell’s Kitchen patron’s behind. Reality Blurred.

External links

★ Official Website at FOX.com

★ Gordon Ramsay Podcast Interview