So here we are at T-Minus One-Day on the Hell’s Kitchen countdown. And for today’s Gordon Ramsay fix, let’s examine this man’s incredible impact on television … and that’s world-wide television, by the way.

There is of course the UK-based shows shown in the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere … Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and The F-Word. In America these are shown on BBC America. And then there are the US-based spinoffs of Kitchen Nightmares (the US version drops the “Ramsay’s” from it) and Hell’s Kitchen both on the Fox network.

Here’s the story on the UK Hell’s Kitchen thing. It started off with celebrities for the first season. Second season it went to cooks in the kitchen — like the American version. But then the producers there insisted they wanted celebs and Ramsay went along with that grudgingly for the third season. When the producers continued to want Gordon to pair with UK celebs he quit. It’s been hosted by Marco Pierre White since; although he took a complete season off from it last year in Britain and it’s supposed to be back on again this year. Meanwhile the US version is the version taking the world by storm.

How much so? Two things, first, last week in Malaysia and the South Pacific on The Asian Food Channel, after showing Hell’s Kitchen for the season they got to the last two shows, stopped, did a two-day marathon catch-up and then the two-hour finale and it blew away the records. And that’s Season Two they just saw!

Furthermore, in Australia, Ramsay is up for an ASTRA Award (which is basically the Aussie Emmy). He’s among those in the running for “Favourite International Personality or Actor” for .. Hell’s Kitchen. Even though he’s against seven other people, remember, they’re actors, he’s a chef! (If someone wrote this in a fiction novel 12 years ago, people would say the author was daft.)

Several different interesting things here in Australia. 1) His Kitchen Nightmares show there is “now the most-watched show in the country on both Tuesday and Thursday nights with between 1.4 million and 1.6 million viewers” to quote the News. 2) The same program (and it’s the US version surprisingly) has caused a member of the Australian Parliament to ask that they censor him … it seems they don’t get the beeped version and last week’s episode Ramsay said the F-word over 80 times in the one-hour program … 3) Despite this he’s getting a brand new show there in June which follows his opening up a restaurant in Melbourne.

Oh and finally, speaking of the F-word … no, not that one, the actual show The F Word returns to British television this summer on Channel 4. All while we await about 24 hours or less for season 4 of Hell’s Kitchen on Fox here in the US. …. tick … tick … tick ….

{31 Mar 2008}