©2008 Harry Kenney

I have high expectations about this year’s The Next Food Network Star. That’s not to say I don’t have my fingers crossed. And that’s not to say I’m not fully prepared to be let down.

Let me put this another way: My normal modus operandi, the way of operating I’ve found best works for me in life in these situations is not to get overly high expectations and then be let down. Much better to have lower, more reasonable ones and then events either tend to meet that average or, when things work well, exceed them.

But I do serously have hopes — based on what I’ve so far seen and read — that this might be the best season yet. Well it’s not only Food Network’s long distain for a more successful show elsewhere with the initials T.C., it’s that it looks like instead of standing in a corner whining, that this time out someone actually took notes and made adjustments. Yes, actual action instead of mere talk for a change.

First up, the rules have not changed. You cannot have had a national cooking show before. We know this rule from last year when one of the constestants had a local television show somewhere, you know, the kind if 300 people watching. Amazingly he was not the most comfortable person in front of the camera with all that experience behind him. Big change I guess between a camera in your kitchen and a multimillion dollar stage set with a crew of 20 in the room instead of just your brother-in-law Bob behind the camera. Oh yeah, and he was the sole one with so-called “media experience” last year. And you could sure tell it.

Let’s face it, Amy was sweet. Amy was also boring as all hell. Yeah they gave her six and another six and was offering her more, and she’s the one who declined (huh?) but so be it. I mean come on, The Neelys and Sunny Anderson each wowed me at their first episode. It would have taken Amy about five more years to get to that stage, and that doesn’t happen anymore. Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagaese are where they are because they’ve been doing this for over a decade. When you look at their early stuff, they and Amy were on par. But the Food Network is no longer a tiny hobby shop and the audience (myself included) no longer willing to wait for some one to get on the job training. You either got it or you don’t. No one on NFNS last year had it. Even Alton last year on camera asked at one point if they could just start the show over with a different bunch of contestants.

Back to that rules have not changed thing. So no one ever said you couldn’t have other experience, better cooking experience for instance. No one said you couldn’t be a real cook or a real chef or work in a real restaurant. Just that you couldn’t have had a national cooking show. So this year, when you look at the bios, the contestants resumes, you see something special. You see what I’d like to refer to as creds. Cooking and or performance of some kind. Or a combination. This is a major step up. And the nice thing is nothing here eliminates a potential Rachael or a Paula-wannabe or a Fieri-in-the-raw from being found. There’s room for those as well as executive chefs and restaurant owners with killer food skills and also an inviting TV personality.

And that is exactly where this show has been needing to go since it’s inception. I mean come on, the “Hearty Boys” were like some bad SNL parody of PBS cooking shows or of the old-time cable access programs. Amy was sweet and talented but still very flat and boring. Guy was the standout, and if this show had produced three like him in three years it would have been major by now. But one out of three did not cut it. Again, this new, better crop of contestants and better picking of finalists is key. Add to that better editing and smarter thinking. The heavy showing of top chefs — not just cooks, but names and not just names of hosts, but bona fide chefs — also helps out this year. Having Bobby Flay take over the (sorry, it’s impossible not to have comparisions) the “Tom Colicchio” role adds both a cohesiveness and an authority that this program was sorely lacking.

Sorry Bobby and Sue, (Susie Fogelson and Bob Tuschman,) but other than this show do we really know you? No. You’re admitted pencil-pushers; you’re both “The Man”. You’ve designated yourselves from the get-go as saying we serve the function of being corporate. Somehow that’s neither warm and fuzzy nor, despite what you may think, very authoritative. As you both come off as being genuine and are likable, you can stick around. (As though you’d actually have it any other way, huh.)

One more smart move is what they’re doing after the show. I know whoever the winner is of this event will have their cooking show starts four weeks after. Imagine that! Actually riding the massive publicity wave created with an immediate show! Common sense for the first time in four years. Amazing. As opposed to the last three years when the winner’s show would premiere six months later – long after all the hub-bub died and no one any longer cared a damn. (Who is it that’s new at FN? Hiring people with brains lately.) Yes, as said, they put some thought into it this year and have apparently made the necessary changes required. Let’s hope whatever wunderkind who utterly destroyed their internet promotions doesn’t mettle into anything else. This season’s Next Star looks like a revamped train, a bullet train instead of the old choo-choo, but it doesn’t take much to derail such a thing.

As said, I have high expecatations for NFNS this season. Now let’s see if it let’s me down or lives up to the hype. Crossing fingers.

Catch the premiere episode tomorrow — Sunday — night on the Food Network channel at 10pm Eastern.

{31 May 2008}