Soul survivors

Of course, I was disappointed The Gallery didn’t win. Read more

Sir Walter Riley

So, let’s talk about The Restaurant… Read more

Dragons done

Having summarily dismissed all property shows from my viewing schedule last year, I am fearful that I’m now growing tired of Dragons’ Den. It’s not just that during this week’s episode I was able to correctly predict when Evan’s “In a bizarre twist” voice-over was about to commence, but I found it difficult to get at all interested in any of the pitches. Each one seemed to go on too long, and the concepts the visitors to the Den were proposing just weren’t very inventive. In fact, by half way through I’d started reading the latest issue of Radio Times instead. Read more

The Restaurant

Gripping reality television is all about hubris. That’s not a startling observation, but it is one that feels particularly appropriate when watching the aspirational brand. Read more

WIll they go through to boot camp?

As much as I am loving both The Restaurant and Kitchen Criminals, I can’t help but long for the development of a new kind of reality show mechanic. All of this bottom three, boot camp, and pregnant pause before announcing the eviction stuff is old hat, no? Indeed the use of the term “boot camp” in Kitchen Criminals, as if everyone knows what that means in the context of a TV show is something of a commentary on how pervasive and tiring this format has now become. The problem is, if you lose the eviction format, what do you replace it with?

Same but different

Is the BBC working against itself or has The Restaurant been renamed? I’ve just spotted this advert on Gumtree, the online classified ad service: Read more

Running to the restaurant

Every now and then the BBC Jobs website includes details of an upcoming programme. Not too long ago a vacancy for a researcher for The One Show revealed that it would be running 50 weeks a year when it returns. The latest is a position for a “‘Location Runner” on something called… Read more