What Was That? Good and Bad Edition

Playing some catch-up on TV, and came across both the good and bad of TV shows that make you ask, "What was that?"

Good: Gordon Ramsay's F Word. It's part cooking show, part restaurant reality show, part talk show, and wholly odd. The gist of things (to the extent I can tell) is that Ramsay has a new restaurant called The F Word, in which he has two contestants square off as assistants for the meal prepared during the show. At the end, he picks one of the two to continue on. I'm still not clear what the last remaining contestant will get, though I assume it's some sort of regular job in one of Ramsay's kitchens.

The meal this week was a sauteed mushrooms in pasta starter which looked great and a venison with a red wine-chocolate sauce that seemed a little over the top. For dessert, Ramsay passes on the show's competition to go head-to-head with a celebrity to make dish of the celebrity's choice. On the episode I saw, some kid from Eastenders went with rhubarb crumble, and lost pretty soundly with his simple version.

Inbetween all the food, Ramsay spends some time chatting with a food critic, and they talk about the food and such, with their discussion leading to a variety of pre-taped segements, such as Ramsay teaching a woman who doesn't cook how to make a fish pie and the critic embarking on a quest to raise his sperm count (for reasons which, thankfully, don't seem to have anything to do with food).

As you can imagine, the focus here is more on Ramsay the celebrity than as the chef, most obvious in the way that the recipies are given scant notice (and even then are played with an obnoxious musical background that also serves as the show's theme song). But it's still kind of fun, in an odd way. I don't think the show will win Ramsay many converts, but as someone who enjoys his other shows, it's entertaining.

Also, for all the use of The F Word, Ramsay swore very little.

Bad: Show Me the Money, the cacophonic mish-mash hosted by William Shatner. Did you ever see the Friends episode where Joey is trying out to be the host of a game show called Bamboozled, whose rules are so arcane that they aren't figured out until right before his audition? Or the recent episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney wins money on a game involving cards, changing seats, a money wheel, and guessing which woman is holding a jelly bean? If so, you've gotten a pretty good introduction to Show Me the Money, which seemed to be making up rules as it went along.

Here's the best I could figure out: the contestant gets to choose from among three questions starting with the same word (they can pass the first two but then must take the third, a concept that upon its initial description made it sound like the contestant could only pass on two questions in total). The contestant gives and answer, and then picks one of 13 dancers (yes, dancers), who opens a scroll to show the question value (or a stopper card, which apparently ends things). We then find out if the contestant's answer is right or wrong, and the question amount is added or subtracted to their total. Once the contestant gets six correct or incorrect answers, the game is over.

I think.

I will say this - the questions are a little harder than 1 vs. 100, and they do not present multiple choice answers. On the other hand, there is so much noise and distraction that it's hard to tell exactly what I'm supposed to be focusing on at any one time. Throw in the rube they found to be the first contestant - a fey Oklahoman who brought his "murse" on stage with him - and there's a level of stupidity to this show that is breathtaking. And considering how well Boston Legal seems to be going, I'm unsure why Shatner got himself involved with this train wreck. Maybe he misses the flash set and ability to dress up that he had when he was on Iron Chef USA.

Anyway, I don't even know if this show is even still airing. There's a small, evil part of me that hopes so.