My wife and I had a friend, Sean, over last night and we watched The Next Food Network Star on our DVR. Like us, our friend Sean is a huge fan of Bravo’s Top Chef. We like cooking, obsessive food lovers, and shows about food. We enjoy some Food Network programs, but The Next Food Network Star isn’t one of them. We all agreed that we couldn’t stomach The Next Food Network Star anymore and that we would be deleting it and all future recordings from our DVR machine.
Let’s be clear: The Next Food Network Star is odious and unwatchable and its stink factor is more pronounced when it’s examined in light of the very compelling Top Chef. Let us look at the successful ingredients of Top Chef and see how those same ingredients curdle in the hands of The Next Food Network Star producers.
Top Chef clearly has better chefs than The Next Food Network Star’s deers-lost-in-the headlights contestants. With superior chefs, Top Chef emphasizes food and the possibility for failure is devastating when chefs who are already successful stumble in the presence of Tom Colicchio whose expressions of disdain and incredulity are priceless and authentic. In contrast, The Next Food Network Star’s judges, most notably, Susie Fogelson and Bob Tuschman, come across as censorious prudes who are hell-bent with rebuking the contestants into being good little cookie cutter Food Network Stars. Exuding a pinch-faced humorless hauteur, Fogelson and Tuschmann seem unaware of how ironic it is that as they admonish the contestants for not “bringing out their star personalities” that they themselves have all the personality and appeal of sour dish rags.
Guest Alton Brown doesn’t help matters either. I once admired him several years ago on his show Good Eats. He was a stickler for details and his ability to show the history and science behind cooking made him unique and appealing. But over the years he’s become a self-parody whose amped-up ornithological head movements and persnickety shtick make him annoying.
No wonder one of my food show idols the edgy, humorous, self-deprecating and charismatic Anthony Bourdain is gone from the Food Network and is now a guest judge on Top Chef.
This isn’t to say Top Chef doesn’t have its flaws. Its beautiful hostess Padma Lakshmi, doesn't know enough about food to have such a high judging position, but I’m able to ignore her sufficiently to enjoy the show. After all, Top Chef is a gut-wrenching spectacle of ambitious, egotistical chefs sinking or falling on their own hubris and audacity. In contrast, The Next Food Network Star is a bunch of mediocrities scrambling to prove who can be the biggest sycophant. In the battle between big talented egos and groveling butt-kissers, I’ll take the talent every time.
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