The Chopping Block, Episode 4: Cooking a Lame Duck

As it’s been so long since the last episode aired, a brief recap of the season so far seems in order:

News reports at the beginning of 2009 stated NBC was looking into bringing over the BBC reality series, The Restaurant (renamed Last Restaurant Standing when it aired on BBC America in 2008). The concept of that series had teams of two – one as a manager and the other as the chef – creating and running real restaurants. The judges, headlined by Chef Raymond Blanc, critiqued their food, the restaurant’s atmosphere and – most importantly – the teams’ sales to decide which team was the best. Throughout the series, teams were paired up to perform special functions (event dinners, sponsored frozen dinners, etc.) and always given a clear understanding of how the other teams were doing.

However, NBC instead decided to ditch the popular BBC show’s format and go with a somewhat similar series from Australia called The Chopping Block, which featured (as per Wikipedia, since I’ve yet to see the series myself) a secret critic judging two restaurants and then each restaurant given $5,000 and 72 hours to make changes that will win the approval of the critic and restaurateur, Matt Moran.

What the audience got, come March 11, 2009 when the first episode of The Chopping Block aired on NBC, was actually a hybrid of the two series (although NBC may disagree with the idea that they borrowed heavily from The Restaurant). In the American series, the show has eight teams of couples (related in some fashion) – one as the chef and one as a… er… hmmm, it’s not really made explicit what the other person in each team is supposed to be. A manager? A server? A painter? Someone to muck about, mostly, it appears. The couples are then matched up with other couples to form two teams – one team in Red and the other in Black.

Each team of couples is given a restaurant to name, paint, decorate and create menus. A secret critic (the only element from the Australian Chopping Block that seems to remain) is brought in to judge the restaurants on a busy night and determine which restaurant was more successful. The losers have to decide which couple on their team gets eliminated. Chef Marco Pierre White, who is seen throughout the competition attempting to steer the contestants along a proper path, then makes a decision regardless of what the team members have to say (making their screaming a big waste of time, but we’ll get more into that in a bit).

On March 11, 2009, The Chopping Block began airing on NBC, with a good deal of promotion based around Marco White. (Marco is a well-known chef and the man many see as hatching Chef Gordon Ramsay from his head like Athena emerging from Zeus’s brow. Chef Marco is also known for his quick temper and high standards.), No doubt NBC hoped that if Ramsay could win over television audiences in America, then his “mentor” would be doubly able to do so. Unfortunately for NBC and those involved with the series, the show tanked big-time and critical reviews were dismal.

After two more episodes aired, NBC pulled the plug on it in favor of repeats of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. After that, NBC aired the remaining episodes on their website, NBC.com, before announcing that they would finish the series on the network come June 19. In other words, NBC has already given away the winner if one does a brief check on NBC.com. Nevertheless, we’ll look at the remaining episodes without these spoilers in hopes that many readers are viewing these episodes for the first time just like we are. But a word of advice to readers: if you want to wait it out to see who wins, best to avoid certain websites for now (especially Wikipedia).

The first three episodes were reviewed here at RNO by Chris Harris and can be seen here. There is also a Reality TV Hall of Shame article on the first eliminated couple:

Episode one.

Episode two.

Episode three.

Hall of Shame article.

Chris has enough other programs on his plate to review right now, so the remaining episodes have been passed on to yours truly. And me? I’m the guy who talks too much. Fancy meeting you here after all these drinks.

Getting into episode four proper, perhaps it is just as well we started this week’s review with a look at what has happened so far, as the episode is obviously edited under the assumption that viewers “saw last week’s episode.” In other words, NBC cares so little for the show at this point that they don’t think an introduction of the show’s contestants or concept for new viewers is worth the trouble. Nice way to try to entice viewers’ interest.

Safe to say, five couples remain in the competition, and are broken down into the teams as such:

Red Team, aka Crimson (the name of their restaurant, which makes it sound like it should be full of bloody meat):

Kelsey (chef) and Vanessa (sister and general mucker-abouter)

Lisa (chef) and Anapol (ex-husband, which makes him a general mucker-abouter anyway)

Black Team, aka Soul (the name of their restaurant, which is just bloody awful):

Angie (mucker-abouter who claims to be a chef) and Samantha (daughter)

Dean (chef) and Shari (wife and mucker-abouter)

Than (chef) and Zan (brother and mucker-abouter)

By this stage of the competition, Crimson has lost two couples in the last two episodes, while Soul lost one couple in the first episode. With Soul having three couples and Crimson only two, it would appear that some rearranging is in order to balance things out, but such thoughts can wait as the episode begins with Marco in the kitchen preparing Lobster with Sauce Vierge for the five remaining chefs. Marco, interviewed in a cozy little study elsewhere, states that all chefs who cook well at any level must love food and therefore he always looks for “romance” in a chef.

For the GREAT WHITE CHALLENGE (as it appears in block letters on the screen), Marco explains that the simple but “sexy” meal he has put together shows how easy it is to prepare a romantic dinner. Suddenly a light-bulb goes on in Lisa’s head, as she believes she knows how to do “sexy” and can do the challenge Marco is preparing for them. Meanwhile, Marco discusses the many available food items they can use in the challenge – mostly seafood. Actually, only seafood. Evidently romance is fishy. And since there’re so many ways to go with that comment, we’ll just leave it as is.