'I'm looking for someone who can weather the storm. Inspire individuals. Stand as a great leader,' says irascible British chef Gordon Ramsay, surveying his 12 charges on the reality-TV show Hell's Kitchen (Asian Food Channel, Wednesdays at 10pm). He has his work cut out since most of them don't appear to have a clue about cooking - even though half are chefs.
Ramsay is running 'a hot new restaurant' in Hollywood, California.
The trainees are divided into two teams, with each group preparing food for half of the restaurant. Every week, the most competent chef from the team that has performed the worst will be asked to nominate two team mates for elimination, one of whom will be told by Ramsay to leave. The prize for the last remaining chef: their own restaurant.
The setting might be a little artificial, and the diners' outrage when their food takes 90 minutes to appear is contrived, but this is superb television, if only because it brings out the uglier side of people's characters - which is always entertaining viewing. By the end of episode one, cracks are appearing in the camaraderie between the team members and it's every man for himself. 'I have two dreams in my life,' says Andrew, a contestant. 'One is to be a state senator, the other is to own a restaurant. And if all this fails, welcome to politics.'
He might be a lousy cook but after observing him in the kitchen, he could make a great politician.
The search for America's next great chef gets off to a volatile start, and the quest for its next great inventor, in American Inventor (ATV World, Saturdays at 8pm, right), doesn't bode well either. From thousands of entries (from the noble to the lunatic), four judges, from the worlds of marketing, advertising, business and inventing, must pick 12 finalists, one of whom will win US$1 million and a chance to have their invention mass-produced.
'You might think this competition is about inventions but it is about so much more. It's about hope, it's about passion. American Inventor is about the American dream,' says Mary Lou Quinlan, marketing expert and one of the judges.