Hell's Kitchen (U.S.)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hell's Kitchen
Title Card for Hell's Kitchen
Format	Reality
Created by	Gordon Ramsay
Starring	Gordon Ramsay Scott Leibfried MaryAnn Salcedo (season 1-3) Gloria Felix (season 4-5) Heather West (season 6- ) Jean-Philippe Susilovic
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	47
Production
Producer(s)	Granada America; A. Smith & Co.
Broadcast
Original channel	FOX
Original run	May 30, 2005 – present
Chronology
Related shows	Hell's Kitchen (UK)
External links
Official website

Hell's Kitchen is an American reality-television cooking competition (based on a series of the same name, broadcast in the UK) broadcast on FOX. It is hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

The program debuted on May 30, 2005. On September 11, 2008, FOX announced that Hell's Kitchen would return for a sixth and seventh season, along with the fifth announced earlier in the year.^[1] The sixth season will premiere on July 21, 2009.^[2]

Contents 1 Format 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Broadcasting 3.2 Setting 4 Seasons 4.1 Season 1: 2005 4.2 Season 2: 2006 4.3 Season 3: 2007 4.4 Season 4: 2008 4.5 Season 5: Winter/Spring 2009 4.6 Season 6: Summer/Fall 2009 5 Reception 5.1 Awards and nominations 6 Other media 6.1 DVD releases 6.2 Video games 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Format

The format of the program is similar to the UK version, with a red team and a blue team competing in various cooking challenges for most of the season; once the number of remaining contestants is reduced to five (or six in Seasons 4 and 5), the two teams combine to become a single black team and compete individually.

Each episode begins with a team or individual challenge; the winning chef or team may get a reward, while the losing team or players are required to perform some form of manual labor, usually consisting of kitchen duty in preparation for the dinner service. During dinner service, teams are responsible for preparing food to Gordon Ramsay's very demanding taste and appearance requirements as well as within a limited time frame. Ramsay may throw away an entire plate of food due to one element being off and usually sends a barrage of insults and obscenities to the responsible player or team and requiring the team to re-prepare this dish or the entire table if necessary. If Ramsay sees failure in the kitchen, he may force one player to take over for another. If the entire kitchen is in a debacle, Ramsay may shut down the dinner service prematurely, often using his catchphrase "Shut it down!" After the dinner service, Ramsay will select the winning team who may get an additional reward, and then will select the best player on the losing team to make a decision about which two fellow teammates to nominate for elimination. Alternatively, if the service is exceptionally bad (or good), Ramsay may declare no team the winner, or no specific player on the losing team as the best, requiring the team(s) to nominate someone for elimination. When the game is down to a single team but still more than three people, the winning player will select the two to be nominated. Each nominated player has a chance to plead their case to Ramsay, but he makes the final decision, at which point the eliminated player hands over their chef's jacket. On rare occasions, if one player's performance is especially bad, Ramsay may even eliminate them in the middle of the service; this has happened multiple times on the show so far.

When the competition is down to the final two players, Ramsay splits the Hell's Kitchen dining area into two sections, and each of the two final contestants runs their own restaurant; each contestant is allowed to choose the decoration, style, and menu for his or her restaurant. Six previously eliminated contestants return to help the two finalists to prepare the meals. Ramsay will use his observations of how the finalists work in the kitchen and with their teams, as well as feedback from the patrons of each restaurant, to select the ultimate winner of the show.

Hell's Kitchen is somewhat rare among elimination-style reality shows in that all of the responsibilities of judging and eliminating fall to a single person, Ramsay, instead of a full panel of judges, or a majority vote by the contestants. Additionally, Ramsay has the power to override the basic format of the competition, such as ignoring team nominations, eliminating contestants in the middle of dinner service, or changing team members.

[edit] Cast

The show is hosted by Gordon Ramsay and narrated by Jason Thompson. The restaurant's Belgian maître d', Jean-Philippe Susilovic, comes from Petrus, one of Ramsay's London restaurants. Jean-Phillipe was also the maître d' for the first UK series of Hell's Kitchen.

Each team also has the services of one of two sous-chefs. Scott Leibfried has appeared in all seasons, while MaryAnn Salcedo appeared in Seasons 1-3 and Gloria Felix in all subsequent seasons.

[edit] Production

[edit] Broadcasting

The theme song of the show is "Fire" by the Ohio Players.

Profanity by Ramsay at the chefs, and sometimes even at the customers, is quite frequent on the show. Due to regulations in the United States regarding profanity and broadcasting, the episodes as aired in the United States employ bleep censoring and pixelization to mask the profanity.

In Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Korea, Netherlands, Ireland, Mexico and Brazil, all the profane language is transmitted uncensored.^{[citation needed]} After the season is complete it is aired in the United Kingdom a few months later, as Hell's Kitchen USA. First-run broadcast occurs in a late evening timeslot, after the UK 9pm watershed, and retain all profanity. However, re-runs are often air during earlier timeslots (8pm), with censorship restored.^[3]

In Poland, the fourth season is currently broadcast by TVN Style. The channel also broadcast season three. The first and second season were broadcast in Poland by Polsat and kuchnia.tv.

In Australia it was axed after only about 3 weeks on the Nine Network in June 2007, supposedly due to the very foul profanity, losing viewers to major rival Seven Network. However, in April 2008, Channel Nine began broadcasting the first season from the beginning, in conjunction with the UK-based Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Seasons 1-3 were screened on the 'Lifestyle Food' network (via pay TV) in early 2008, and season 4 started on the 19th Sept 2008, also on Lifestyle Food.

In Canada, it is aired on CityTV, simulcast with the FOX network, and is censored. Reruns air on the Canadian Food Network; originally broadcast uncensored, though broadcasts of later seasons are censored.

Hell's Kitchen is also being shown in Malaysia on ntv7, every Sunday at 10:45p.m.

In Bulgaria it is aired on Nova+ and Nova Television.

In Brazil, it is aired by GNT, and also by Latin American network Casa Club TV.

[edit] Setting

The Hell's Kitchen restaurant set itself is housed in the former studios of Los Angeles television station KCOP at 915 North La Brea avenue, in Hollywood, which at one time hosted production of game shows Tic Tac Dough and The Joker's Wild^[4]. KCOP was acquired by News Corporation in 2001 and its studios were integrated with those of Fox affiliate KTTV in 2003, leaving the La Brea facility vacant^[5]. Originally the studio was put up for sale, but in the end they were retooled for the production of Hell's Kitchen. The dining room area is the location of the former KCOP news studios, and living quarters for the contestants were built on behind the restaurant.^[6]

[edit] Seasons

[edit] Season 1: 2005

The first season premiered on May 30, 2005 and concluded on August 1, 2005. The winner was Michael Wray; he accepted an offer to work with Ramsay in London, but later chose not to go. Wray was formerly the head chef at Tatou in Los Angeles, CA.^[7]

[edit] Season 2: 2006

The second season premiered on June 12, 2006 and concluded on August 14, 2006. Beginning this season, the teams were divided by gender. The winner was Heather West; she was named senior chef of Terra Rossa at the Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino. Her contract since expired. She Is now a sous chef for Hell's Kitchen Starting Season 6

[edit] Season 3: 2007

The third season premiered on June 4, 2007 and concluded on August 13, 2007. The winner of this season was Rahman "Rock" Harper; he was named head chef of Green Valley Ranch's Terra Verde. He served as the executive chef at Ben's Next Door in Washington D.C. in early 2009.^[8] He currently is the executive chef at the Carlyle Club in Alexandria, Virginia.^[9]

[edit] Season 4: 2008

The fourth season premiered on April 1, 2008, an earlier start due to scheduling for the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. This season had fifteen contestants, rather than the usual twelve. The grand prize was Executive chef under Gordon Ramsay at the London in West Hollywood with a $250,000 salary.^[10][11] The season finale episodes of this season aired July 1, 2008 and July 8, 2008. This season's winner was Christina Machamer, a 25 year-old culinary student from St. Louis, Missouri.

[edit] Season 5: Winter/Spring 2009

The fifth season premiered on January 29, 2009. There were 16 chefs.^[12] This season was filmed in 2007. The winner of this season was Danny Veltri, who won a $250,000 prize and employment as a chef, working under head chef Stephen Kalt, at the brand-new Italian restaurant Fornelletto in the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey.^[13]

[edit] Season 6: Summer/Fall 2009

The sixth season will premiere on July 21, 2009, and will be seen Tuesday nights.^[14] The contestants will compete for the title of head chef at Araxi Restaurant, in Whistler, BC. ^[15]

[edit] Reception

Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page.

[edit] Awards and nominations

Hell's Kitchen has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Art Direction for Variety, Music or Nonfiction Programming category in 2007 and 2008. It has also been nominated for two Art Directors Guild Awards in the Television - Awards Show, Variety, Music or Non-Fiction Program category in 2007 and 2008, winning one in 2008. It has also been nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer Series.

[edit] Other media

[edit] DVD releases

On April 8, 2008, Visual Entertainment released Season 1 of Hell's Kitchen on DVD in Region 1. ^[16] In Australia, the first four seasons were released on DVD during 2009;^[17] it is unknown when or if these will be released in the US.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date	Additional Information
Hell's Kitchen: Season 1	10	April 8, 2008 December 1, 2008 (Australia)	Interview With Kent Weed: Executive Producer Tour of Hell's Kitchen With Kent Weed Interview With Arthur Smith: Executive Producer Interview With John Janavs: Production Designer Interview With Gordon Ramsay
Hell's Kitchen USA: Season 2	10	February 2, 2009 (Australia Only)	Raw & Uncut Aspect Ratio: 1:33:1
Hell's Kitchen USA: Season 3	10	February 2, 2009 (Australia Only)	Raw & Uncut Aspect Ratio: 1:33:1
Hell's Kitchen USA: Season 4	14	April 1, 2009 (Australia Only)	Raw & Uncut Aspect Ratio: 1:33:1

[edit] Video games

Hells Kitchen: The Game
Developer(s)	Ludia
Publisher(s)	Ubisoft
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS, Wii, Windows
Release date(s)	September 11, 2008
Genre(s)	Sim

On September 11, 2008, Ubisoft released Hell's Kitchen: The Game for the Nintendo DS, Windows and Wii, which features the likeness of Ramsay, and the many important tasks shown in the U.S. version of the show.^[18]

On April 2nd, 2009, Ludia and Social2u released the official Facebook version of the Hell's Kitchen game. ^[19]

Hells Kitchen on Facebook
Developer(s)	Ludia / Social2u
Platform(s)	Facebook
Release date(s)	April 2, 2009
Genre(s)	Sim

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hell's Kitchen

• Official Website at FOX.com
• Hell's Kitchen (U.S.) at the Internet Movie Database
• Hell's Kitchen at TV.com
• Hell's Kitchen USA at itv.com