How did these niche shows ever take over prime time? Are that many people into it? Judging by the amount of slicing, dicing and julienning going on onscreen it would seem yes.
This week a lot of people are very excited to watch the final of reality cooking show My Kitchen Rules. They're invested. They're into it. They're wrong.
There's a far better cooking show on TV that they should be watching. The best part is that it's not even really about cooking. Instead, it's about snark.
I'm talking, of course, about Come Dine With Me. The poorly promoted, hidden gem of the reality cooking show genre. If you like watching people boil things, then great, you'll love it. If you don't, then great, you'll love it.
This British show has a simple premise; five strangers throw a dinner party for each other, they rate each other's efforts and the person with the highest score wins. Simples.
This sounds awful, I know. And if it was a bunch of cultured, civilised, well-adjusted people cooking some nice food and being pleasant to each other it would be an absolute snoozefest and I wouldn't be talking about it now. But it's not.
Instead the contestants are the exact sort of people you would not want to be sat next to at a dinner party. Snobby, loutish, posh, uncouth, rude, overbearing, loud, stupid, annoying, awful ... about the only thing they're not is good cooks.
The contestants are also all strangely deluded. Full of misguided belief that their dinner party will be the winner - even after they've just served their highly judgmental guests severely undercooked chicken. It's a worryingly regular occurrence on this series.
This makes for great TV on its own, as the contestants bicker with each other, before bitching each other out behind their backs.
What makes it brilliant TV is Dave Lamb. That's not the made up moniker for a less-than-exotic meat dish served up by a contestant in Slough, but is instead the name of the series' narrator.
Never seen, his vocal gymnastics are however ever-present as he takes every opportunity to diss out a contender for mispronouncing 'soufflé', or for dropping their ladle on the floor or for just acting like a boastful asshat.
Some of his wise cracks have you guffawing out loud, while others leave you groaning. "I'm so sorry," he'll proffer unconvincingly after dropping a neutron bomb clunker before quickly moving on.
An equal opportunity offender, his barbs prick all contestants as he describes the onscreen action. It's like watching telly with a quick witted friend who happens to be a mockery master.
The best part is that TV One screens it in omnibus format on a Saturday morning, meaning you can get through a week's worth of episodes in one hungover sitting. Which is my preferred viewing method. Thoroughly undemanding and damned funny, it is perfect viewing for when concentration is in short supply.
The show has been running in the UK for almost 15 years and is, amazingly, up to season 30. I'd have to attribute its popularity and longevity to Lamb, the show's not-very-nice, yet hilarious narrator.
While I don't know which Kiwi could possibly fill his snark-filled vocal booth, I do think a local version would be a great addition to local programming. Surely we must have enough jackasses with delusions of cooking grandeur willing to compete to make this possible?
If cooking shows like MKR can get people excited just think of the numbers a cooking show for people who don't like cooking shows would garner. It just makes sense. Let's get this thing made.
- nzherald.co.nz
