The contrivances become obvious over time...but I like it anyway
Of course, I had heard of the BBC show "Kitchen Nightmares", where Gordon Ramsey rescues failing establishments by screaming obscenities at the hapless owners,and I had found the few episodes of "Dinner: Impossible" I watched contrived and grating, so I didn't have much desire to watch this offshoot. But my best friend had it on his television one night as we were hanging out, saying he found it a great example of how businesses fail and how to begin to rescue them, so I said "What the hell" and gave "R:I" a try.I think that this series is a better vehicle for Irvine, in that it made him a lot more sympathetic - his brashness and bluntness is translated into "tough love", and his skill and experience as a restaurateur and a chef is better displayed as he dissects what has "gone wrong" with a typical small time failing restaurant and tries to apply the most urgent and obvious "fixes" in the shortest amount of time possible. (Seriously...48 hours? Didn't Ramsey at least take a week or two?)
The real appeal of this series, of course, is the schadenfreude you experience watching some poor owner and/or partners and family working themselves ragged only to watch their hopes and dreams swirl down the drain. And if Irvine can do anything to restore their hope with a "tough love" interventions, well, then you get to feel good by proxy.
However, after a few episodes, the contrivances began to become obvious and you can almost predict not only Irvine's diagnoses and speeches word for word seconds in advance, you can do the same for the restaurant staff and Irvine's redecoration crew. It's the same old, same old every week, and I seriously doubt that anyone's 48 hour intervention is really going to change a dysfunctional organization for the better no matter what the official narrative of "R:I" would have you believe.
Still, it's fun watching Irvine jolt owners and staff out of their ruts, and it's fun seeing what the construction crew can do to revamp the insides of the place. Just limit yourself to an episode every few weeks and hopefully, you will keep your skepticism in check enough to watch "Restaurant: Impossible" with some pleasure.
score 6/10
lemon_magic 19 February 2013
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2756372/14585
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