Around The Dial: Top Chef thrives while Mancow dies

In great news, Top Chef: Masters will be back for a second season! TV Guide had the news last night, along with some other entertainment news web site. Interesting to me is that two of the featured chefs - Jody Adams and Ana Sortun - are from restaurants in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is kind of close to me. I could conceivably taste one of their dishes!

But beyond that, I'm most excited for all of the special guests hinted at in the article. I could careless about Mekhi Phifer or the skanks from The Real Housewives of Orange County, but some of the other guests - the cast of Modern Family, Matt Groening from The Simpsons - definitely sound interesting. Hopefully Toby Young can make an appearance or two as well.

Speaking of the usual judges, I'm happy to hear that Gail Simmons is getting her own show, Top Chef Just Desserts. I'm assuming that Tom didn't want one, so Gail is the next-best choice of the judges. (Padma would probably just standoff-ishly ask asinine questions. "Did you think you were cooking us... something good?")

- In other news, while it isn't television news, I did get this item from Roger Ebert's Twitter: Matt "Mancow" Muller has been ess-canned from the conservative talk radio show job he had.

First, I didn't realize that Mancow was a political commentator now. My memories of him are from his short time on Rhode Island radio, for the few short months he was on The Edge / The X, a local station that tries to compete with WBRU and WHJY when it came to alternative and hard rock. The station failed and was split into a couple different pieces. 99.7 was The Score at first, but it was crushed in the ratings by WEEI and is now the FM wing for WPRO.

And second, I never really thought much of Mancow, even though he was my first exposure to "shock" jock radio, outside of Don Imus. Even though I was 12 or so when I was listening to his show, I realized it was stupid then, and I can't imagine he has gotten any better now after reading up about what he's had on his show.

The picture of Gail's... talent... is from this site.

Cooking with Top Chef

[Left] Note to self: Scruffy facial hair = Super Awesome Chef.

Top Chef starts its sixth season tonight, this year in Vegas, and I'm naturally thrilled about it. I've been following the show since its initial season in March 2006, which saw the utterly awesome Harold cook his way past Tiffany the Snake and super amazingly over-the-top gay David and super-snarky before he reformed Steven.

While that season remains the pinnacle of the Top Chef viewing experience, I still find it one of the most enjoyable hours of my television week. Even seasons without interesting scenes still features mouth-watering meals, and doing my own judging via my vision is strangely enticing. It's also one of those shows that appeal equally to both sexes, meaning I could always watch it with my past girlfriends. So, it has that going for it, which is nice.

Not surprisingly, my two favorite meals have been steak / beef dishes, by Harold and Casey. I think Casey was robbed the year she competed, and of all the seasons, Ilan has definitely been the weakest overall winner. Every week, he would have some weird Spanish take on some dish. While they weren't ever awesome, they didn't ever suck, and as a result he kind of coasted to a win.

I think the seasons after that one have done a better job of rewarding excellence and risk-taking as opposed to just base competence. That being said, one way the show would definitely be improved is by keeping, say, the last three weeks in mind while at the judges' table. It would cut down on the Andreas and Michaels who barely squeak by week-by-week, and keep in the actually great cooks like Richard Blais, Stefan and Fabio. (By the way, Fabio is so ridiculous that he even charms me a little bit.)

Top Chef Masters is a nice little appetizer, or an amuse bouche, as they would say on the show, but it doesn't really substitute for the real thing. It's not surprising to me that Hubert Keller was doing so well, since he definitely seems like he knows what he's doing when he judges the contestants. And it doesn't surprise me that the nerdy-looking dude that won with Richard Blais did pretty well, because he was also a good job. (Sorry about the lack of analysis; I missed the last two episodes, unfortunately.)

I still maintain that they need to bring Katie Lee (no longer, woohoo!) Joel back to replace Padma. First off, Padma is only hotter if you prefer the female-female impersonator (Pamela Anderson) look, because she is about 80 feet tall with ginormous, cartoon breasts. The Hardee's commercial she did is just gross. Katie Lee Joel is the foxy girl-next-door. I don't really mind that her personality is a bit wooden, because it gives more opportunity for Tom and Gail Simmons (also kind of foxy) and the guest judges to shine. To use an oblivious cliche, having Padma in the mix is an example of having too many cooks in the kitchen.

Top Chef back on top tonight

Another Top Chef season starts tonight, although it is a spin-off show, Masters, as opposed to a proper season. Still, anything is better than nothing, since we have hit the dead zone (not The Dead Zone) of the television season. All of my favorite shows - Family Guy, Heroes, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Office, Life on Mars - are either on break or canceled completely. Only wrestling and baseball are on to entertain me, and both can be quite hit or miss.

Anyway - focusing. I like Top Chef because, although it is a reality show, the contestants are all professionals. The focusing is on the cooking, and as far as the meals go, what they make looks far better than almost all of the things made on the Food Network. This is surprising, since most weeks the challenge is something ridiculous. "Make a gourmet meal out of these 20 things from a convenience store!"

Sadly, the more recent seasons haven't been as good as the initial ones, as the focus has shifted subtly to the drama between contestants. The first season was special because Harold just STFU and cooked awesome food. But the lesson the producers seemed to take from it was that we needed more Stevens, the pompous wine guy who lecture incessantly. (Shockingly, Steven is the one reality show contestant ever to look at his behavior on TV, then to come back and admit that he was a gigantic tool and to completely reform his ways.)

I understand the need for some drama, since it is television and all. But the drama on a show like this should originate from the tension over what the judges will pick as the best dish, as opposed to relying on relationships between contestants and their personality traits.

I think this is an underrated aspect to American Idol's success - You don't see behind the scenes vignettes about how Kelly Clarkson hates Justin Guarini. (Timely reference, I know, but I don't really watch Idol, and their god awful movie deserves more attention.) You might see a piece or two about their home lives, but the bitterness from other reality shows isn't present. The focus is on singing and popularity and the judges, which is smart, because the judges (at least the mains) don't really change from year to year.

On a random note, Masters has different judges than the main show, which is unfortunate, because Tom is awesome. Anyway, one is Kelly Choi, who last appeared on TV in... Eat Out NY. What an unfortunate name.