Food Network Reality TV
By Scott Keith on 28 November 2012
Scott,
About your comment about "Restaurant Stakeout" being staged, I wanted to point out that there has been similar criticism about Robert Irvine's "Restaurant: Impossible" show. Irvine did a show near Cleveland, and the owner of the restaurant said that they basically staged things to highlight as problems on the show, and Irvine just overacted on camera:
http://strongsville.patch.com/articles/mad-cactus-owner-finally-talks-about-tv-makeover
It is also interesting from the standpoint of how Food Network used to frequently push some bullshit bio for Irvine (that he was instrumental in the creation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding cake) until that was blown out of the water.
Bill
Well those makeover shows are obviously staged for fake drama, from the artificial deadlines to Irvine's over-the-top personality. Plus he's married to a wrestler, so he knows the score. The worst by far I've seen is "Health Inspectors", which is obviously bad actors.
But yeah, makes me miss the good old days of coming home from work and watching Emeril. I'd lament the fall from grace of A&E too, but I'm the guy watching Storage Wars, Parking Wars, and Shipping Wars in three hour blocks on the weekends so I have no moral leg to stand on.