TVSquad

It's rather interesting, when you think about it, that chef Gordon Ramsay has not one but two shows on FOX, Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. And this isn't like Rachael Ray having 22 different shows. She has a show that is syndicated to many stations around the county, and her other shows are on a cable station, Food Network, where she is a brand and one of the top stars. FOX is a major network, with not as many time slots as a cable station, so FOX must really believe in Ramsay to give him shows that air year-round, not just in one season.

Fans of the first season are going to be particularly interested in what happens on the very first episode.

The second season opener doesn't have Chef Ramsay visiting and attempting to fix a new restaurant. The first episode actually revisits the restaurants that Ramsay tried to help in the first season. That's great for a show to do, any show, because fans often want to see what happened to a person or place featured on an episode, an episode of any TV series, for that matter. I remember watching shows like Unsolved Mysteries and In Search Of... years ago and wanting to see updates on cases they covered.

I think if Kitchen Nightmares didn't follow up on the people helped then we'd just think that they continued to do things Ramsay's way and were successful for ever and ever. Have the restaurants followed Ramsay's rules for success? Did they follow the rules and still fail? Did they ignore Ramsay and succeed anyway? Are they still arguing with each other? Are there still bugs running around the kitchen? Is the food still rotten? Did they have to close down? If you're a regular viewer of Kitchen Nightmares or a regular reader of TV Squad, you know that a few restaurants where Ramsay did his thing closed down earlier this year. One of the restaurants on the show actually sued Ramsay (the show doesn't address the lawsuit).

Oddly, one of the restaurants is one Gordon doesn't even revisit, they just send a film crew to the place to interview the owner again.

I won't spoil any of the results for you here (that would be the ultimate spoiler for a show like this), but I will say that the restaurants featured include Peter's, Dillons, Campania, Finn McCool's, The Mixing Bowl Eatery, and Olde Stone Mill. Going back to restaurants is something that they do on the original British version of the series, so it's good to see that FOX is following suit. I do find it a little odd that the announcer says that last season Ramsay went across the country to help restaurants. Most of these places are in the New York/New Jersey area. Also, I don't believe it when Ramsay has to vomit after he eats a meal. You'd have to eat something really, really nasty to make you vomit, and I don't think that these restaurants would give a famous chef something that bad (even if they are bad cooks in general they'd be extra careful with someone like Ramsay, I would HOPE). Those looking for a lot of swearing from Ramsay might be disappointed (well, OK, he still swears, but it's in a happy, "that's f***king great!" sort of way).

The new season of Kitchen Nightmares begins on September 4 at 9 p.m.