The Taste (2013)

Director: Brian Smith                                Producers: Anthony Bourdain & Nigella Lawson
Music: Jared Gutstadt                              Cinematography: Bradford Whitaker
Starring: Anthony Bourdain, Ludo Lefebvre, Nigella Lawson and Brian Malarkey

While lots of television series produce spinoffs, reality shows seem to proliferate the most rapidly. Low production values, amateur actors, and minimal writing tend to make the prospect of another hit too tempting to resist. The Voice is a case in point. A huge hit for four seasons now, it has spawned two spinoffs, The Face and The Taste. The Face is your typical modeling competition, the same back stabbing and cat fighting we’ve seen on other shows, America’s Next Top Model and Make Me a Supermodel. But The Taste is something completely different: possibly the most boring show on television.

Firstly, the most obvious disadvantage when compared to its progenitor is that there is nothing for the audience to share . . . nothing. Unlike The Voice, which we can hear at home, or The Face, which we can see, the audience has to sit captive while the panel tastes the food and doles out victories and defeats. Now other cooking shows like Top Chef or Master Chef have managed to be interesting because of the competitive format, the key element being that the judges know whose food they are tasting. With the blind taste tests on The Taste you do have the one enjoyable facet of watching a coach vote against their own team member. But that’s not enough to carry the show and after watching for a while the thought “who cares” is unavoidable.

The second disadvantage is the panel themselves. This is an Anthony Bourdain production and his presence on the panel is almost maddening. His snarky appearances as a judge on Top Chef were fantastic, but here the blind test format forces the audience to watch bite after bite after bite of food rejected by his sophisticated palette. On the other extreme we have the other co-producer Nigella Lawson who has a preference for home cooking, which makes her team wind up as the first one out and her sitting there fairly useless the rest of the season. Brian Malarkey, a failed contestant on Top Chef is a real head-scratcher as he doesn’t really seem to bring much experience to the table, yet inexplicably his was the chef who won the competition. French chef Ludo Lefebvre, who you will remember cursing through the entire first few episodes of Top Chef Masters before he was mercifully jettisoned, is beyond cantankerous here and is just plain unpleasant to listen to.

Despite all of that, however, ABC has elected to renew The Taste for a second season. Perhaps they’ll revamp the format, or do something to make the show more interesting. Without that, I can’t see how the show can continue. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m going to have to ask The Taste to pack its knives and go.