Please Pack Your Breasts and Leave
Wow. A Bravo reality show is actually getting rid of its robotic, flat-voiced hostess in favor of someone with actual television experience.
No, it's not Heidi Klum, who has actually gotten more comfortable killing the dreams of amateur fashion designers on the addictive Project Runway (it helps that she's, you know, one of the producers).
Instead, it's little Katie Lee Joel, Billy Joel's 12-I-mean-25-year-old host of the first season of Top Chef, a reality show from PR's producers about chefs battling to be...well, I guess the title is fairly Snakes On a Plane-esque in its self-explanation.
Maybe "robotic" is a tad harsh. Let's just go with "telegenically-challenged." But while Katie Lee apparently does have some background in food (Bravo never really explained what they meant when they described her as a "food writer" - I just assumed she knew how to write a grocery list), she couldn't, um, talk about food very comfortably. In fact, she couldn't do anything comfortably in front of the cameras, always dropping anchor-like duds of non-wisdom while judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons could actually chew and think at the same time.
Instead, Bravo has made a ridiculously great decision in hiring Padma Lakshmi. A drop-dead gorgeous Indian woman (she makes Catherine Zeta-Jones look like butt) who has cooking and television experience (she hosted a much-missed show on the Food Network), Lakshi has been out of the public eye for quite some time. Oh, she also happens to be married to Salman Rushdie.
Top Chef is still seriously flawed. Unlike PR, where all you have to do is look at the final designs to judge them, on TC you can only look at the food the contestants prepare, and while presentation counts, you still have no idea how good the food actually is until the judges tell you. And the prizes aren't all that thrilling. I think they get a stove and, like, a magazine article or something.
But with Padma to guide us with her seductively intellectual presence (who will hopefully have a better signature send-off then "pack your knives and leave"), TC's second season could be approaching PR's crack-like addiction.
Also check out: Hooray for Jay.
And: Obsessing Over Food I Never Eat, with Giada de Laurentiis.
2 comments:
If you catch a few Bollywood movies(and if you haven't yet, get to it!) she's in a few...she is just..well, I'm gay and I get speechless when I see her.
Padma is quite hot. I had lost track of her. It's good to see an Indian in a show as a regular person, not some bumbling, can't speak without a heavy accent, type of character as usually happens.
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