First Impressions – Kitchen Confidential / How I Met Your Mother

Before I get into the reviews of the shows advertised, I like to mention that I skipped Surface on purpose and you won’t be seeing a review of the show anytime soon. From the commercials, it looked like the worst of the onslaught of sci-fi shows popping up this season, and that’s saying a lot considering I wasn’t too excited about any of them. And reading the reviews for Surface, it looks like no one seemed to like it anyways. Now on to the show I did watch.

Kitchen Confidential

After the horrible The War at Home, this season’s sitcoms didn’t start of on a very good foot. First up sitting in the post-Arrested Development (if you haven’t already, be sure to check out imoscar.com) timeslot was Kitchen Confidential. Hard shoes to fill but they try anyways. The show centers on a top notch chef, the reporter from Alias, who had everything taken away after a cocaine habit brought him down. The show starts with him getting a second chance as the head chef of a new restaurant. The first thing he ha to do is round up his crew which includes Xander from Buffy, the head geek from Freeks and Geeks, and Johnny Cho, who we should be chastised for the unfunny Harold and Kumar movie but instead should be chastised for bring the term MILF into our lives. As for the staff that was already in place we have James King, last seen naked in Sin City, playing the token hot dumb chick/hostess, and Bonnie Summerville as the owner’s daughter who most likely will play Diane to Alias dude’s Sam. But I’m not sure the show will be on long enough for them to actually hook up.

The main problem of the show, much like Emeril’s sitcom and the reality show The Restaurant is many people don’t want to see funny things that happen in the kitchen of a restaurant. We the consumers want to go in blindly unaware of any potential problems that are hidden by swinging doors. Watching the finger cutting will make me think back to the last time I was at my local resteraunt and think, “what if?”

Another problem with the first show was there were just too many characters and many of them were not flushed out. Aside from the main character, the supporting cast got very little screen time to give me an idea of what they were all about such as the Xander & Harold characters. At the end of the show, the fake-restaurant got a review saying that it was chaotic, the help was suspicious, but at the heart, what they serve was good, and if they could get things together the whole establishment could be great, and that could sum up the show itself.

Verdict: You may be better off watching…

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother was my second most anticipated sitcom after Everyone Hates Chris. It has an interesting concept about a father explaining to his teenage children about, obviously, how he met his mother. Okay, the concept is pretty cheesy in a Wonder Years kind of way. Mmm, I just realized that my top two shows I’m was looking forward take from the Wonder Years. Not quite sure if that is a good thing. But Anyways. The real reason I was wanted to see the show is its cast as it features not only Willow but Doogie Howser too. Then they get Danny Tanner to play the role of the dude from City Slickers. How could you possibly go wrong? Rounding out the supporting cast is Jason Segal, yet another Freaks and Geeks alum, this time a freak. Kinda makes me wonder what happened to Bill. Oh well.

As for the lead characters, we are introduced to two new actors Josh Radnor as the dad and Cobie Smulders as the female lead. Radnor really didn’t impress me much but then most leads tend to take a back seat to their surrounding cast. Smulders on the hand did a good job with the whole slightly quirky girl next girl. Now if only I can find a chick who can quote lines from Ghostbusters.

The show itself start off a little sluggish but slowly started out whipping off some good one liners most given by Doogie who looks like the reason to turn everyone. If “suit up” doesn’t enter the American lexicon, that will be a shame. I’m sure I’ll be using it in the near future. I didn’t really care too much for the stop frame to narrating ploy and the ending was bad in a Jack and Bobby kind of way, you know, the kind that ruins the show by revealing the ending way too soon. But unlike Jack and Bobby, it is possible How I Met Your Mother can redeem itself later. Plus it has Doogie and Willow.

Verdict: Watch this over Kitchen Confidential and hope the ending from last night’s show doesn’t completely ruin the show. Now suit up and meet me at the bar in 20 minutes.