How many chef shows can we stomach? March 10, 2009 10:35 PM
Can it really be eight years since NBC gave cable chef Emeril Lagasse his own sitcom? Sure, "Emeril" was a bomb, but at least they rolled the dice. In the time-honored tradition of TV development, somebody took a notion and threw it against the wall to see if it stuck. It didn't. But neither do most new ideas. Now, TV-development types seem to be afraid of new ideas. NBC has all but banished them.
As if to make us yearn for the brazen originality of "Emeril" or even "Knight Rider," NBC offers the 4 millionth variation on the cooking competition series, "The Chopping Block" (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
Master chef Marco Pierre White is the star of sorts. We're told that he's a very big deal in Europe and that he was the host of the British version of "Hell's Kitchen." He avoids the profane rage of Gordon Ramsay. Instead, he projects the world-weary concern of an aging professor and sports an unruly hairdo that makes him look like a brooding composer. Seriously, he looks a little like Philip Glass.
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