long-winded frivolity

So for a couple of weeks there, I had access to cable TV (OK, the dish, but I think cable is idiomatic for “subscription TV with channels such as HGTV, TLC, ESPN, Bravo, FOOD, Nick, CNN and C-SPAN, but not unless specified such premium channels as HBO, Showtime and the Spice Channel, and with potential access to pay-per-view sports) (this is a marketing problem for the dish, I suppose, who would rather one thinks of the two as equal alternatives for paid television instead of assuming cable as the default, but then I am not responsible for marketing the dish, so may take the language as I find it) (in this case) (perhaps I’d better start again) (ah, but where?)

So for a couple of weeks there, I had access to cable TV but not to DSL, and I must say the entertainment is a lot better on this internet thing. Still, I watched enough to make an observation, and oddly enough it’s an observation about a couple of “unscripted” shows that I used to enjoy watching, once upon a time. One is Iron Chef, whose current incarnation in whiteface is Iron Chef America. For those Gentle Readers somehow unfamiliar with the concept of the Iron Chef, the concept of the original show was very simple. No, it wasn’t, but I’ll tell it anyway. A crazy billionaire known as The Chairman so relished the experience of eating new dishes that he set up Kitchen Stadium and brought great chefs from around Japan (and, eventually, the world) to compete against his stable of Iron Chefs (who were, it was implied, either held captive or cryogenically frozen between bouts) in a cooking competition to see whose cuisine reigns supreme. A Special Ingredient was revealed at the beginning of an episode, and then the challenger and the Iron Chef would prepare dishes with that ingredient in one hour, and at the end of the hour, a panel of judges (who were not captives, but were somehow not entirely free to decline to participate, either, I always felt) would eat, judge and declare a victor. The new American version follows the format nearly identically, with some cultural changes that I won’t go into just now. Anyway, there is a stable of Iron Chefs, and each episode a new challenger challenges one of the Iron Chefs, a special ingredient is revealed, and the two chefs cook and are judged.

After an introduction to the challenger, and the ceremonial revelation of the special ingredient (allez cuisine!), which can take perhaps ten minutes, the bulk of the show (forty minutes or so) is taken up with watching the preparation of the food. It’s treated as an athletic competition, with discussion of knife technique, strategy, tactics, tools, and above all, which competitor appears at the moment to have an edge. There’s a commentator, a floor reporter (who can inform the viewers what exactly is in that bowl of orange sludge), and the occasional comment from a judge. In the original, there was a play-by-play man and a color man, which worked extremely well; in this version the inimitable Alton Brown attempts both roles and does better than he really ought to.

OK, the second show is Trading Spaces, another overseas crossover albeit from Britain this time. Again, for those Gentle Readers who have not been watching, this is a home improvement show in which two pairs of friends or neighbors turn over one room to each other and the show. One of a stable of designers is assigned to direct each pair in a remodel of the room in two days, with a budget of one thousand dollars. Again, there is an introduction (to the home-owner and their homes) for a few minutes, then the bulk of the show is the actual remodeling, and then there’s the reveal, where the couples swap back and finally see what has been done. There is no explicit competition in Trading Spaces, but of course it is set up for the viewers to discuss whose design reigns supreme. They have worked through a few combinations, but in general, there is one host/commentator, a carpenter who provides color commentary as well, and the two designers and four guests.

There are a few obvious similarities: the stable of chefs/designers, from whom each episode’s characters are drawn, and who bring an individual style which becomes familiar to the regular viewer. The guests, who require introduction, and who only exist for one episode. The artificial deadline, which is much shorter than one would normally expect for the task. The restriction of the Special Ingredient or the room’s specs, which require improvisation by the chef/designer. And the connection, at a remove, from normal activities of the viewer, such that the viewer might get an idea from the chef/designer but would not want to (or be able to) replicate the dish or project.

There’s another similarity, which might not be as immediately obvious, but which once I noticed it, totally impressed me. They are both all about the editing.

In Iron Chef, they compress an hour of cooking into about twenty-five minutes or so of actual screen time, once you take out the introduction, the judging and the commercials. In Trading Spaces, they take about 36 hours and compress it into the same twenty-five minutes or so. In both, they have two teams (each chef commands a few sous-chefs), and each team has five (or so) projects. The viewer has to be able to follow each team, and each project of each team. In fact, the viewer has to care about each project of each team, and wonder whether each project (ten or so, remember?) is going to work out by the end of the show. Ideally, each project has to be a narrative, with some conflict or obstacle, and a surprise before the completion. The bulk of the actual work on each project will be pretty dull, but enough of the work must be shown to give the viewer an idea of its difficulty. The tempo of the show has to be fast, to indicate the time pressure, but also has to build to a climax. Also, the characters of the guests and the repeating designers/chefs should be brought out by means of those project narratives. As an exercise, try (or just imagine trying) to write a screenplay that would do all that, deciding which bits go where, when you reveal what, how much time to give each, and (of course) when to break to commercial. The editors do it with the tape. A badly edited version of either show would not only be incomprehensible, but uninteresting.

The other similarity is that changing the format kills the show. The shows are (I’m sorry) sonnets, whose interest comes from the structures placed on them, and the improvisation within. The only things that can change, show to show, are the guests and the ingredient/houses. Oh, you’ll draw a different chef/designer out of the stable, but the stable has to remain, er, stable, more or less. You can replace one or two if you have to, although it’ll hurt the show, but if you run out of money, you should replace the designers/chefs and keep the editors. But don’t fuck around with it. If you do, the show will die.

A year and a half ago, I said that Trading Spaces was dying, and it has hasn’t actually been cancelled, but the show has clearly been walking dead since then. The latest is that they gave an entire episode, it seems, to two of the designers, in which the supposed guests were actually improv actors hired to dupe the designers. In other words, the show was not about the work. I couldn’t watch; I hope nobody else did. But it doesn’t matter. They have already given it over to gimmicks: the big-money show, the live reveal, the kids version, whatever. Once you make it clear that you can change the rules, there is no reason to watch the episodes that adhere to the rules, since they’re only playing silly buggers anyway, and can do whatever they want. Similarly, if the challenging chef makes it clear that he just doesn’t care whether he wins or loses (as in the recent scallop battle), the viewer will have a much harder time the next episode cultivating the attitude that it actually matters whose cuisine reigns supreme.

But. If you just do the damn show, and do it over and over again, just follow the rules, and keep doing the show, you can do it forever. This is the lesson of Countdown, of The Price is Right, of—heck, of Gunsmoke. We will see whether Jeopardy survives; it may have (like Trading Spaces) sacrificed the future of the show for short-term ratings. Or not, because it’s true that sometimes fucking with the show works. I’m just saying.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.