Whatever made me think it would be anything but more of the same? For
now, there are no loud blustery cooking challenges and "Next Best"
anything competitions, but that won't last long. It's just the usual
assortment of artificial personalities who call themselves "food people"
generating prefab, highly edited drivel. God help them if one of them
should make a mistake while pretending to generate their foodie fare.
There will be only perfection here, and I'll bet there's a sign at the
door saying so!

I had hope for it when I saw they'd be running old Julia Child shows and
(saints be praised) Graham Kerr. Those two knew how to live on camera:
Julia dropped things, burned herself and misplaced ingredients, and
counseled cooks on how to deal with that, and Kerr cavorted about his
set and his kitchen meeting both success and failure with equal abandon.
Things were allowed to play out in order from start to finish, and there
was limited editing. Something terrible might happen to either of them
at any moment, and it was great television. And oh my, watching these
two shows again on the Cooking Channel, I'm reminded of just how much
harvest gold, avocado green and burnt orange there was around at the
time. My god, it was everywhere!

The last of my hopes for the Cooking Channel faded quickly when the
first commercial break plowed into Julia's public television realm.
There are three commercial breaks in a half hour program, roughly jammed
into programs not meant to have any. The effect is harsh. It tears
jagged gaps into programs that heretofore had impeccable continuity and
timing. I grieved when, on return from commercial breaks, our Julia
would suddenly be in the middle of something new while leaving pre-break
tasks unfinished, or the action would abruptly jump to another room, or
finished dishes had already been laid out in array, or dessert was being
served... What had I missed? Was I the only one lost?

The Galloping Gourmet was designed for commercial breaks, so the
interruptions don't hurt it so much. The effect on Julia, however, is
stultifying. But the biggest problem I have with it is that the Cooking
Channel has taken programs that show the genuine article, treats them
like curiosities instead of the roots of its own tree, then spends the
rest of its time catering to big egos with nerdy glasses and overwrought
kitchens who aren't really doing anything but talking loudly and leering
sideways into however many cameras there are. I mean, we knew that Julia
and Kerr had their hands in the mixing bowl, but these new guys who rely
on ubercloseups and beauty shots for everything... Jesus, those could be
anybody's hands in there. Why don't they show me that they know how to
do something?

I just don't like the reality TV approach that these newer shows evince.
Flash over substance, flash over skill, flash over patience, flash in
the pan. There is no style in there anywhere. And cooking shows need
style. Not what the kitchen looks like style, and not who made the
appliances style. I mean real style. Real personalities with real
talents and real abilities instead of flash.