Restaurant as theater
I like the concept of a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a restaurant, but does it have to be yet another “reality” show, with all that ad hoc casting and so forth? It’s sort of like a culinary Making the Band. I’d be just as (if not more) happy with a show profiling the development of a real restaurant and the real people who run it. I suppose that kind of special-interest, documentary programming (read: real “reality” TV) gets relegated to public and cable television, not prime-time networks. (Cf. “24 Hours at the Golden Apple,” This American Life, Nov. 17, 2000.)