Soul Food Family

Soul Food Family is the type of reality television that is born from such delusional self obsession that it is fascinating, frightening and foul, all at the same time. Much like the murky brown tanks of oil that everything gets dropped into at this institution.

Robbie Montgomery is the owner of the St Louis soul food restaurant "Sweetie Pie's" and the 70 something matriarch of the family, with fond memories of being exploited during the sixties by Ike Turner as a background singer and "original" Ikette.  Many years after the demise of her singing career, the "soul sister turned to soul food" and opened "Sweetie Pie's" with her family.  Supersaturating every single ingredient with the maximum amount of kilojoules whilst draining it of all colour, the family now proudly produces soul food and dispenses it soup kitchen style to queues of waiting zombie patrons itching for their next hit of transfat.

Blatantly scripted and poorly acted, the ladies wake in full make up and the family members recite lines, provide convenient exposition and even seemingly re-enact events to different camera angles.

A dull yet overwrought and bloated affair, Miss Robbie in particular seems to be quite full of something: which is either a dangerously inflated ego or - given the state of the food and the nasty odour hanging over this production in general - a serious bout of gas.

Watch the Soul Food Family on Discovery Channel on Sundays at 18h10, dealing death, one plate at a time.

Cake Boss - Season 4

Taking poor taste to new heights, Buddy and his sweaty crew plaster together a cake in the shape of a washing machine, complete with detergent, bubbles and stinky clothes.  

The current season of Cake Boss comes to an end on Discovery Channel today. But never fear, your favourite fatties will no doubt be back soon, churning out more gastronomic abominations with incontinent glee.

Cake Boss

A living testament to why sugar is bad for you, Bartolo "Buddy" Valastro is the titular Cake Boss.  If you grew up eating random objects that normal people would not consider edible, then this reality show featuring Buddy and his cake shop in Hoboken, New Jersey is for you.  The show features hyperactive loudmouth Buddy and his legions of obese and sweaty cousins and brothers-in-law cobbling together moving robots, life sized race cars, beaches and even rhinoceroses out of rice crispy treats covered with dyed fondant or modelling chocolate. And Buddy does it extremely well, as he will pause every 3 minutes to tell you. 

When Buddy and family are not sweating over someones birthday "cake", they take some time out to scream at each another.  Generally, though, the manufactured personal dramas are as plastic and fake as their cakes.

Morbidly fascinating fair - not unlike a car crash - the most exciting moments are usually when, back in the kitchen, Buddy declares that he is going "old school", breaks out a piping bag of royal icing and inflicts kitch horrors upon unsuspecting sponge cake.

Cake Boss airs on Discovery Channel on Mondays to Fridays at 20h00.

Can anyone explain to us why someone would pay good money for a borderline edible creation that looks like a golf course in the first place?


See also Soul Food Family
              The Truth about Reality Television

An Idiot Abroad - Episode 4 (Mexico)

We are still not buying it, but it is growing on us.  Sensible and hyper conservative Karl Pilkington is willing to be called a "round empty headed chimplike moron" on television and as his reward gets shipped off to various unpleasant international locations for a holiday from hell for our amusement? How much could they possibly be paying him?

Once you get past the glaring fakeness, seeing Pilkington sincerely ask every Mexican he meets if they have Mexican jumping beans, and wondering if he could buy any in a pet shop, does have a certain charm. Probably the phoniest travel program you will ever see, but maybe also the funniest.

An Idiot Abroad airs on Discovery Channel on Tuesdays at 21h20.

An Idiot Abroad - Episode 1

Part travel program, part extended practical joke. Remarkably round headed Karl Pilkington is the supposed idiot in question, unwillingly sent abroad by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (the men behind The Office) and unwittingly subjected to childish and absurd pranks thinly related to the culture of each country he is touring.

The premise of the first season is that insular and grumpy Pilkington must visit the sites of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World and record his inane reactions. On paper it is brilliant.  Quirky balding slack jawed everyman Pilkington as a refreshing and funny antidote to the ultimately futile political correctness of modern society.   In practise it is awful. Sulky Pilkington has very few spontaneous responses, except for when he is tortured or assaulted.  Instead he spouts a monologue that is very clearly scripted by Gervais and company. Mildly funny at best, it ultimately makes you feel like you are the one being held for a fool.

In the first episode he is sent to China, home of the first modern wonder, the Great Wall of China. 

Pilkington comes off as a manic depressive who is bored to tears with the script he has to deliver. He observes a lady "stuffing her face" with dried scorpions and wonders what she would do if she wakes up in the morning and finds a spider in her bath. He compares the Great Wall of China with the M6 and claims that the M6 is more useful because you can drive on it.  He is stunned to find a Chinese toilet that does not have doors or toilet paper and declares that China does not need iPhones, but toilet paper instead.  He is assaulted by Kung Fu masters and force fed boiled toad. 

The only amusing and spontaneous moment comes when Pilkington is literally tortured by a lady administering a traditional fire massage, setting fire to his extremities. More Jackass than Travel Channel, this moment is sadly ruined by Pilkington spouting some rehearsed line about not knowing that you need a fire extinguisher on standby for a massage.

If you are watching this, beware: this is not just about an idiot abroad, it's about the one they are trying to make out of that person staring at your television back home.

An Idiot Abroad airs on Discovery Channel on Tuesdays at 21h20.