As has often been remarked, reality television is all about putting ordinary people in extraordinary situations. While few would describe Tony Bourdain as “ordinary,” he does have something of an everyman quality about him -- particularly if you think that the average guy is as tall and thin as he is jaded. That very cynicism brings a healthy groundedness to the show, however, as Tony trots of globe in search of the weird and wonderful. It’s much like the attitude that David Letterman (on whose show Tony often appears) brings to Hollywood -- a stubborn refusal to be dazzled by glitter, fame, or superficial appearances of any sort. “Cook’s Tour” was one of my favorite FoodTV shows. Tony introducing each episode with that clip of his eating the bug provided the metaphor for the lengths to which he would go in search of the exotic. In “No Reservations,” however, Tony’s world-weariness seems to be getting rather extreme. It’s entirely understandable. If you’ve ever lived out of a suitcase for weeks, even months on end, changing time zones almost as often as you do hotel rooms, it’s far less enjoyable and glamorous than it may seem. In fact, it can be some of the hardest work there is. That’s under the best of circumstances - and those best of circumstances would hardly make for entertaining television. So instead we’ve got Tony trudging off to choke down putrefied shark in Iceland, when he isn’t being tied in knots by a deep tissue masseuse in Uzbekistan (wherever that is). I must say that watching Tony’s fingers being dragged from the edge of the platform where, with his voice over, he ultimately “confesses” to Rachael Ray’s great cooking skills, was simply exquisite. Zamir in that episode made a perfect foil to Tony, both in personality and physique. In silhouette, the pair rekindles memories of the old Rocky & Bullwinkle show, with Zamir playing Boris Badinov to Tony’s Natasha Fatale. I emphasize “in silhouette” - there’s nothing in the least feminine about Tony Bourdain, of course. And I bet Zamir’s vocalization of “Moose, Squirrel” ain’t half bad either. Then we have the New Zealand episode where Tony takes the spill on the ATV. Now, all of a sudden, this doesn’t seem so amusing. That little adventure could easily have been Tony’s last -- leaving him crippled or even dead. I close my eyes and I can still see that heavy vehicle overturning upon him and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, flinging him like some oversized rag doll down the slope. It was there where it finally hit home how unscripted all this is. That wasn’t some highly paid stunt double safely pretending to do these things. That was all as real as it gets. Earlier in this same episode, Tony, this spectacularly unfit urbanite, just months shy of his fiftieth birthday, who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, wheezes up those New Zealand hills vainly struggling to keep up in the hunt for wild boar. After the ATV debacle, that little exercise takes on something of a different quality too. Isn’t stroke one of our leading causes of death? I love Tony’s television shows, but I like and admire him far too much to have him come to a premature end just to provide us this entertainment, however wonderful and welcome it may be. Tony may have the heart of a warrior, but even if he had the physical athleticism to match, reality TV’s “extraordinary situations” just shouldn’t be as life threatening as they’ve become on “No Reservations”.
