"Come Dine With Me" on BBC America

[IndyRob]

From searching, it appears that this show has been mentioned, but hasn't had its own thread. But this show is really growing on me. Each week, four amateur cooks from a city in the UK host a dinner party for each other over four days. and on each occasion, the three diners rate the host on a scale of 1-10 with the winner scoring 1,000 pounds.

Haute cuisine? No. Just try not to be in the bottom three. Narrator Dave Lamb gives the snarky play by play of each unjustified sleight, boast, failure, or outright disaster.

The comedy value is quite good. Especially in the episode we got to see last night where the cockiest host got the worst score ever (so far, I presume).

[ermintrude]

It's on C4 in the UK and I love it, narrator Dave Lamb's comments always make me smile.

The clash between people is hilarious, often some of the best ones are where it all goes wrong (food wise) but so much fun was had they won.

It's a great, what I call, background programme so fab to have on the back to back episodes on a Sunday when your sorting stuff out.

[codheadred]

David Lamb's voiceover is very funny, he gets some great material to work with in this show.

[annabelle]

I love this show. There is a lot of slagging of it on other boards, but it is truly hilarious.

[jayhay]

I love this show too! It's been on our Canadian women's channel for months & never fails to make me laugh. What we see is 5 diners prepare meals - one each weeknight, with the winner announced at the end of the last episode , on Friday. On the weekend there is an omnibus of the previous week, which is what I watch when I have time. It gets it's humo(u)r from the mixing up of dis-similar personalities & the problems that can ensue. I can't see it translating well to North America, even though they keep advertising for people to sign up. The combination of the narrator, & the very British setting is what makes it for me.

[Kafka Zola]

I too enjoy the show, although I'm a little more ambivalent about David Lamb's voiceover commentary. Sometimes -- a wee bit too often for my tastes --- he seems to be snarky *just* for the sake of being snarky.

A few random questions or observations:

1- I'd love to know what the exact rules, restrictions and financial/budgetary allotments are per contestant. I did a minor (far too minor, I should add) Google search but (not surprisingly, perhaps) turned up nothing. Do they all have an identical budget in order to try to level the playing field a little? Some people seem to spend a lot more than others, perhaps in hopes of making that 1000 GBP prize actually amount to something after expenses. In contrast, others...

2- On a completely tangential note, I'm always rather horrified by the guests who go rifling through the host's house. LET ALONE their bedroom and drawers! I realise the rather hippy-dippy, 50 year-old scientist lady with an avowedly voracious sexual appetite wouldn't have cared much for people trying to dig up her sex toys (instead, only pulling up a box of DIY tools), but really.... I was aghast, even if she wasn't. (And she should have been! Or, perhaps, would have been if she hadn't been so plastered most of the time.) And she was hardly alone in having her private rooms ransacked by mocking, giggling and inappropriate guests. But, I suppose, that's one of the inevitable consequences of signing up for a show pairing you up with 3 completely random (and strange) strangers.

3- I read recently that BBC America showed this series (out of order and in random) as preparation for launching a "Come Dine with Me -- US version." There are apparently almost 100 or so original UK episodes but BBC America has selected a few at random to show in the US. In the meantime, they are preparing a US version of the show, to take place in NY-Metro homes. [sEE Link for details] I have to say, I'm not expecting the best. I enjoyed Gordon Ramsay's original BBC Kitchen Nightmares but everything he ever does under US television auspices just makes me cringe and reach for the remote (or the mute button). This may not be done by Fox (which destroyed the original nature, intent and spirit of his Kitchen Nightmares show) but I still don't think it bodes well.

4- I'm surprised by how many of the amateur chefs try a mere "pudding" (which isn't an actual pudding, by my definition of it at least). Or, perhaps, I'm surprised by just how many of them seem to try some minor variation on the same theme that all the British are very familiar with and, as a result, rarely seems like much of a huge gourmet effort. I understand they're going for the easiest and least time consuming thing, but in the 8 or so episodes I've watched, only one chap attempted a cake. If they're going for short-cuts with often pre-packaged or prepared sauces/meats/additives (as many of these novice cooks often do), etc, then why not try a package mix cake? It surely can't be worse than some of the disasters served up on this show?!

5- I saw the episode that IndyRob mentioned where the chap received what was supposedly the lowest score of all time on the series. And, I have to say, I'm really surprised it hasn't happened earlier. Some of the conflicts on the show (and the occasionally truly hideous dishes) would have warranted a far lower score from me (had I experienced them) than the 7s or 8s routinely handed out by the insulted, attacked or starved diners. Yes, I'm more food-obsessed than many of the guests (Guests? contestants? participants?) on the show, but there have been some right royal cock-ups and horrors, often inflicted by hosts with a particularly peculiar sense of "hospitality." The episode that IndyRob referenced was the first where someone got a score of "1" (or anywhere close to that range) and I'm very surprised. If this had been a US reality show, I think there would have been 1s and 0s handed out left, right and center far before now!

Sorry for the tome, but this is my first, actual eGullet post and I suppose I just unleashed all my latent, repressed commentary from years of watching on the sidelines and merely reading.

[Simon_S]

I love this show, but from what I know about US TV versions of UK programmes, I just don't see it working as well.