1) RAMSAY MOVES TO THE NEXT LEVEL
After acquiring Studio Ramsay Global from All3Media last August, Fox Alternative Studios and Ramsay prodco have developed and produced their first cooking show together, Next Level Chef, which will premiere January 2nd.
The new format sees contestants battling for a US$250,000 check on a 50-foot high, three-story stage consisting of three kitchen levels. The contestants on the top floor kitchen get top-line equipment and choice ingredients to work with, those cooking on the middle floor are set in a standard restaurant kitchen environment and those in the basement have to make do with the bare minimum. The three judges/mentors (Ramsay himself with fellow chefs Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais) will judge the aspiring chefs and decide the ritual eliminations.
A very impressive set — constructed with 85 tons of steel — but nothing really new regarding content.
2) AVATARS FOR DECEASED
To complete the overview on hybrid shows, which will be one of the main trends of the future (see Fridays’ Espresso of 15th Oct, 26th Nov and 3rd Dec) we can’t help writing about the Korean Meeting You (MBC), although it is no more very recent.
In this shocking documentary/reality, a technological production team spent eight months building the avatar of Nayeon, a seven-year-old girl who passed away due to a rare incurable disease, including her actual voice. Furthermore, always using VR technology, an elaborate park scene was created as backdrop, where the mother was able to “meet” her daughter and celebrate her “birthday”.
It’s not the first time that dead people are at the centre of an unscripted show (see the Japanese Resurrection Makeover and the English Voices from the Grave). But it has been the very first time that a dead person has been recreated as avatar (without his consent) and has interacted with living people in a hybrid (and a bit creepy) cross-medial space. From the social, commercial and, of course, legal point of view, the consequences in the future might be huge.
3) RUPAUL FOR THE RETURN TO LINEAR OF BBC THREE
It was an interesting experiment, but it didn’t go well; and so next February BBC Three returns to linear television, exactly six years after its previous relegation to streaming-only. To celebrate the event, a series of unscripted programs will be launched, among which the UK version of the US format RuPaul’s Drag Race (titled RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK Versus the World) stands out.
Although the format (a competition between drag queens to conquer the title of the first-ever Global Drag Race Superstar) is a big hit in the US, with 14 series, a number of spin-off shows (RuPaul’s Drag U, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under…) and several international versions (Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Canada, Thailand, Chile and others) it hasn’t been brought to Britain up to now.
Really a great start for the young-target BBC channel.
And that’s all for this year. See you again in 2022 for a new issue (with a new cover) of Friday’s Espresso. Season’s greetings to everybody!