[Televisionary]

Gordon Ramsay isn't always the blustery, cuss-prone figure that he cuts on such programs as Hell's Kitchen . In fact, on series like The F Word and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares , both of which air on BBC America, Ramsay allows his softer side to come through: calm, supportive, and empathetic. He offers a particular brand of tough love on his less showman-esque series that doesn't really come through amid the stageyness of FOX's Hell's Kitchen . Which isn't to say that he doesn't scream to the high heavens. Because he does, especially when he can't get through the thick skull of one of the struggling restaurateurs he's attempting to save from financial ruin, as on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares , which returns to BBC America beginning tonight with two new episodes. Despite offering a significantly shorter season than the previous entries in Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (the two episodes were originally transmitted as Great British Nightmare ...

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. ABC has confirmed that it has now altered its launch plan for sci-fi drama series V , which is set to premiere November 3rd. The network has decided to air just the first four installments of the Warner Bros. Television-produced series and then place V on hiatus until after the Winter Olympics. The news comes as a surprise as the series, which is written and executive produced by The 4400 's Scott Peters, has enjoyed extremely positive buzz from critics and from Comic-Con audiences who screened the pilot episode earlier this summer. However, both Warner Bros. Television and ABC were quick to point out that the episodic order for V hadn't been shortened; series is still set to air 13 installments. ( Los Angeles Times /Show Tracker ) The first official cancellation of the fall season is here: The Beautiful Life , we hardly knew ye. The CW has confirmed that it has axed The Beautiful Life after just two episodes, which plunge...

Now is a very good time to be a television-loving foodie, with several networks other than stalwarts Food Network or PBS devoting air time to culinary-themed programming. In fact, it's safe to say that cuisine as a whole has entered the general zeitgeist in a way that it couldn't really have done before the public's embrace of reality programming. But there's a rather large caveat: not all food programming is equal. While television offers a bountiful cornucopia of culinary series, there's still a large difference in the quality of these programs, not to mention a staggering range of subjects being covered. There are docusoaps that focus on cake-makers, competition series pitting chefs against each other, old fashioned cook-offs, food-focused travel series, and product spotlights. While I'd never be able to offer up a comprehensive discussion of all of these series (they are too numerous to even contemplate as a whole), I thought I'd take a look at a few mem...

I'm a huge admirer of Gordon Ramsay's F Word , the kitchen-based series from the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay, who has become has much a reality TV staple here in the States as he is in the UK. I'm even more pleased that BBC America, which will launch the fourth season of F Word tonight, is returning this provocative and compelling series to primetime, where it ought to be after stripping the third season weekdays in daytime. Unlike, say, Hell's Kitchen, which is really more about showmanship and contestant humiliation than, say, culinary matters, the emphasis here is firmly on food. After all, that's the f-word of the title. I had the chance to watch the first three episodes of Season Four of F Word and was once again completely sucked into Ramsay's kitchen world. The fourth season of F Word finds the chef/author on a mission to transform people's beliefs that healthy food is boring food on its head and he once again creates a variety of dishes that anyon...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. (Following a week that included the 2009 network upfronts, I think we are all looking forward to a three-day weekend.) SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello has the dish on the actual set-up of the new Melrose Place series, kicking off this fall on the CW, and it will either make you squeal with delight or make you want to scream, well, bloody murder. "Sources confirm to me exclusively that the dead body found floating face down in Melrose 's trademark pool in the opening minutes belongs to none other than Laura Leighton's bitchtastic ex-stripper," writes Ausiello of Melrose's seemingly resurrected Sydney. "I'm told her death will set in motion a season-long murder mystery that finds nearly all of the show's principal characters -- particularly Syd's ex, Michael (Thomas Calabro) -- a possible suspect." Leighton, meanwhile, will continue to appear on the series via flashback...

Those of us addicted to BBC America's culinary competition/chat/how-to/trend, well, everything series Gordon Ramsay's F Word would do well to set their TiVos BEFORE leaving for work today. The third season of the culinary program, which airs on Channel 4 in the UK, launches this afternoon in a 3 pm ET/PT timeslot, rather than in the early Sunday evening slot the series previously occupied. While the scheduling reflects part of an overall daytime programming strategy for the channel, it leaves those of us who loved to wrap up our weekends with Ramsay out in the cold. But do yourself a favor and set your TiVo to record this fantastic and engaging program. I'm absolutely chuffed to have F Word back on BBC America, regardless of the timeslot. I had the opportunity earlier this week to watch the first few episodes of the third season and have to say that Ramsay is in fine form. In the first episode alone, Ramsay tasks a group of former Eton students to cook in the F Word kitc...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I spent last night watching the first three brilliant episodes of HBO's Big Love , kicking off next month, and was up all night thinking about the series. At least the weekend's finally here, right? Pushing Daisies ' Kristin Chenoweth has been cast as the female lead in David E. Kelley's new NBC legal drama, Legally Mad , from Warner Bros. TV. Chenoweth will play Skippy Pylon, a brilliant lawyer who is often mistaken for being a teenager who goes to work at her father's firm; Skippy is "relentlessly cheerful" but suffers occasional bouts of psychosis. "I could only picture Kristin playing this role," said Kelley. "I've wanted to work with her for a long time and can't wait to reveal her as someone who's completely mad." It's a perfect part for Cheno (I'll be reading the pilot script this weekend) and I'm happy to see her land on her feet after the cancellation o...

Good morning and welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. In her first television role since the end of Battlestar Galactica (hitting small screens in 2009), Katee Sackhoff has signed on to star in drama pilot Lost and Found for Dick Wolf at NBC. Project, from writer/executive producer Chris Levinson, revolves around NYPD detective Tessa Cooper (Sackhoff) who is forced to solve John and Jane Doe cases after she finds herself rubbing her bosses the wrong way. Sackhoff's attachment lifts the cast contingency on the project, which was ordered to pilot last month. ( Hollywood Reporter ) FOX has signed a new deal with Gordon Ramsay that will keep the chef at the network for several more years and includes an agreement to produce two more editions of Hell's Kitchen , another season of Kitchen Nightmares , and a third series (likely based on Ramsay's Channel 4 series Man Camp , about a boot camp for men worried by how feminine they're becoming) and a special in whi...

Dear Gordon Ramsay, After being a fan of your globe-spanning restaurant empire and slew of cookbooks, as well as faithfully watching your enlightening and entertaining television series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and The F-Word for several years, I have developed the utmost respect for you. So I am curious why you would attempt to tarnish your image by continuing to appear on FOX's trashy and trite culinary competition series, Hell's Kitchen . Now entering its fourth season, the series has given up any pretense of being a bona fide culinary competition and turned into nothing more than a kitchen-based freak show. Any aspiring chef worth his or her salt would surely run screaming from the mere thought of applying to be on Hell's Kitchen to apply to the far superior series Top Chef ; it's certainly not a launch pad for a serious restaurant career, despite the promise of an executive chef position at your new restaurant at The London LA. No, anyone with tangible or...

Hungry for another helping of restaurant-in-peril series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares ? Look no further as the original British format of Kitchen Nightmares , airing this season on FOX, is returning to these shores with its fourth season on Thursday, January 24th at 8 pm ET/PT, with six all-new episodes and two "revisit" episodes, in which Ramsay checks on restaurants he helped save in previous seasons. The series, starring uber-chef Gordon Ramsay, follows the Michelin-starred enfant terrible restaurateur as he tries to save failing restaurants on their last legs. But will the objects of his assistance appreciate the advice... or will they sink further and further into chaos and penury? On the show's fourth series, Ramsay will tackle several daunting challenges with his trademark tough love, including saving a Parisian vegetarian restaurant, an enormous curry house in Nottingham, a Sussex buffet-style restaurant, and an oyster bar in Brighton. And, promises BBC Americ...

One of the joys of my Sunday evenings (a dreaded time which means the return to work the following day after a far-too-short weekend) the past few months has been sitting down in front of the telly to tune into BBC America's culinary series Gordon Ramsay's F Word. So I was happy then to discover that the network was launching Season Two of Gordon Ramsay's F Word right on the heels of the Christmas-themed first season , which wrapped up just in time for the holidays. Hosted by Gordon Ramsay, that foul-mouthed, prickly chef who has built his reputation on the precision, perfection, and elegance of his food as much as he has by the demanding, draconian tactics he uses on sister show Hell's Kitchen , The F Word is meant to be a more, er, personable look into Ramsay's life, bringing us a kinder, softer Gordon in his kitchen and home. The F Word is not a reality show per se, not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway. Yes, sometimes people are sent home and at ...

I don't know about you but I simply can't get enough of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. From his series Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares , he's presented a persona that is at times mercilessly cruel and passionately involved with food. It's food, of course, that the foul-mouthed Ramsay loves to talk about, reflect upon, and, well, cook up and that's the f-word in the title of Ramsay's latest television outing, Gordon Ramsay's F Word . (What did you think it should stand for, eh?) Filmed in the UK last year, Gordon Ramsay's F Word is finally making its US debut this week on BBC America and it's unlike anything that Ramsay has shown us before. It's not quite a cooking show and it's not quite a reality show; instead, it's something more analogous to a variety show, with Ramsay--quite possibly the ultimate entertainer--as the bellowing ringmaster. (P.T. Barnum would have been impressed.) While that might seem an odd anal...

Digital cabler BBC America has announced five series which it plans to launch this fall, including one from that irascible Mr. Alan Partridge, comedian Steve Coogan ( Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story ). First up is comedy Saxondale , which stars Steve Coogan ( I'm Alan Partridge ) as Tommy Saxondale, a former roadie with anger management issues who runs a pest control business dealing with rodents and people. Ruth Jones ( Nighty Night ) co-stars as Saxondale's Welsh anarchist girlfriend Magz who owns a t-shirt business called "Smash the System" selling politically radical clothing. The series' seven-episode run premieres October 13th at 11 pm ET (8 pm PT). Rumor has it that NBC, which has a deal with Coogan's production company (Baby Cow) is developing an American version of Saxondale . Let's hope that it's along the lines of The Office and not, say, Coupling . Hell's Kitchen 's Gordon Ramsay returns to BBC America with Gordon Ramsay...