Waiting for the new episodes - which it appears I'll be watching exclusively online because the truncated version of DirecTV that comes with the rent has the video of the local Fox station but not the audio, for some reason (and there's no point telling the landlord...they'll just say that I don't know how to work a TV...and supposedly I'm the only one who ever complains about anything being broken).....
Anyway...been watching "Ramsay's Best Restarurants". On the eighth episode of fourteen and we've gotten to our first double episode in this series - after choosing the last finalist between two Spanish restaurants and we then go straight into the first semi-final.
The first half is as good or perhaps better than the usual...but then we get to the semi-final.
For some reason that still has me scratching my head, they decide that they need to get rid of two of the contending restaurants in the first ten minutes or so. This is based only on a visit each from secret diners. They take four out of the eight (why aren't all eight considered for elimination together?) and two are unceremoniously bounced. Ramsay can't even come to them personally - he does it on the phone. And I'm wondering....is this what they intended all along? Did they get halfway through the series and go, "Shit, pitting all these places against each other is going to take forever." If they couldn't handle eight restaurants why did we just go through this for eight weeks...perhaps to only see a place we were rooting for go down on the word of one person's meal? Maybe there is something of a "promotional fee" of different levels involved here somewhere...

So we lose two restaurants immediately. The other two are told to make up new restaurants that will operate for the one night with a set amount of money to spend. Can you say "Top Chef Restaurant Wars"? Only in the case of "Top Chef", the members of the teams have only met a few weeks before and are also competing with each other on the show over all. These people work with each other every day. And STILL one of the places makes a "dog's dinner" out of some of it!
The parent/son place that berates the diners for not liking the over-complicated and undercooked stuff they serve are the ones who almost can't put together the "One Night Only" place. I still don't understand why they won then...and then in the elimination...and then to win the whole thing this episode?

Really wondering what that "promotional fee" was....