Come Dine With Me (Come Dine With Me)

Member Name: Stephoohla

Product:	Come Dine With Me
Date:	26/08/09 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, especially celebrity version

Disadvantages: Similar contestants each show

Come Dine With Me is a TV show on Channel 4. The basis of the show is in the name really! Five people get together, each hosting their own dinner party for the other four, and they get rated out of 10 by that four for their food quality and host etiquette.

Yes, it is a reality TV show. But it's probably the classiest one there is. None of the contestants are ever professional cooks, and aside from the lazy few who get professional help or buy their meals pre-cooked, they do have to do it all alone.

Each has to cook a three course meal for their guests, and quite often there will be someone with specialist food requirements, such as vegetarian, vegen, etc. The last show I watched, one women couldn't eat fish, and this was not taken into account at the final meal, and fish was the main course. It was very funny watching the heated conversation between the "chef" and the woman who couldn't eat fish. It ended with her being cooked a special dish to herself, but about 20 minutes after everyone else had eaten. Needless to say, that "chef" did not win.

The Prize.

At the end of the show, each of the guests' ratings are totted up, and whoever received the most points won £1,000. A nice sum to win, but some of the guests put so much effort in, buying expensive food along with new china and cutlery, sometimes even buying new furniture to make their homes look presentable! Some hire butlers or waiters for the evening. I reckon by the end they'll have easily spent £1,000 anyway. But on this show, quite a lot of the guests are fairly upper class, therefore my theory is that they don't really need the money anyway (from the appearance of their massive homes full of expensive technology and furniture), and have applied to the show to just try and show off their cooking 'skills' or to get on TV.

The beginning of each show introduces each contestant, and we get to watch each of them preparing their meals for the night. Here, the show is a bit like a cooking channel, and actually I find it quite educational and have used a lot of the tips when hosting my own dinners.

Each contestant has one night of cooking and hosting to impress the four others so that they'll give him/her a good score! One big problem though is that they don't know each other, and have never met before the first night, so the first night can always be a bit awkward, but this just makes it more fun to watch.

Whilst the host is making final dinner preparations, the other guests are all welcome to have a walk around the house they are in. Obviously at a usual dinner party this sort of behaviour would be treated very well but this is all for TV so the guests aren't really too careful about what they do or say! One guest went around seeing how dusty everything was as the host was meant to be a clean freak! It was very entertaining seeing her walk back downstairs with a load of dust on her finger and showing the host her findings!

I think the most entertaining part of the show is the utter two-facedness of the guests, but it is probably exactly how anyone would act! For example, at the meal, the guests will rave about the food and say it is fantastic, but on the drive home they talk directly to the camera to describe the night's events, and it is here that we hear exactly what they think! (and most of the time it's that they thought the food was awful). So it just shows everyone's true side, that you may say complimentary things to a person's face, but behind their back what you really feel does come out!

The voiceover guy, David Lamb, is very entertaining and gives the show added humour and comedy. He is very sarcastic which is enjoyable to hear over the passion and seriousness of the contestants who are really eager to win.

Celebrity versions of Come Dine With Me are on TV at least once per series, and it is even more entertaining watching regular faces, and people you know on TV rather than anyone off the street. But often these celebs DO know each other, which is why it is so funny when they compliment each other's food at dinner but then b*t*h about them behind their backs.

On the regular version of Come Dine With Me, often the types of people who are on it are quite similar. Generally upper class posh-talkers who have no need to work because they are loaded and think they are wonderful cooks because they've got loads of free time to cook (am just stereotyping here!). So the show can get a bit dull, but they do throw some variation in every now and again. There's always loads of entertaining bits in each show even if the contestants are similar though.

The show lasts about 40 minutes I think, which is a good amount of time. Any longer and I think it would get boring.

Summary: A great show for some excellent cooking tips and 40 minutes of entertainment :)