Today, Ryan Seacrest furthered his quest for total entertainment-sphere domination by announcing his burgeoning production company is partnering with British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver for a six-episode ABC reality series focused on healthy eating. Say what? A food show? With Seacrest’s grinning face?
Don’t fret, American Idol fans — it doesn’t appear that our generation’s version of Dick Clark is going the Padma Lakshmi route…at least not yet. As far as I can tell from the information out there about this unnamed show, Seacrest will just produce, like he did with NBC’s reality flop Momma’s Boys and E!’s reality mess Denise Richards: It’s Complicated. Which is to say, he won’t be on screen.
Amid so much reality crap, I’m intrigued by the general do-gooder nature of the show, which will find Oliver — who was a judge on another ABC reality show, Oprah’s Big Give — traveling "to the unhealthiest places in America and findways to use nearby resources to improve local eating habits." Specifically, it looks like the targeted area will be pulled from the "fattest cities" list. That little tidbit is particularly interesting, especially when you consider that NBC’s health-segment-dominating reality hit The Biggest Loser also recently announced plans to target America’s "fattest cities." Hmm, it seems like America’s "fattest cities" (do you like how I keep putting that term in quotes, like it’s somehow fake?) may be the hottest new reality show characters since the advent of the bitchy British judge. Are Seacrest and Oliver taking a page out of The Biggest Loser’s cookbook?
What do you think, PopWatchers? Will you watch this Ryan Seacrest-produced food show? Can it possibly top The Biggest Loser in emotional connection and sheer jaw- and weight-dropping craziness?
More related content from EW:
All About Ryan Seacrest
‘American Idol’ hub
‘Biggest Loser’ returns to single-contestant format, targets America’s fattest cities
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No, Tanner, I probably won’t watch – or at least that it was I say now. Ask again when it screens!
I wonder if, based on Oliver’s involvement, it might tread more of a path that Jamie followed in his School Dinners show in the UK, where he raised the profile of the “hideously failing in nutrition” meals UK school children were served up for lunch each day and got the government to take notice. If he goes into homes, or diners, or schools, in these “fattest cities”, and does the School Dinners kind of “educate the masses” into healthy eating approach…it seems sufficiently different from TBL (huge fan, btw. Huge as in “love the show”, rather than being actually huge.) to be a success.
With Ryan Seacrest involved though, there has to be a caveat. Don’t hold out much hope if it being anything but lowest common denominator, with his involvement.