Blog From The Bench

I always want to check it out when a favorite book hits movies or TV. So it figured that the first new show I made an appointment in front of the TV for would be Fox's "Kitchen Confidential" (Mondays at 8:30 p.m.), the weekly TV version of Anthony Bourdain's autobiographical book.

Bradley Cooper got Anthony Bourdain (here rechristened Jack) down right with his mix of wild-man bravado and nervousness (enough that he's ready to vomit after his first night on the job). As he's doing the voice-over at the opener, you forget that it's not the real Bourdain. And the fast-moving camera work (it's filmed, not taped, beautifully) captures the feel of a workplace at crunch time, to which the real Bourdain devoted a stream-of-consciousness chapter, "A Day in the Life," in his book.

The show has promise, but it stirred a little too much in. I know the opening night of a new restaurant is busy, but serving a fingertip to the restaurant critic who happens to be Bourdain's ex? Or an amorous drunken customer, the ex, and Bourdain's current love descending on him at once? A little bit overcooked here, and a little bit too sitcom.

Will I tune in next week? Probably. The first episode did have to try to capture the tone of a book in one half-hour while introducing a large cast -- too much ground to cover in 22 minutes. And it did manage to make a character that few would want to work with kinda, more-or-less human. Given that they started with a real person, I hope the writers can put enough humanity into the farcical recipe to make it a must-watch; the first episode has enough morsels to pique my interest. Watch Bourdain cover up his terror as he explains his stomach upheaval to the new guy, for example, or the bittersweet ending to the first episode.

Will I tune in every week, and beg to review the boxed set? Hard to tell, but I'll tell you this much -- if you liked the TV show, you'll love the book.