I don't like where this is going.
Scripps Network Interactive Inc., owner of the Food Network, which has slowly but noticeably descended into semi-homemade mediocrity, bought a controlling stake in the Travel Channel last week.
For Anthony Bourdain's sake, I hope that the “controlling” part doesn't mean what it sounds like. Bourdain, as people know, jumped the Food Network ship for creative reasons, to put it mildly, taking his food travel show concept to Travel Channel, where it became the critically acclaimed and Emmy-winning No Reservations.
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I was a fan of his previous Food Network show, A Cook's Tour, and happily followed him to his new network, where I also now enjoy the bizarre Andrew Zimmern eat things that people only do on a dare, and the new antics of those seemingly insane Finnish dudes on Madventures, who tape themselves doing insane things in other countries, like eating monkey brains…stuff that would make a Food Network housewife blanch.
Thankfully, the best cooking competition show, Top Chef (and even better Top Chef Masters), is safely out-of-reach on Bravo. In the meantime, pray for Bourdain.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.