Dinner Impossible Review

Dinner Impossible could be a fun show if it weren't for its star chef Robert Irvine.  The premise of the show is to give Irvine incredibly hard cooking challenges and short time limits and see if he can complete his goal in time.  Some challenges have been things like replicating an authentic colonial banquet, cooking a gourmet meal for thousands of soldiers before they ship out to war using only food available on base, cooking a gourmet meal at a baseball stadium using only food available at the stadium, cooking a meal inside an ice hotel, and cooking a meal at a spelling bee using ingredients from every letter of the alphabet.  The challenges, while ultra difficult, could make for entertaining television.  While for the most part totally unrealistic (even the realistic challenges are given an unrealistic time table for completion), they are creative and thought provoking (What would I make with every letter of the alphabet?  How would I make do with only baseball stadium food?). 

The great challenges are ruined by Robert Irvine.  I had hoped at first that maybe I'd just accidently caught every episode in which he cracked up and resorted to being mean and awful.  I was wrong.  He seems to be that way in every episode.  He spends the majority of the show yelling at and berating his two assistant chefs and anyone else given the task of assisting him (including children, soldiers, and cafeteria lunch ladies).  If he succeeds, he takes all the credit and basks in his own glory.  While he's struggling and if he fails, he blames it on others and treats them poorly. It's not even as if he's just that witty snarky type or playing a Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsey type character, the kind of guy you are meant to hate.  He's just truely mean spirited by nature.   I have stopped watching the show completely.  I don't care to waste my time watching an arrogant self centered chef with an utter lack of people skills be mean to his staff and well meaning volunteers.