Each week, a different failing restaurant is given a FAST makeover by Robert Irvine and his assistants. In many cases, you find the restaurant owners likable but clueless. In others, they just seem like annoying jerks who seem to fight Irvine's suggestions--and the audience WANTS to see them fail but Irvine, inexplicably, doesn't give up. Regardless, by the end of the show, the establishment is cleaner, brighter and more able to succeed. Despite being HIGHLY scripted, the show, overall, is very entertaining. My only complaints are that the followups online are very vague and I'd LOVE to see a followup show a year or two later when they revisit many of the old shows. Still, a simple idea that manages to work.
I know that there has been some controversy about the host, Robert Irvine's credentials. I tried to get to the truth of this by reading a lot of articles on the internet and really couldn't. It appears as if he might have exaggerated a bit instead of actually lying about his experiences. However, he IS a very good host of the show--mostly because he appears to care so much about the people (unlike in the British version of this show--where the host is very abusive). He also seems like a really nice guy--and that is hard to fake.
