Chefs are all the rage right now. In the wake of films like Chef and Burnt, it was inevitable that a small-screen narrative would arise to tap into this zeitgeist (or fad, whichever you’d like). AMC beat everyone to the punch with Feed the Beast. It’s a more than respectable offering, when it doesn’t try to emulate the films it should be differentiating itself from.
That’s the main problem with “Pilot Light” (I love that title; it’s a clever kitchen reference, as well as a subtle inversion of the practice of naming the first episode of any show “Pilot”). The episode succeeds more often than it fails, but that happens mainly when it coasts along on its low-key energy, and the prickly-warm chemistry between its two stars.
Jim Sturgess (21, Across the Universe) is clearly having a blast playing Dion Patros. As Dion, he affects a convincing New York accent, and he doesn’t go to great pains to make himself likable. Sturgess can be one-note at times, but I’m not going to harp on it too much; all shows have growing pains, and when one of your characters is a manic cokehead, one note is to be expected. David Schwimmer, fresh off of a career-best performance in The People v. O.J. Simpson, continues his reinvention as a serious dramatic actor. He gets under the skin of Tommy Moran with alacrity. It’s a quiet performance that has the potential to be astonishing.
Where “Pilot Light” falters is in its cinematic trappings, which become exactly that: a trap. The episode is juggling a lot, most of it revolving around Dion, the less realistic of the two main characters. Rather than sticking with a slower pace (which certain scenes prove suit the show better), Feed the Beast is trying to make a melange, if you will, of genres.
I worry, sincerely, about the mob subplot. Mad Men‘s Michael Gladis makes for a decent mob boss in the form of Patrick Woichik, but we saw something akin to this in Burnt, and it did that film no favors either. Not only that, but Dion is also under the thumb of a dirty cop, demanding that Dion help him bring down Woichik. Both these men attack Dion’s little finger, in what Feed the Beast surely means as a parallel, but it unfortunately comes off as repetitive.
Also, Tommy’s son worries me. TJ – Tommy Jr, I assume – hasn’t spoken a word since the death of his mother by hit and run. This, again, is too cinematic, and it reminds me of Little Miss Sunshine, which isn’t a good thing, because that movie is a shitpile. TJ’s silence seems like a plot point in a film – and it was, remember – that should be resolved by the two-hour mark. Feed the Beast doesn’t have TJ speak yet, so how long is he going to stay silent? My patience only stretches so far when it comes to gimmicks like this.
There’s a lot to like here, though. Director Steve Shill (Obsessed), wisely stays out of his cast’s way, until it comes to the cooking, which he shoots in close-ups that should be invasive but more often than not are thrilling. Chef treated cooking like a party; Burnt treated it like a tactical maneuver; and Feed the Beast treats it like a rock concert. (This is underscored, in somewhat clunky fashion, by the rock music that starts playing whenever Dion gets behind the stove.) If the wine is the lyrics (Tommy is a sommelier, requiring a level of pretentiousness and knowledge that Schwimmer was born to play), then the food is the guitar solo. And obviously the food looks great, which is such a prerequisite on projects like this that it hardly bears mentioning.
There is promise here. At its core, Feed the Beast has a very simple concept: two friends open a restaurant together. (That’s almost the verbatim summary from the show’s IMDb page.) What the show needs to do is ignore the things it is not – namely, film – and embrace what it is. This could become a genuinely great show; it just needs to remember that it’s a show.
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