Hell’s Kitchen has a new head chef.

Gone is the infamous hot-headed tyrant Gordon Ramsay and New York Magazine says Marco Pierre White, Ramsay’s former mentor turned adversary, will be taking his place.

It’s a little hard for me to believe this. No one anywhere for any reason could ever dispute White’s chops. To some he’s a legend, to the rest he’s a god. The youngest British chef ever to be awarded three Michelin stars (he was 33 at the time), White was famous for his creative genius in the kitchen but also for his quick temper.

Will we see Ramsay-redux?

Not likely, says White.

“I might be the hardest person they’ll have ever met but I’ve got a heart just as big. It’s about picking people up off the floor and inspiring them to want to carry on ’til the end.”

I would expect that Hell’s Kitchen, under White, will be more about the food and innovative techniques and classic dishes than swearing and slamming plates of food into people’s chests.

It should be noted that White’s age has brought him a fair share of mellowing at as anyone who saw his appearance on No Reservations can tell you. No less passionate about food and quality ingredients, he certainly seems a far cry from the despot that made Gordon Ramsay cry at Harvey’s, White’s first restaurant after becoming a three-star chef.

Stay tuned.

A letter from WGA West president Patric Verrone to membership (courtesy of United Hollywood):

Dear Fellow Members,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

MarketWatch is reporting that the deal runs through May 2011 and calls for an annual pay increase of 3.5% per year and does have a clause dealing with internet residuals.

The Bottom Line applauds the WGA for reaching an agreement with the studios, one that appears to be in the best interest of their profession in the near-term as well as the long-term as new media continues to evolve into a commercially viable property.

•The continuation of the newest season of Lost. The season premiere was last night and though I will have to go back and watch it again to really get everything, I’m glad it’s back.

•The Super Bowl. The biggest spectacle in American sports. Whether you’re watching the game as a fan or just watching for the commercials, which are on the whole disappointing and not funny, the Super Bowl is essentially a civic holiday.

•In Bruges. This film comes out in limited release on Feb. 8. I saw the trailer before Michael Clayton and it looks like a hilariously fun, kind of heist film in the same vein as Snatch and Lock, Stock… It features a pretty fantastic cast including a pair of Harry Potter alums (Brandon Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes) and the normally regrettable Colin Farrell, who could actually be quite good in this movie. The film is directed and written by first-timer Martin McDonagh, who won an Oscar in 2005 for his live-action short, Six Shooter. The film opens in limited release and hopefully goes nation in short order.  Let us hope this movie proves to me more Snatch and less Shoot ‘Em Up.

•The New Nada Surf record. If you stopped listening to this band after their huge hit, Popular, you’ve missed quite a bit. This is a band who has quietly been putting out some of the best rock records of recent memory. Their last studio record, The Weight is a Gift, is one of my favorite albums of all-time and their newest offering, Lucky, hits stores on Tuesday.

•Great DVD releases.  Some of the year’s best films come out on DVD this month and my Netflix queue is the better for it. Just to give you an idea: American Gangster, Redacted, Rendition, The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford, Michael Clayton, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

•Jumper. This is a movie that I haven’t been too excited about, having seen the trailers many, many times and the prospect of a movie that stars both Hayden Christensen and Samuel L Jackson in some sort of weird white wig doesn’t make me horribly optimistic but the film’s director has me slightly optimistic. Doug Liman, director of The Bourne Identity, returns to direct this sci-fi action flick about a guy who can teleport himself anywhere, anytime. Think Nightcrawler from X-Men. It could be one of those movies that’s just good, mindless fun. It could also be dreadful.

•The New Mike Doughty record.  The former Soul Coughing frontman releases, Golden Delicious, on Feb. 19. Hopefully not an album about produce, I’ve seen Doughty live and I really enjoyed his latest album, Haughty Melodic, which featured a somewhat forgettable duet with Dave Matthews on Tremendous Brunettes, a song I enjoy much more sans Matthews. What Doughty does incredible well are earnest, funky love songs like Unsingable Name and Madeline at Nine. Let’s hope Golden Delicious has a couple.

•Vantage Point.  This is the most-highly anticipated movie of the month for me. I’ve seen the trailer a bunch of times and the cast is great (Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver). The film is basically about the assassination of the president told through five different story arcs. It could be great beyond words (kind of wish it wasn’t PG-13) and it could easily be a muddy disaster. Guess, we’ll find out on Feb. 22 when the film opens.

Had a chance to watch American Gladiators 2.0 as I’ve taken to calling it and thankfully, the re-make is very similar to the Mike Adamle/Larry Czonka-hosted version of the early 90s that I loved so much as a kid. They’ve returned all the old games with a set of new HGH-inflated Gladiators. Back are old favs like the cleverly-named Wall, Joust, Gauntlet and my personal favorite, Powerball, not to mention the return of The Eliminator with its ziplines and reverse motion treadmills.

The one thing I don’t understand about Gladiators 2.0: what’s with all the water? When a contestant is tugged from the rings in Hang Tough, more often than not in an extremely homoerotic fashion, he falls.. into water. If he isn’t able to scurry up up the wall in…. Wall, he falls… into water. If he gets his pummeled about his head in joust, he falls off his platform… into water. Even the eliminator features a water-based element or two. What’s with all the water? Why not have the contestants falls headlong into a vat of Extra Virgin Olive Oil or what happened to the big cushy mats of my childhood or a ball pit?

While the show may be enough to make me tune in on Monday nights, sans Heroes, it will not be enough to pull me from tonight’s BCS title game.

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Tonight’s the night

The college football seasons ends tonight in New Orleans with a game I am genuinely, truly excited to watch. I have no idea how Ohio State will come out and play, after having almost two months off but the same can certainly be said for LSU, who’s most recent game was more than a month ago. Make no mistake, the beginning of the game is huge for both sides. Ohio State wants to come out and control the tempo of the game, slow it down and grind it out until the end. If they’re able to do that from the outset, it boasts very well for the Buckeyes. But, if LSU is able to get some big plays early on and get a big lead, Ohio State will have to abandon the run, the strongest part of their offense, and rely on Todd Boeckman and against a veteran secondary like LSU’s that could be all she wrote. In a close game though, I’ll take Ohio State as I find Les Miles’ late game judgment to be suspect at best.

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The Rocket takes former trainer to court

The news this morning is that Roger Clemens has filed a defamation suit against former trainer Brian McNamee, who indicated the pitcher had taken HGH in the Mitchell Report. I do not think that because Clemens filed this suit that it automatically means that he is innocent.

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Bring in the noise

Is anyone else tired of the San Diego Chargers? Between LaDanian Tomlinson, who is becoming increasingly self-aggrandizing, Shawne Merriman, that HGH-addled freak and Philip Rivers, who is far too mouthy for how medicore his numbers are, I’ve grown tired of the theatrics. I understand that football is an emotional game but I don’t need to see Shawne Merriman dance around like a moron after every tackle or Luis Castillo do the samba after getting his only sack of the day. You know, for a team that complained after New England mimicked Merriman’s lights out dance, this Chargers team does an awful lot of celebrating.

More playing, less talking.

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DVD Wars 

I was at the gym when I heard on CNBC that Warner Bros. had inked an exclusive deal with Sony’s Blu Ray to distribute their titles. News that was particularly hurtful considering my recent holiday purchase of an HD DVD player. I’m not quite old enough to remember the VHS/Beta wars of the 80s but I can certainly empathize with those consumers. It really is tricky, not knowing which technology to invest in. For me, the Warner Bros. news hurt because it meant one thing and one thing only: No Dark Knight HD-DVD for Pat.  Now, I know I’m jumping the gun a little bit on this one given that Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins sequel won’t hit theatres until July but still, a little sad..

5. Heroes 

Another show that could be irreparably damaged by the writer’s strike after having a hasty ending to what many, myself somewhat among them, considered to be a disappointing sophomore season for one of television’s most popular shows last year. Yes, the show has problems. Yes, the writing is sometimes bad and the acting exacerbates things but I’m still holding onto hoping that creator Tim Kring will right the ship and make this show a must-see again.

4. The Office  

The only thing I don’t absolutely love about The Office is that it is no longer airing new episodes. Everything about this show is pitch perfect, clever and well done. There have been a complete recent pitfalls for me (the last episode before the show went dark was really bizarre) but I love this show and know that when the show comes back on, it will be equally brilliant as it has been in its first three seasons. Let’s just hope that’s sooner rather than later.

3. Boy Meets World 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that few television shows that I loved as a kid are anywhere near as good as I remember them. Saved by the Bell and Thundercats come most readily to mind but Boy Meets World is a show that I enjoy every bit as much as 24 as I did when I was 12. What I love most about the show, above all else, is its authenticity and its heart. Far more than any sitcom of its sort, you really believe that these people are a family and really care about each other and it gives the show an endearing warmth. Sadly, the show is no longer airing on syndication on ABC Family and the Disney Channel, let us hope that is only temporary.

2. Scrubs

Really sad to see this show go this year but it has been an incredible run for what I feel to be the best medical show, comedy or drama, in the history of television.  If there is ever a day that I pass on watching Scrubs, I hope someone has the decency to kill me. It will break my heart if this show ends without a proper series finale, as rumor has it. A show that has been this strong for this long really deserves an ending with some closure, both for those involved in the production and those who have loved the show for the duration of its run.

1. Sportsnight 

My steadfast rule when I started making this list is that whatever lands on my list, or particularly at the top of the list, I wanted it to be shows that I’ve watched and love to watch and will watch again and the discontinued Sportsnight is the epitome of that philosophy. I’ve seen every episode of Aaron Sorkin’s pre-West Wing dramedy about life on a Sportscenter-esque late night sports show. The show really introduced the world to Peter Krause, who had previously done a few bit roles including the role as a white supremacist handler on Seinfeld and Felicity Huffman. It would have been so easy for this show to be hokey and terrible but it is tremendously well-written, well-acted (save Sabrina Lloyd who plays Natalie, who has since been found stinking up Numb3rs and Ed).

10. Sleeper Cell

Thank goodness for TV shows on DVD. Had it not been for the release of seasons one and two on DVD, I would have never gotten to see this show and my life certainly would have been the lesser for it. Frankly, Sleeper Cell is a smarter, better acted 24. It’s equal parts action and smart political drama. The show’s lead Michael Ealy from Barbershop finally got a Golden Globe nod for his work in the show and the nomination is well deserved as Ealy turns in one of the best performances I’ve seen on any television show in a long time. It helps that the show is on Showtime and has a little more leeway by way of violence, language, etc. I can’t imagine a diluted version of this show being on network television. It might look a little bit more like… well, like 24.

9. Six Feet Under

After the first three seasons of this show, I would have thought that this show would have certainly landed somewhere in the top five. The story lines were interesting, compelling and moving and the performances were wonderful. And then the end of the show happened and I’m not just talking about the final episode, which I believe to have had one of the best final sequences of any show ever, I’m talking about the end of the show as a whole. The writers, in an attempt to make the characters more interesting after four seasons just made them more flawed and unrelatable. By the end of the show, I had gotten so tired of all the characters and their abhorrent behavior that I was ready for it to end. None the less, the show is one that I loved intensely for years and thus makes an appearance.

8. Rescue Me

I have never been a Dennis Leary fan but he is unbelievably, spectacularly amazing as New York City firefighter Tommy Gavin in Rescue Me. On top of Leary’s performance, the show is help by a great supporting cast and great writing. I’ve only watched the show on DVD and I’ve heard some critical things about the fourth season but it would take an awful lot to throw me off the horse at this point.

7. Lost

Yes, the show is overly complex and has more story arcs than it probably needs but few shows have the following and the cult interest that Lost has. Season three returned and saved the show after what some (not myself, mind you) dubbed a disappointing season two. But my interest in this show is waning and will likely continue to do so this year as ABC will air the first eight episodes of season four in late January followed by, what could be, a year break before the viewers get to see how the season ends. A favorite since I started watching the show on DVD a couple years ago, this could be the year that Lost cements in position on my list or gets the old heave-ho.

6. Top Chef 

It was Bravo’s reality cooking series that really put competitions of this sort on the map and I think brought a whole new level of awareness to cooking and haute cuisine. The new season of Top Chef in Chicago starts soon and I’m ecstatic to see Top Chef finally come to the Midwest. And besides, any show that makes Eric Ripert a household name is ok by me.

My girlfriend broke the news to me last night. Tonight would be the last episode of The Office until further notice. I knew that they had shut down production on the show last week but I had no idea that the impact of the WGA strike would be felt so immediately. But here we are. Tonight is the last half-hour episode for a while, it would appear. I hope it’s half as good as last week’s Survivor Man episode which left me in tears.

TV Guide has an updated list of how many episodes of every Network show we have left.

Chef Traci Des Jardins prepared recipes for a Thanksgiving menu with wine parings for Epicurious and in return she wants to ask homecooks to request that their diners donate money to America’s Second Harvest, a national food bank that helps 9 million families annually.

Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen gives the Heroes graphic novel collective a B-.Glad I didn’t buy it.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Tony Barnhart thinks Georgia fans would be crazy to hope that Tennessee makes the SEC Championship to practically guarantee the Dawgs a trip to a BCS Bowl.

The AJC also has a good piece on UGA coach Mark Richt transforming into the football version of Bruce Pearl.

ESPN’s Todd McShay has a list of the top 10 freshmen in college football.

StarChefs.com has released their book of Chefs to Know.

I don’t like…

The writers’ strike may cause the final season of Scrubs to air without a series finale.

New York Magazine’s Vulture blog has some disturbing information about NBC’s “Create a Hero” feature on the Heroes site.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more strike related hijinx, head on over to www.lateshowwritersonstrike.com, for a hilarious blog written on the picket lines by the writers from the Late Show with David Letterman.

After seeing the trailer and read the tease on the NBC website for next week, we have been assured of two things:  1) Agendas will clash and 2) A hero will die. In the interest of pure speculation (and hope), I’ve assembled a small list of the characters this show needs to kill off in an expeditious manner.

Nikki/Jessica/Gina - Ali Larter

In a show where people can travel through time, heal instantly, fly and move things with their mind, someone with multiple personality disorder isn’t really going to seem all that interest. And it hasn’t. This character is one of my whipping boys from season 1 and with the introduction of a third personality, I can only roll my eyes that Nikki/Jessica/Gina hasn’t kicked the bucket yet. This character is profoundly uninteresting and whenever Larter appears on the screen, I go somewhere else. I also thought *SPOILER ALERT* DL’s death in this week’s episode was a TERRIBLE way to send off a character that has been at the center of this character arch. It was fast, easy, and cheap.

Elle - Kristen Bell

I get where the writers and Kristen Bell are trying to take this character and I’ll have to disagree with Bernardin when he says that Bell is missing the mark by “this much.” She’s missing it by a whole lot more than that. This character is probably the most cliché, trite character on the show. I also disagree that Bell’s Elle is fun to watch. It’s anything but. It’s like being electrocuted, slowly.

Maya and Alejandro - Dania Ramirez, Shalim Ortiz

I almost feel bad about this one because it’s too easy but the writers have really made me do this. For weeks now, since we were introduced to the death-tear crying Maya and her sponge of a brother, Alejandro, we have wondered what the story was with these two and for weeks, the writers have refused to tell us. But that hasn’t stopped them from showing us — over and over — what the pair can do. I’m wondering when the payoff is coming. Unfortunately, it’s not soon enough.

Sylar - Zachary Quinto

I thought it was really a regrettable decision when the show opted not to let season 1’s villain die in Kirby Plaza at the end of the season. The early part of this season has really reinforced that opinion for me. NBC bill’s Sylar in its promos as the hero America loves to hate. What about those of us who are indifferent and have moved on? There is so much going on in the show right now and so many character arches intersecting that to have Sylar crawl out onto the highway that the aforementioned Wondertwins happened to be driving on was really awful television. I wish they hadn’t brought Sylar back but now that he is, I guess viewers get to endure Quinto sneering like an idiot at the camera and his fellow actors for the next three weeks or so.

Mohinder - Sendil Ramamurthy

This character is kind of Heroes’ perfect storm. Awful writing meets really heavy-handed acting to make for one of the most gut-wrenchingly bad characters in the history of television. That may be a bit strong but I think no one would be sad if the hero to fall next Monday was the junior Suresh. Suresh’s flip-flopping about whether he was for or against The Company and the moral ambiguity of it all should have been interest but fell terribly flat. I know the show will have to find someone else to do its pseudo-profound voiceover narration at the beginning and end of every episode but this character needs to go.