As a foodie, shows like this make me realize why the term has become a pejorative. The concept here may sound simple, yet the execution manages to be both complicated and tedious. A group of pseudo-young people who have escaped a J-Crew photo shoot, travel to farms, wineries, etc in various parts of the country, while they "oversee" a grand dinner hosted by a chef, where the dinner guests appear to be of the "people with money" variety.
Prior to the meal we see variety of tasks, yet none of it seems to accomplish much. During a typical episode, our intrepid hosts visit farms, farmers markets, cheeseries, wineries, etc, to yield ingredients, techniques, and more importantly, speeches, soliloquies, and "wisdom". For an alleged cooking show, there is a lot of talking going on here. When we finally see this meal come to fruition, it's almost an afterthought. Tables are set up, wine is poured, we see the chef chop up a few vegetables and sear some meat, there are a couple of brief shots of people trying the dishes and....credits roll! For a show called The Endless Feast, the feast lasts all of 3 minutes.
This show suffers from one fundamental problem: It has a major identity crisis. Is it a cooking show? Food porn? A "message" show? I imagine it it thinks it's all of these things, and more. Let's just be clear, this is NOT a cooking show. For the record, very little actual cooking and preparation is shown on The Endless Feast. Looking for recipes? Don't hold your breath. Scratch food porn too. That is unless you consider watching a well-to-do woman with a $2000 handbag ohhh and ahhh over a glass of wine and a rack of lamb. "Message" show....I think we have a winner, sort of. But even the most ardent foodies will want to pull their hair out with all the insufferable prattle about organic, farm-to-fork, sustainability, blah blah blah.
When it's all said and done, The Endless Feast is talky, pretentious, overly earnest, and has absolutely NO sense of humor. PBS is known for it's array of quality cooking/food shows. This is not one of them.
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