Bad tastes galore make new 'Chef' a bore

For the last couple of years cable's Food Network has been importing "Iron Chef," a Japanese TV show where top chefs compete in a frenetic cook-off that's covered like a big sporting event. The show, dubbed into hilariously earnest English, has been, until now, little more than a cult favorite. But then UPN had to go and Americanize "Iron Chef." Even worse, the "Star Trek" network Shatnerized it. The result is a nearly unwatchable hour special, "Iron Chef USA," airing at 8 p.m. Friday on UPN (Channel 29). Yes, William Shatner, captain-for-life of the starship Enterprise and more recently a schmaltzy pitchman for Priceline, is the Chairman who oversees this culinary battle. To understand why casting Shatner was such a boneheaded idea, you must appreciate the quiet reverence toward food and its preparation on the Japanese "Iron Chef." Those values are embodied in that show's Kaga, an eccentric gourmet who (the story goes) lives in a giant castle with his favorite cooks, who must periodically defend their honor in the TV studio known as "Kitchen Stadium." Shatner's character, by contrast, is a buffoon who struts around the stage in a velvet robe acting like a world authority on food. (Judging from his hefty figure, Shatner is probably a world authority on eating.) He looks like he couldn't care less whether he ate caviar on a lobster shell or microwave pork rinds on newspaper. What's more, the ambiance of "Iron Chef USA" is all wrong. The studio audience just whoops and hollers mindlessly the whole hour. The chefs are apparently quite renowned, but you can see them winking and smirking at times, too. They all take their cues from Emeril Lagasse, the wisecracking celebrity chef and star of a low-rated NBC comedy based on his Food Network show. The show's play-by-play announcer, Michael Burger, used to be emcee of a "Match Game" revival that flopped. His ineptitude is matched only by his insincerity: When he says, "Welcome to the illustrious and imposing Kitchen Arena!" not only does he not mean it, he gets the venue's name wrong. If no one here can be bothered to do "Iron Chef" the right way, why did they bother at all? In the first hour of the "Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Special" (8 p.m. Tuesday, CBS, Channel 5), the King of Pop is serenaded by a raft of musical stars performing versions of his hits. In the second hour he takes the stage to perform with his brothers for the first time since the 1984 Victory Tour. CBS has done a pretty good job of editing two long nights of taping in New York - described by those who were there as alternately tedious, thrilling, irritating and bizarre - into a slick spectacle of big-budget production numbers intercut with pretaped tributes to Jacko. Some of the bizarro seeps through anyway. There's one shot of Jackson in the audience, flanked on his left by Elizabeth Taylor and on his right by Macaulay Culkin?! Some of the video tributes, especially the one with Jackson cuddling small children, are a little creepy. And the site of a gaunt Whitney Houston, looking like she had lost half her body weight, is shocking and disturbing. (Not surprisingly, rumors flew after Houston failed to show for the second night of taping that she had died.) "Hallmark Hall of Fame" begins a new season with "In Love and War," based on a story by British travel author Eric Newby about his experiences in World War II. It airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS (Channel 5). Newby and other members of his British naval unit were captured by the Italians in 1942. Though released from jail the following year, he was hemmed in by approaching Nazis. It was then that he met Wanda, an Italian woman who helped him evade his pursuers. The film stars two new faces: Callum Blue as Eric and Slovakian actress Barbora Bobulova as Wanda. "Nova" hurried up the production of this week's episode for an obvious reason: It's about bioterrorism. The program, airing at 7 p.m. Tuesday on KCPT (Channel 19), follows New York Times writer Judith Miller into a biological weapons lab in a former Soviet republic, where strains of anthrax, the plague and other diseases are kept in kitchen fridges. The samples are in their original containers, including old cans of peaches and green peas. Miller and her co-authors of the best seller Germs discuss the possibilities of chemical warfare with their sources. A lot of the material already feels familiar, but "Nova's" nonalarmist, scientific tone will assure many viewers unsettled by weeks of anthrax coverage. I have 45 seconds to tell you to watch "Pardon the Interruption," ESPN's new talk show (airing at 4:30 p.m. weekdays) featuring Washington Post scribes Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. The show's gimmicky format includes a countdown timer - so viewers know when the hosts will switch topics - role-playing and other variations on plain old chat. Kornheiser and Wilbon don't agree on much, but their well-rehearsed Mutt and Jeff routine is fun to watch. Time's up. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com.