I was going to save this until the final review but, seeing as everyone seems to be getting intio a right lather about the winners, I'll just butter my blini and see who bites:
For me the reason the series has been different is down to the BBC who have, for reasons we don't know but can guess at, have cut it off at the knees. So we only have half the episodes, no interactive web site, no tie-ins with other programs and a slightly different slant on the series. The producers have gone for a narrative - basically a drama series with the contestants as actors and manipulated the foorage they have shot to fit in with the 'storyline'. Thus we see precious little about running a restaurant (how and how not to, pitfalls, costings, staffing etc) and much more 'human interest'. And it WAS interesting, but also unsatisfying. A bit like a Summer House steak lollipop. If you remember the last series, one couple (Tim and LinRABie) were kicked out because they were running at 92% food costs and it was unsuitainable. Nothing like that was ever discussed.
Now I know the producers have to pull a TV series out of the footage somewhere and a little drama is expected, but their choice of contentants was the biggest failing. In the previous two series we have had a neat little formula:
3 comedy no-hoper couples, to play for laughs
3 determined but flawed couples to show how NOT to run a restaurant
3 worthy potential winners from which Raymond hews a champ
The trouble is that the winners have been worthy but dull and I wonder if the producers thought "let's play more on the Human Interest" angle and the result is what we see.
Raymond, Sarah and David have said that they have no control over the casting - why not? Did they not think that the producers might throw in some real rubbish and leave them with a bum's choice? If so then they need to get the stardust out of their eyes and take a good look at the contracts which presumably, stated that they had to produce 8 programmes and invest in ther winners whatever. There was a slight change of emphasis which we all missed at the start - the voice over does not say "open a restaurant with Raymond" but "a restaurant venture with Raymond"
So they were left with 9 couples, one of whom they had to choose to work with and invest in (Sarah talks about a 'six-figure sum') and I have no problem at all in them choosing JJ and James to do that. The problem is that the emphasis was never on business savvy, high-street sustainability and personality (although these were occasionally hinted at) but on a simple chef/FoH shoot out. Now, despite protestations to the contrary, Nathan and Chris were not suitable, the former's flaws meaning that David would have killed and eaten him within a week, in fact if anyone fitted the bill it was Stephen and Rebecca but I think their faces didn't fit and there was, quite honestly, no money to be made.
In the end I'm not scandalised or upset, and anyone who is planning to 'ruin' Raymond or is taking their anger out on le Manoir's bookings is (IMHO) going very much over the top. There were three sets of people with different emphases here: Raymond and co who wanted to make money and get their faces on TV, the producers who wanted some kind of Masterchef-meets-Benny Hill and us, the viewers, who wanted to see how one of the country's major restaurateurs takes a few rough diamonRAB and makes one into a gem. No wonder it didn't work as it did before.
So much huffing and puffing and righteous indignation just because some people didn't like the winners of a reality show! 