Gordon Ramsay is dragging his summertime hit into the Spring as the fourth season of Hell's Kitchen is set to debut this week, more than two months earlier than the previous three installments (all of which aired from June to August and provided an angry summer diversion). So, has the show changed? Is a springtime Ramsay less of a total drill instructor in the kitchen? Of course not. If anything, Ramsay's screaming and yelling seems to have been amplified this year, as if the mastermind behind the show knows that he's going to have a tough time competing with the higher profile reality shows on this time of year like Dancing With the Stars, Survivor, and American Idol. But Ramsay's got a partner from overseas who should help him out. That's right, Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsay will appear back-to-back this Tuesday night when Hell's Kitchen gets the lead-in that everyone dreams about in American Idol. But is America ready for two angry Brits in a row? Probably, but Hell's Kitchen, like the first Big Brother to air outside of the more-forgiving days of summer (the recent installment has been ridiculously low-rated) is likely to get lost in the shuffle of a much more crowded schedule.

The concept behind Hell's Kitchen is simple - find over a dozen of the most inept, oddly coordinated chefs in the world and have famed a-hole Gordon Ramsay yell at them until they cry. Seriously, there's not a single contestant in the history of Hell's Kitchen who would survive a single Quickfire Challenge on Top Chef. For the first few seasons, it felt like the creators of Hell's Kitchen were at least attempting to find qualified, interesting culinary masters for their game show, but it's become clear, especially in the fourth season premiere, that Hell's Kitchen is more about trying to put people through 'Hell' than anything that really has to do with cooking. This year's crop of chefs include a young guy who thinks it makes him look taller to wear a giant chef's hat (which he reportedly does all the time), a guy who calls himself "the black Gordon Ramsay" and then looks like a deer in headlights in the actual kitchen, a portly fellow who is outside smoking when the restaurant opens, and a very odd-looking gentlemen whose first dish is so awful that Ramsay literally pukes after one bite. And we haven't even mentioned the stay-at-home dad who somehow thinks cooking sloppy joes for his kids qualifies him to run an LA kitchen.

Your enjoyment of Hell's Kitchen (or lack thereof) comes down to a simple test - what do you like more on American Idol, the awful, easy-to-ridicule auditions in the early weeks or the stellar performances in the later weeks? If you seriously wish that the show was made up of purely awful performers for Simon to rip on, Hell's Kitchen is the show for you. All the enjoyment to be gained from it is in the demeaning anger of Ramsay. Get your friends together and try and guess how many chefs will cry and in what order. It might make for a fun drinking game.

It would be wise for the creators of Hell's Kitchen to actually start taking the competition seriously in future installments. There are plenty of brilliant chefs out there just waiting to get their break and, as the brilliant and far-superior Top Chef has proven, there can be reality TV glory in actually finding people who can do something well, not just a group easy to yell at (I honestly think no one that has ever been on Hell's Kitchen has ever cooked risotto, even though it's been a staple of the series since day one.) Ramsay can still be as over-the-top as he wants because even great chefs make mistakes, but when it's ALL mistakes, it starts to get a little numbing. And with so many other options on the menu this time of year, the last thing Hell's Kitchen should be is boring.