Worst. TV. Show. Ever.

With the best of intentions come the most spectacular of train crashes, and in this spirit we will speak of our unfortunate life-portion lost to watching PBS's Spain: On The Road Again. While a show about the great culinary traditions of Spain seems like a no-brainer, leave it to this unlikely pack of entitled, pampered narcissists to overshare worse than a 17 year old LiveJournaler without leaving behind nary a scrap of actual substance. It's hard to tell where to start a systematic takedown of this show, as we've seen episodes of Laguna Beach that have killed less of our brain cells. We'd better go character by character.


Most of the camera time is devoted to Iron Guy Comic Chef Mario Batali, who does his absolute best to perpetuate American stereotypes abroad. Why use a convenient and fast national rail system when you can just jet from resort villa to beach villa in your Beamer? Be-Croced and baseball capped, Mario is driven around Madrid while authoritatively instructing an actual Spaniard on quality of the architecture. "Spain does the modern thing really well", he declares as if it were an original thought, "Calatrava kind of dragged them into it."

A great actress indeed to appear impressed by this condescending babble, Claudia refrains from slamming El Beamer into El Prado. If there is any sure way to make everyone at a dinner party hate you, it is to act like you posses architectural taste. Mario is quick to proclaim that this is a Road Trip (in a poorly-conceived, cringe-inducing catchphrase attempt) "where chicks stay the chicks and the dudes stay the dudes." Is this in reference to previous Road Trips undertaken by Mario in which cross-dressing was prevalent? Or is he simply reinforcing and celebrating conventional gender roles? Well, since Claudia does all the driving, we can only assume that his past road trips involved much shower crying.

Slumming it on this outing is A-minus actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays the role of G.P., a vulnerable bag of jamon-fearing neuroses. Her purpose on the show seems to be to complain that some of the food contains Jamon, and cannot be eaten by her. Hubby-hub Chris Martin doesn't make the trip because he has no reason to feel threatened by the ladykilling duo of Batali and Bit-Man.

Yes, that Bit-Man, also known as the po-man's Poe-Lan, who apparently can give entire speeches like this without shame. Please tell us, Bit-Man, what is the carbon foot-print of driving around Spain in a never ending calatravalcade of food-orgy? It is sad, that on a network already giving us Rick Steves, and in a country with great tourism value, this example of edutainment claims that the best way to experience Spain is to spend as much money as possible. That may be true, when both the cost of the trip and the painful cost of watching it is shouldered by Viewers Like You.