On paper the PBS TV show Spain…On the Road Again sounded great to me – I’m a Spain freak, a foodie, and a cinephile. We had just eaten at Mario’s excellent Otto restaurant in New York, and it was so good, we went twice. Gwyneth is a great actress. We have one of Mark Bittman’s cookbooks, and it’s quite useful.
The first sign that something was wrong was the use of “On the Road Again” as a theme song. Even as an admirer of some of Willie Nelson’s tunes, this one just doesn’t fit the ambience of the show, and I cringed. The bad music continued, as the omnipresent background music was some sort of warmed-over bad latin rock. Just one song for hours and hours. Isn’t that what they do to guys in Guantanamo Bay? A few weeks later I think I heard the original version with lyrics, and this didn’t make it any better – fairly trite rock en español. We’ll leave aside the fact that the style, such as it was, was more representative of Latin America than Spain, and that they must have thought ‘hey, it’s all the same, and no one’s listening anyhow’. Anyway, they kept playing it over and over again through the whole show, except for when they’d fire up yet another repetition of “On the Road Again”. Music budget: $30?
But many viewers don’t notice music at all. So rest assured that there were more annoyances for them, too. It was pretty clear that the stars were just chatting the whole time – no scripts here. They apparently wanted to “keep it real” and spontaneous. I’m guessing that Mario sold Gwyneth on this by saying, “it’ll be great, no rehearsing, we’ll just talk, tour the countryside, and eat killer Spanish food! We’ll get paid for a great vacation!”. Even stars making small-talk at breakfast wears on you after awhile, and Paltrow revealed herself as a bit of a rich diva with her finicky and condescending remarks about some of the food. Mark Bittman, food columnist from the New York Times, sometimes contributed to the fun facts, but bogged things down when the others had to spend so much time translating everything for him. Patient translation for your friend is entirely understandable, but it doesn’t make good TV. Script budget: $2?
To be sure, there were some good parts. It was great to see local experts showing their wares and expertise. Here, the show shined. The Spanish scenery was wonderful, as always. Gwyneth’s Spanish was excellent – she must have done some time studying abroad. Mario’s Spanish, while not as good, was adequate. To me the real star of the show was Claudia Bassols, a Spanish actress whose language mastery and understanding of the culture held the whole thing together much of the time. When the stars’ conversations were more focused on the food, it was more interesting than their daily chit chat.
At times, I wanted to Tivo the whole thing to cut out the filler, which would have removed the boring parts. But the repeating annoying song was ubiquitous, so I would have had to mute the entire show to get rid of it. Yes, I’m whining. Sorry about that, but I expect a lot more from these idols of mine, and it was a big disappointment. Overall satisfaction: 40%!
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