Review: 'The Side Dish From America's Test Kitchen'

For decades, one of my favorite go-to genres of television was any type of food programming. I enjoy food, I find watching even the flimsiest shows about cooking relaxing and my wife and I have been watching them together since the days when the Food Network had live, primetime programming five nights a week.

America's Test Kitchen is one of the longest-running television food programs and new episodes can currently be seen on local PBS stations, PBS Passport, the America's Test Kitchen website, as well as the various America's Test Kitchen FAST channels. It continues to thrive because the premise of the show hasn't changed all that much since the days when Christopher Kimball was hosting the show from a set that was dark and brown and a bit sketchy. The show speaks to viewers who love food and who are willing to learn new things and be introduced to new ingredients. But they also don't want to watch someone do a complicated, twenty ingredient dish. Accessibility and taste continue to be the guiding lights of America's Test Kitchen and it has served the show well over several decades.

Julia Collin Davison and Bridget Lancaster took over the show when Christopher Kimball left/was fired and started his own often insufferable Milk Street empire. They are still the most recognizable figures in an on-air ensemble that has grown over the years. And that is because their on-camera personas feel more like a kinda cool aunt or friendly foodie-loving neighbor than that of an experienced TV host.

So when I saw the two were hosting an original video podcast for Netflix, I was looking forward to seeing the show. Given their long-running friendship and their ease on-camera, I expected the show to be well-worth watching.

But based on the frustrating first episode, I can't say that I recommend The Side Dish. Yes, the banter between Davison and Lancaster has its moments. But the editing and the structure of the half-hour episode left me more in a ranting mood than anything else.

I would love to speak to someone about how the episode was put together, because all I have to base my thoughts on is what I saw on the screen. But the episode seemed to be artfully but heavily edited. There was never a quiet moment over the 30 minutes, with one sentence beginning nearly at the same moment the last one ended. Perhaps part of the issues is the duo know each other so well that they were nearly talking over each other. But either way, it was exhausting to watch.

And there were moments when it was clear that something important was lost in the editing. At one point, Davison says she doesn't know how many major league baseball parks there are in the United States. And then two sentences later, she somehow knows the exact number.

While the show was designed to be some sort of Super Bowl-themed episode (complete with an annoyingly large number of "Soooper Bowl" references), the show seems to have been recorded a bit ago, because the two have a quick discussion about when the Super Bowl takes place: "It's in the Spring, right? Maybe February?" Which doesn't give me any confidence it was recorded anytime this year.

The episode also has a couple of trivia-like "games," which are clunky and awkward and break what little flow the show had at that point.

Perhaps this is a situation in which the show needs a host to feed Davison and Lancaster questions. The host could also serve as a way to regulate the pace of the show and allow the chemistry of the duo to shine in a more natural way.

I want The Side Dish From America's Test Kitchen to be worth watching. But based on the first episode, it's not there yet.