In what’s surely a sign of terrible content to come, Max just released a six episode food series starring Zooey Deschanel titled, What Am I Eating? If the first question you asked after reading that sentence was, “Who is Max and how does he know Zooey Deschanel?” you are not alone. Max is the newly rebranded streaming service that combines Warner Bros. and HBO’s critically acclaimed content library with whatever it is that Discovery has to offer (namely HGTV and Food Network shows).
The premise of What Am I Eating? (let’s talk to chefs and farmers to find out the truth behind common food myths) is the kind of pleasant but forgettable fluff that’s already clogging Food Network and streaming services. Interested in watching celebrities cook and learn about food, each with a near total lack of skill and charisma? Look no further than Selena+Chef on Max, Cooking with Paris on Netflix, and Amy Schumer Learns to Cook on the Food Network.
With so many food and cooking shows already available, why make this one at all and why promote and premiere it on the day Max goes live? It’s a baffling move that convinces absolutely no one that they need the new service or that they should watch the show. Creatively, the show serves almost no purpose but as a financial endeavor, it’s an almost guaranteed winner.
Warner Bros. Discovery has been on a cost cutting mission lately, most notably by dropping 87 titles from HBO’s library, including the critically acclaimed and recently canceled Westworld. Why would Warner Bros. Discovery continue to produce violent and idiosyncratic dramas with $10 million per episode budgets when they could make a family friendly food series with Zooey Deschanel that will be, at worst, a moderate success?
Art and commerce have always made for queasy bedfellows but the premiere of What Am I Eating?, along with studios’ unwillingness to negotiate during the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, show that valuing profit over creativity is here to stay and will only lead to even more forgettable content. Never mind worrying about what I’m eating, what the hell am I watching?