Watching a very obese Mario Batali made me want to diet, not eat. It was worse when he hit on Claudia all the time and made her obviously uncomfortable. It seemed like Paltrow was very extraneous-just there for star power. She had several segments (it seemed like one in each show) with Mario where she whined about her life. The interplay with these gorgeous women really detracted from what Mario did well in his Italian series-which is really good research and explanations of the local specialties. There was one bit in Asturias where it was just the guys and it seemed better due to the focus on what he's good at.
Cinematography was reasonably good. But this is off my DVR.
