Check, Please! Bay Area

I've started watching this show on PBS called Check, Please! Bay Area.  It airs on Thursdays at 7:30pm PST, but I've been catching the repeats on Sunday afternoons.  It is a low budget restaurant review show of local places.  I've seen it a few times now and love it.  Basically, the show picks three local diners to review their restaurants.  Each reviewer suggests their favorite restaurant and they each go to eat there.  They don't go together as they don't really know each other before the show.  No cameras follow them in to film their experiences so the restaurants don't know that they're being reviewed.  They all go to three different restaurants to try them out.  When they do the taping, they sit around a table and the host asks them questions about what they thought.  Each person offers their opinion.  Obviously the person who suggested the place is always biased, but the other two reviewers are usually very honest.  If they loved it, they loved it.  But if they didn't, they say so.  The other day I was watching and one gal was pretty dissatisfied with the wait service.  She said that there was only one other couple in the restaurant, but the waitress didn't clear any of their dishes.  Since she had ordered appetizers, an entree, and dessert she was displeased by all the dishes on their small table.  I guess I can understand this.  I get annoyed when there are to many plates around my setting.  At the end of each review the host wraps it up and the reviewers say whether or not they would go back, pros and cons, and average price per diner without drinks.  It's kind of like Yelp on tv.

The reason I'm blogging about the show is because I'm considering submitting an application to be a reviewer.  I was telling Nick and Linda about it today while writing my statement about why I want to be on and would be a good candidate for their show.  Once I finished writing the statement, which took me way longer than I thought it would, I remembered that I get serious stage fright and don't like to be on camera.  I'm talking, shaking so hard while doing presentations that I can't read my notecards stage fright.  I don't know how I would handle being a reviewer on the show.  I was very gung-ho about signing up this morning, but I think my excitement clouded my ability to think clearly.  I was a little bummed at my realization, but I decided that since I had already spent a lot of time writing why I wanted to be on the show that I may as well do the second part of the application and write a review on one of the restaurants that I was suggesting.  I treated it as a writing exercise.  I've been very out of practice lately.  Even though I try to do this blog daily, it is so casual that I've almost forgotten how to formulate a concise thesis.  This blog helps me keep up my writing chops, but I blabber on and on with no real direction...if you haven't noticed.

I think I might sleep on the application.  Everything is done for it and I think I've written a good representation of the restaurant I'm nominating.  I just don't know if I want to be on tv for it.  My original goal was to be able to go and try new restaurants.  Well, I can do that whether or not I'm on the show.  I have no idea how many people actually apply for this show since it is pretty localized and on PBS.  I don't know my chances of being picked either.  Linda told me that I should apply and worry about being nervous if I get picked.  I might take her advice, but will have to think about it a little more.