Guess I haven't been checking in with the parole officer enough lately (or watching Planet Green, like who gets Planet Green, except maybe Emeril?) because I completely missed this. Finally, a reality show that combines the best of Top Chef, Cops and Celebrity Rehab. Conviction Kitchen mixes together an executive chef, his wife and business partner, and 24 ex-cons with no culinary background, and gives them all three weeks to open a high-end restaurant. Beautiful.

Marc Thuet (The Cook) and Biana Zorich (His Wife) have to train their ex-con staff (The Thief, etc., see Peter Greenaway for more of this sort of thing), create an Italian menu, open, then turn a profit in three months. Or else? Or else “their bosses will pull the plug, and they'll lose their second (or last?) chance to turn their lives around.” Episode three is tomorrow night. In which there are 5 days until opening, and everyone must transform the couple's existing restaurant, which is apparently called Bite Me (not making this up), into a new one, which I guess is to be called Conviction. Not Convection. Maybe that will be the bakery. One could go on.

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