Hell's Kitchen (U.S.)

Chef Gordon Ramsay returns for a fourth season of culinary torture. Among fifteen chefs, the winner will get a job in an L.A. restaurant owned by Ramsay himself.

The season's first challenge finds the contestants slicing halibut into thin six-ounce fillets. One member of each team must serve as maître d' during the dining service.

After chickens wake them up in their living quarters, the contestants must pluck what once clucked, then cook them for the evening's family-style dinner service.

This week, the two teams are vying to make the most pasta for the evening's dinner service. The winners will earn a trip to the Santa Monica Pier! That night, an accident in the kitchen lands a contestant in the hospital.

The first challenge for the remaining eleven chefs: make a gourmet pizza. The winning team enjoys gourmet burgers in Santa Barbara while the losers prepare pizza ingredients for the night's dinner service.

The ten remaining chefs must please a picky teen who has come to Hell's Kitchen for her birthday party. The team that designs the menus she prefers wins a teen-themed treat while the losers must help an annoying party planner with the preparations.

Chef Ramsay makes the nine remaining chefs take a blindfold taste test. The winners get to go to a spa; the losers must clean the dorm. After the dinner service, Ramsay must decide which is worse: raw food or a lack of kitchen communication.

To even out the teams, Chef Ramsay asks for a volunteer from among the eight remaining chefs to switch sides. The group dynamic immediately changes as the teams face their next challenge: creating four dishes using twenty specific ingredients.

In the opening challenge, the two teams compete in a relay race. The winners earn surfing lessons while the losers must clean Hell's Kitchen from top to bottom. At the dinner service, the teams choose their own menus. One group struggles, which leads to an unusual elimination ceremony.

Chef Ramsay inspires the six contestants by taking them to the London West Hollywood restaurant that this season's winner will run. Back at the kitchen, Chef Ramsay merges the teams. Each budding chef is given one main ingredient and told to feature it in a dish. Season three winner Rock Harper makes a guest appearance.

Chef Ramsay orders the five remaining chefs to teach cooking-impaired housewives how to prepare a gourmet meal, and the one who does it best receives culinary pointers from California chefs Mark Peel and Ben Ford. At dinner service, the chefs struggle with a dozen appetizers, main courses and desserts.

The final four contestants prepare lunch for surprise guests: eighty hungry, picky pregnant moms. The chef whose dish they favor wins a $1,000 shopping spree. The others must clean up after the luncheon.

Chef Ramsay prepares breakfast for the three remaining chefs - and a few guests - then asks the contestants to replicate the dishes that they ate. Later, Ramsay sabotages the dinner service to see how they react to adversity.

The two finalists visit Chef Ramsay's New York City restaurant, where they must prepare their signature dishes for judges consisting of executive chefs for Ramsay's restaurants around the world. Back in L.A., the contestants begin their final challenge: design and run their own restaurants. Whoopi Goldberg makes a guest appearance.

The fourth season comes to a close as the finalists work together with previously eliminated contestants for the last dinner service.