The infamous cooking show, "Ai no Apron" (Love's Apron), may be off the air but its spirit lives on in the two-hour special "Haneru no Tobira" (The Closing Door; Fuji, Wed., 7 p.m.).
A group of female comedians, including Ai Haruna, Edo Harumi and Asako Ito, compete with one another by whipping up meals for a panel of ikemen (handsome) actors and singers, including Jun Oguri, Hideaki Takizawa and Kenichi Matsuyama.
The main question, according to the show's publicity materials, isn't which cook's food the panel will like best, but which they will find totally inedible. Apparently, some contestants' concoctions are repeatedly rejected. In order to preclude any prejudices the panel may hold about the comedians themselves entering into their judgment of the food, they will not see just who prepared the meal they are consuming. If you think you've got it tough in this recession, think about what it would be like if you had 14 kids. The two-hour reality TV special, "Binbo ni Makeru na! Ni-dan Juni-jo Wakeari Daikazoku Funtoki 3" (Don't Be Defeated by Poverty! Record of Struggles of a Big Family with Two Boys and Twelve Girls 3; TV Tokyo, Thurs., 7:57 p.m.) visits the Watatsu family of Shimane Prefecture for a third time, covering their lives from last March to the end of this summer.