--- title: Review: Feed the Beast on AMC Will Leave You Hungry description: The AMC series' main ingredient—the story of two men putting their passions for food and drink to use on a restaurant—is unsalvageably stale. canonical: https://time.com/4355150/review-feed-the-beast-amc-david-schwimmer/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-03T13:45:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T22:21:15.191Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: 'Feed the Beast' Will Leave You Hungry og:description: David Schwimmer's new drama falls flat og:url: https://time.com/4355150/review-feed-the-beast-amc-david-schwimmer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e5d85b82dc9c556/6988927f5f570f54e9b20dac/feed-the-beast.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: feed-the-beast og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: 'Feed the Beast' Will Leave You Hungry twitter:description: David Schwimmer's new drama falls flat twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e5d85b82dc9c556/6988927f5f570f54e9b20dac/feed-the-beast.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: _Feed the Beast_ Will Leave You Hungry > Sponsored content. 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Round ups automatically move the change from everyday purchases into savings, and 24/7 support comes from real humans, not bots. #### What bank is built for life today? Ally is the bank built for life today, a digital-first, people-first bank. Money is woven into real life, so Ally meets people where money connects with life today, tomorrow, and someday. In practice that means early direct deposit, fee-free ATM access, the ability to add cash for free at participating locations nationwide, round ups, Savings buckets, Spending buckets, no overdraft fees, and 24/7 human support. #### What bank is best for everyday spending and saving? Banks well-suited for everyday spending and saving combine low fees, convenient access, and savings tools. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Jun 3, 2016 1:45 PM UTC  Frank Ockenfels—AMC  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Jun 3, 2016 1:45 PM UTC It’s hard to think of a story as often told, and yet so unsatisfying, as that of a restaurant. Sure, restaurants are precarious enterprises, narrowly avoiding failure night after night, but stress is not the same thing as a narrative. Worse still, the catharsis of an ending to any chef story—the perfect meal—is denied (and always will be, until they invent a way to taste food through screens). Anyone who watched [_Burnt_](http://time.com/4055336/bradley-cooper-new-trailer-burnt/), a movie about Bradley Cooper yelling at his sous-chefs, or [_Chef_](http://time.com/4216235/jon-favreau-cuban-sandwich-recipe/), a movie about Jon Favreau watching someone else market a food truck on Twitter, can vouch for this: As we’re subjected to onscreen chefs’ madness but unable to experience its end result, it’s dramatic without being drama. There are exceptions—_Top Chef_ and various entries on the Food Network hew so closely to process that they create their own rewards. But in general, the ’80s-era truism that “restaurants are the new theater” seems to have been taken to its logical conclusion, forcing food production into a narrative form that doesn’t suit it. The latest example is AMC’s _Feed the Beast_, premiering June 5\. The series is elaborately plated, with elaborate backstory and perhaps one too many past traumas for its characters. But its main ingredient—the story of two men putting their passions for food and drink to use on a restaurant—is unsalvageably stale. David Schwimmer stars as Tommy, a sommelier mourning the loss of his wife and dealing with a son who’s stopped speaking and who’s having trouble at school. That he is a (barely) functional alcoholic is only surprising in the sense that you’re always startled when things are quite so on-the-nose. His best friend, Dion (Jim Sturgess) has been freed from prison, and pushes Tommy into starting a new restaurant as a means of making things right with the mob; starting the restaurant requires Tommy to get a loan from his mean-spirited father. This is less a premise than a list of misfortunes, and the first four episodes of _Feed the Beast_ feel as though they’re grasping not just for the right tone but for the show’s very subject. Is this a show about a traumatized father learning to live life as a single parent in the midst of crippling substance dependency? Is it a larky fantasy involving a flamboyant mobster threatening to pull Sturgess’s teeth? Is it a depiction of the logistical challenges of making the Bronx into New York’s new culinary capital? Yes! This is a particularly bizarre show for AMC, whose series tend either towards outlandish fantasy (_Preacher_, _The Walking Dead_) or morally rigorous dramas (_Mad Men_, _Breaking Bad_). It’s as though the subject of food lends the series either a wish-fulfillment aspect or a loftily artistic one. But food means nothing more than itself. Still, no other aspect of the show really sticks, so we end up returning to the cuisine. Schwimmer, so brilliant on [_The People v. O.J. Simpson_](http://time.com/4283380/the-people-v-o-j-simpson-finale-proved-the-show-is-a-modern-masterpiece/)this year, is given little to do that we haven’t seen before, and struggling against the script, does it all really big. The clichés of depicting addiction on TV (as so many recent prestige dramas have done) feel less committed to than staggered through, so as to get to the more fun clichés of the kitchen. And Sturgess makes “roguish bad boy” feel underseasoned. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that Sturgess ignites a hot pan with a bottle of liquor, or that he’s very particular about the pans he uses. When the restaurant manager asks him why, exactly, he’s spent so much he’s spent so much on cookware, he feeds her two paellas. “Now, one is made from Tommy’s skillet from Kmart,” he smarms, “and the other one is made from a $700 pan.” One paella gets a mediocre response; the other triggers ecstasy. And we don’t even get to see either—the focus is so tight on characters having a sensory experience we can’t that the paella just looks like a Minion-yellow blob. “I’m calling this a teachable moment,” Sturgess says. I’ll say: If you’re going to rely on tropes that even executed perfectly tend to fall flat, no amount of flair will hide it when you screw up the basics. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4355150/review-feed-the-beast-amc-david-schwimmer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4355150/review-feed-the-beast-amc-david-schwimmer/"},"headline":"Review: Feed the Beast Will Leave You Hungry","datePublished":"2016-06-03T13:45:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T22:21:15.191Z","description":"David Schwimmer's new drama falls flat","url":"https://time.com/4355150/review-feed-the-beast-amc-david-schwimmer/","keywords":["Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e5d85b82dc9c556/6988927f5f570f54e9b20dac/feed-the-beast.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e5d85b82dc9c556/6988927f5f570f54e9b20dac/feed-the-beast.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"feed-the-beast","caption":"","creditText":"Frank Ockenfels—AMC","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4355150/review-feed-the-beast-amc-david-schwimmer/","name":"Review: Feed the Beast Will Leave You Hungry"}}]}] ```