Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Streaming, the cord-cutters guide to the week that was—without a cable subscription. This week, we're going to review Chelsea Handler's new show, as well as a handful of the ever-expanding selection of foodie-centric travel series. We'll also review the incredibly nerdy Fine Bros React World Initiative backlash.

Chelsea Does Drugs

Recommended dosage: Less than Chelsea; much less

Chelsea Handler recently got PAID by Netflix, raking in an estimated $10 million on her exclusive deal. When I heard, I was really happy for her to be closing the gender gap amongst the late night hosts, financially at least. I hadn't heard much from her or thought much about her since that deal was announced, then I saw a small half reality/half travelogue show experiment on the home page of Netflix. I was excited to check it out. I was thrilled that one of the episodes described an adventure to Peru to take ayahuasca. I've always wanted to see someone tripping on that drug, and well, it might as well be Chelsea.

The only thing I really took away from the episode was that Chelsea, like me, is very proud of her ability to take drugs and/or drink without it fucking up her life. At times, she is standoffish with experts questioning the wisdom in her resolve to drink as much as she wants. On the bright side, her interaction with Willie Nelson—and all the shots of her and her friends getting stoned off decadent and fine dining edibles—was great television. The heavy drinking, defending her heavy drinking and mixing it with Ambien wasn't really funny, not even in a cringey sort of way.  

As an incredibly skeptical person, I was happy to have her badger doctors and push them for clearer answers. What I didn't like was how uncomfortable it all felt. After a while you get the feeling that she was pressured into making this show and despite having her friends around to do drugs with, she seemed to have agreed to this series kicking and screaming. Like we were watching some sort of reality show faux-intervention.

Ironically her series, which culminates in an hour of Chelsea doing drugs, comes off like someone resigned to their lot after being forced into rehab. Nobody seemed to have any fun. Here's to their next production.

I'll Have What Phil's Having

Recommended dosage: Literally every single thing Phil has (except for the eel bones)

Over the course of the last 10 years, there has been a serious explosion of the chef shows morphing into chef travel shows. I really hate to admit this, but I watch Chopped, Top Chef, Last Chance Kitchen, Iron Chef, Mind of a Chef and Chef's Table religiously. I don't watch Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, though. I'm not a bad person. 

Anthony Bourdain is mostly to blame for the proliferation of food porn, but he also is involved with all of the best that television has to offer. No Reservations and Parts Unknown are great to have on while cooking dinner or waiting for a pizza to arrive. Though, the genre has become a bit oversaturated. For god's sake, VICE has a whole "channel" catering to the chefy-travelogues with Huang's World amongst other food related short shots. 

With all of the clutter, it's rare to see something emerge that feels fresh and new, even when recycling through a lot of the same chefs and locations. 

That being said, Phil Rosenthal and his new show, I'll Have What Phil's Having, is a delight. Just look at how much this guy likes finding yummy food.

It's refreshing to watch someone wander around the streets of famous cities, lost amongst the culture, wide-eyed and happy to scarf anything he can get his hands on. You don't really mind that he's in the same cities you've seen and played the same games as all of the other hosts. He has zero pretension and that makes for some good watching while you're waiting for GrubHub to deliver you mediocre hot wings.

Reaction Videos

Recommended dosage: The tears of two greedy nerds

Do you remember the wave of "some sort of generalized demographic" reacts to "some sort of thing that specific demographic is likely to be unfamiliar with" videos? Things like this: Elders React to Kim Kardashian!

Can you believe it? They don't like her! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH AH Ud ailuflldIVG D... Sorry.

Anyways, the geniuses that put together this channel, the Fine Bros, just tried to copyright the idea of "reaction videos" and even promised to let you get in on all the fun by getting a license through their Fine Bros Entertainment React World Initiative!!! 

"This is not only a huge step for our company, but for the entire global media industry."

What a great deal! Here's the catch: The Internet took a collective dump on their greedy little faces. No one bought it, not even for a second.

Their initial post about the initiative has been taken down, along with the plans themselves. However there is a beautiful collection of new Reaction Videos skewering these jag-weds. Here's one of my favorites: