"Rachael Ray Show" potentially annoying

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Carefully tailored to service the soccer mom crowd racing between work and kids and shopping, "The Rachael Ray Show" is a syndicated daytime talk show-cum-pep rally targeting viewers who are double-parked.

It moves along in energetic rat-a-tat-tat style via a series of manic Rachael McNuggets that casts Oprah's very own handpicked youngster as a whirlwind of hyperkinetic charisma. Indeed, the opening hour depicts the former host of Food Network's wildly popular "30-Minute Meals" as a woman in need of Ritalin to slow it down, modulate her pitch and try a little less hard. Ray has an inherent likability and is certainly easy on the eyes, but she doesn't talk to us so much as screams and she might want to consider taking a more leisurely approach. As it is, it's all she can do to keep from using the adoring audience as her mosh pit.

Happy to be here after spending the past five years "talking to vegetables," Ray emerges to a cool, loftlike brick set (it spins!) and hip R&B theme music. She quickly (everything here is quick) pours herself a cup of completely unnecessary coffee that she sips while reminiscing at the set's kitchen table. Ray's occasionally squeaky voice is even more adorably anxious than usual, but the crowd clearly already views her as royalty on Day 1 -- screaming wildly with her every breathless piece of jabber. She packs a lot of show -- too much, actually -- into the kickoff that's punctuated by her cuddly asides designed to establish a connection with Jane America.

See Rachael skydive with a viewer determined to overcome her fear. See Rachael prepare a meal in just seven minutes. See Rachael talk live with a viewer over the Internet. Now see Rachael sharing the stage with first guest Diane Sawyer, who looks typically fabulous but appears somewhat flummoxed by the ball of exuberance bouncing around her. Sawyer also utters the phrase "slut shoes," which would seem to indicate that she, too, was trying too hard.

Interstitials leading in and out of the commercial breaks feature viewer questions and revelations such as the best way to toss a salad if you lack a salad spinner: Put it in the washing machine and hit "Spin." Seriously. And there's a sizable emphasis here on cooking (no surprise). For Ray's sake, the hope would be that the repasts are low caffeine. Queen Oprah herself is scheduled to arrive today to anoint her latest offspring with her presence and use that reflected glow to create another Nielsen monster a la Dr. Phil.

"The Rachael Ray Show" is clearly being positioned as the next generation of "Martha Stewart Living," the difference of course being the fresh scrubbed girl-next-door beauty of the thirtysomething host and the injection of high-intensity joie de vivre. It's likely that Ray will tone down the tempo to merely rapid as she settles into the big chair, though she probably will never have the effortless bearing that Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell brought to the stage. Breaking from the gate, she skirts the fine line between endearing and annoying and could tip either way.