Here's How You Can Watch Every Season Of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
Safe to say, we've moved beyond the "golden age of television" that began with The Sopranos in 1999 (via AV Club) or maybe even Sex and the City in 1998 (via Financial Times). What to call the current era of small-screen entertainment? Maybe the aluminum age: There's so much of it everywhere you look, and most of it appears to be recycled versions of whatever worked in the past. It's as if the people who make TV shows aren't even aiming for quality anymore. "Development is getting lost because there is a real premium on quantity at the moment," a former president of Nickelodeon told the Financial Times. "Everyone is just throwing stuff against a wall, hoping to see how it will work."
The recent turn to quantity over quality happened because of all the streaming services that have popped up, from giants such as Amazon Prime and Netflix to doomed upstarts such as Quibi. The sheer number of content platforms out there brings a silver lining. In addition to the new content they keep churning out, they show the high-quality TV series from the not-too-distant past, such as Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.
Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations isn't on Netflix — for now
One of these TV nuggets of gold in a sea of discarded soda cans is Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. It's a reality show about food and travel that didn't have that recycled-aluminum feel. This was no Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, thanks to the show's authentic and strong-willed host, chef Anthony Bourdain. "Viewers would say 'I don't care where he's going. I just want to go with him,'" said Bill Margol, the Travel Channel executive who put No Reservations on the network in 2005 (via The Washington Post).
So where can you go to follow Bourdain on his culinary adventures? No Reservations is not on Netflix at the moment. If Netflix is your go-to streaming service, don't despair. The Netflix library is in constant rotation, and No Reservations may pop up one of these months. If you're a Hulu subscriber, you can catch seasons 7 and 8 only. (The show ran for nine seasons, ending in 2012, according to IMDb.)
The complete Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations is sold on Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime offers every episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations for a price: $2.99 per episode ($1.99 for early-season episodes, which aren't available in high definition). Some of the later seasons can be bought in bulk, which ends up being a discount on the per-episode price. Don't be confused by seasons 10 through 15 listed on Amazon Prime. Again, TV is constantly recycling content, and these last six fake seasons are made up of clips from older episodes.
YouTube also offers every episode of every season, including "bonus" seasons, charging $1.99 per episode with a discounted rate for entire seasons. In YouTube's version of the Anthony Bourdain universe, No Reservations has 17 seasons, and the true series finale, filmed in Brooklyn, wraps up season 13 instead of season 9. Again, don't allow yourself to get confused. The sanctity of season numbers has undoubtedly been sacrificed for greater profit.
Fans miss Bourdain, who took his own life in 2018 while in France, while shooting his even more popular follow-up to No Reservations, another food and travel series called Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. For now, other services offer Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, including Google Play and the iTunes Store (via Decider).