• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 7 hours ago

Anne Burrell died just weeks before the premiere of a new season of her long-running Food Network show “Worst Cooks in America.”

Her death last week at age 55 means that the upcoming season will take on an unforeseen and unwanted poignancy.

The new season, titled “Worst Cooks in America: Talented and Terrible,” looks to be the show’s 29th go-round since its debut in January 2010. The new season starts Monday, July 28, at 9 p.m. Eastern on Food Network. 

Burrell’s association with Food Network began in 2005 in the pilot of “Iron Chef America,” starring Mario Batali. 

Her longevity made her one of the network’s top star chefs, right up there with Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri.

Burrell (seen in the photo above with “Worst Cooks” co-host Gabe Bertaccini) died June 17 at her home in Brooklyn. The reported cause was cardiac arrest.

As a concept, the premise of “Worst Cooks in America” at first seemed counterintuitive. 

Food Network relies heavily on its lineup of cooking-competition shows in which aspiring amateur and professional chefs put their already formidable kitchen skills to work to win recognition for themselves and, in the case of the professionals, raise the profiles of their restaurants.

These shows are celebrations of culinary skill. They are showcases for the passions and hard work of these chefs who seek advancement in their careers.

“Worst Cooks in America,” however, goes the other way. It is a lighthearted celebration of cooking ineptitude in which the competitors struggle to not ruin every dish.

The show has worked for 15 years precisely because it is an alternative to the other shows. 

For everyone either professional or amateur who knows how to cook, there must be thousands who don’t know a spoon from a spatula. “Worst Cooks” is a show that millions of Americans can relate to.

Whether or not the show will survive in the aftermath of Burrell’s death has not been reported. It certainly could continue with any number of other TV chefs.

But at least for now, she is the personality who is most closely associated with the show. She was the face of the show and its star.

This past Monday, Food Network announced a special “Anne Burrell Programming Block” consisting of two hours of Burrell shows from 10 p.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.

The first hour is a 2015 episode of “Guy’s Grocery Games” subtitled “All-Stars and A-Lister Dinners” in which Burrell was a contestant.

The hour of 11 p.m. to midnight will consist of two episodes of “Worst Cooks” with the subtitles “Worst of the Worst” and “Boot Camp Diaries.”

With all due respect to the programmers of Food Network, Burrell perhaps was worthy of more than a two-hour farewell, one hour of which is out of prime time.

On the other hand, an entirely new season of “Worst Cooks in America” is coming next month to help Anne Burrell’s fans to say good-bye.