etee's Blog

MasterChef
Jul 27, 2010

This week... on MasterChef:

...

Tonight is the premiere episode of MasterChef - the latest entrant in the Reality TV contest shows from the good folks at FOX. Shilled Advertised Classified as a mashup of HELL'S KITCHEN and American Idol (though I would have likened it more as "America's Got Talent meets Worst Cooks in America", but then I'm sorta snarky that way), as I watched this show one question kept running through my mind:

 

Yes, and for the life of me what the producers failed to do was to explain to me just exactly why I should invest in this show, or the contestants, or the outcome. Not on account of the $$$$MONEY$$$$$ (the winners of Survivor and Big Brother get that kind of dough), nor an account of the cookbook (I can find lots of cookbooks, from real live culinary celebrities, in my local bookstore), and certainly not on account of "the title of Master Chef". Seriously, FOX, r u kidding me?!?

The show started off strangely: during the judge's intro, the soundtrack was out of sync with the video, so the whole sequence looked like a grade-B oriental kung-fu flick. It didn't get better, as the rest of the beginning seemed to be (to me, anyway) running in super-manic mode, sort of like a tweaker-fest. Chef Ramsay tells the contestants to "cook the dish of your lives". Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah right, at the beginning of every season of HELL'S KITCHEN in recent memory.

The panel of judges includes: Joe Bastianich (who plays the Randy Jackson role, but without the "yo, pitch, dawg" schtick), Chef Graham Elliot (who plays the Paula role, but without the chemical-induced brain fog), Chef Ramsay (who plays the role of... Chef Ramsay). For the auditions, each contestant will prepare and serve their "signature dish" to the panel, who will react honestly (one hopes they don't show any actual projectile vomiting, tho), and then render their verdict.

Finally, we start off. Up first: Chris, from Houston (H-Town, REPRESENT). The "dish of his life": Cheese soup, with beer. Dark beer. So dark, that the soup looks like a brown, lumpy mess. Paula Mikey Graham Elliot likes it, but the other two show much better taste, with Chef Ramsay calling it "the most disgusting soup he's ever tasted".

Me, I happen to like a good beer and cheese soup, but for Bob's sake don't make it with a dark stout! Instead, use a light ale or maybe an Amber Bock, balanced against a sharp Cheddar.

Anyway, Beer dude is history, and they don't even let him take the leftover beer with him. Verdict: train wreck.

And, the train wrecks continue...

 

... until the judges despair of ever finding anyone to go to the next round. Until Michael shows up, that is. Paula Graham Elliot says of his dish: it is like "sex in your mouth" (ewwwww!), Ramsay calls it "phenomenal" and "mind blowing" (because I still have Graham's comment in my ears, again ewwwww!), and Joe says it has "beautiful balance". (Despite Graham's clarification that he meant that comment in "the best possible way", I will never, ever get that mental image out of my head. ewwwwww.)

Now that we have someone in, we start to get the sob stories. Contestants who are cooking for their dead mother (what do people eat in the afterlife? Just wonderin'), or for their families, or because they figure this is their chance to get their 15 minutes of fame (did I just say that?) One of those brings a real 'tude:

 

Interestingly, given the state of Chef Ramsay's mouth on HELL'S KITCHEN, he has shown remarkable restraint this evening. Very little cussing, he doesn't say ****, ****, or especially ******** - at least not very often.

Anyway, Mr. Attitude brings his "bouillabaisse" up, the judges start to rip it to shreds, and his 'tude makes a sudden change, as chronicled in several following Tweets:

 

And, that is the real problem with this show. As I noted above, there is no reason (other than the chance to snark on some very deserving losers contestants and enjoy the ensuing train wrecks), for me to invest in the show, or the contestants. Part of this is due to the nature of the competition.

In both singing and dancing, the viewer can actually experience the same thing as the judges. Because of this, they can form their own opinions as to the "good-ness" (or lack thereof) of the performance. However, since this is a cooking contest, the viewer is unable to engage two essential senses - smell, and taste - and so they can't get the full experience, and must depend on the word of the judges.

While this is true for most all cooking shows, it is going to prove more of a hurdle for this show, since (1) unlike Top Chef and Top Chef: Masters, these contestants are real unknowns in the food world, (2) unlike Iron Chef and Iron Chef America, the competition isn't decided in one episode, and (3) the prizes that are the pot at the end of this rainbow (other than the quarter-mil) are as meaningful as that "mirror ball trophy" on DWTS.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope:

 

So, what do we have to look forward to?

 

In other words, "find a formula that works, and then use it over and over and OVER AND OVER!!! Beat it to death, until everyone is tired. But they won't be, 'cuz the average teevee viewer has the intelletcual capacity of a rutebega, and the memory of a meat fly that goes from corpse flower to corpse flower in search of some tasty rotten meat."

Even so, I will probably continue to watch. If for no other reason than to see the train wrecks.