MasterChef (Australia, too)

[lazarus]

Is anybody watching MasterChef on Fox? It features a nice version of Gordon Ramsay, the version we saw on The F Word on BBCA. Not all screaming and cursing all the time.

It's based on gathering strictly amateur cooks, nobody who's ever taken a class or worked a pro kitchen before, and run them through a gauntlet of challenges.

The show's decent, but there are problems. For one thing, they've got that habit of recapping what just happened before the commercial break, as if we've all had lobotomies. And they love drawing things out with extra drama. In the meantime, they're leaving great stuff out. One of the competitors is blogging, and she says between the challenges, they're receiving classes from top chefs on various cuisines and techniques. There are hints of this on the show, but I'd love to see it.

OTOH, there's Masterchef Australia. Season 2 just ended, and Haele and I have been watching it, because I heard it was amazing. Apparently, the Finale got something crazy like 70% of all televisions tuned in. They did it completely differently from the American version, of course. Instead of a two hour episode a week, they have a 90 minute episode every night for six (maybe seven) nights a week, and ran it for months. It's a total of 84 episodes. You really get to know the competitors, too. They eliminate two a week, so far. Each episode is something new.

Mystery box challenge. Winner picks the main ingredient for Invention Test. Losing three of that compete in a Pressure Test to avoid elimination. Winner goes head to head against a celebrity chef to win immunity. (Nobody's pulled that off yet, but two did it season one.) Then there's an off-site challenge, like running restaurants, and another two are picked to compete in a pressure test where one is eliminated. Finally, the week ends with a MasterClass, where the judges, who are top chefs in Australia, teach various techniques that the competitors used during the week, showing how they'd have done it.

So you can actually learn stuff watching a TV show, something the poo-flinging monkeys at Fox haven't figured out is possible. Masterchef Australia is available on the web somewhere, I think. :evilgrin:

[Qanisqineq]

1. I watched 2 episodes of the one on FOX

I've seen both Australian seasons. LOVE IT. We got it off the web. The American version -- not so much.

[Qanisqineq]

2. I forgot to mention

there is a Junior Masterchef Australia that just started this week. It only airs once a week and the kids made some amazing stuff.