The thing that gets me is just how often the Iron Chefs win. Yes, I know they are superb at what they do. Yes, I know they have lots of experience working within the 1 hour format, no matter how much advance warning they have. I get all that, and understand the advantages that it gives them. However, the challengers on the show are not fry cooks from the local Burger King. They are also the best chefs in the world, and it just seems to me that they would win more often if the judging was completely fair. As it is it seems like the Iron Chefs win about 90% of the time, I would expect, oh, say, somewhere around 60% if the system didn’t have a bias built into it somewhere.
Selective memory. Check the records for awhile and you’ll discover that the Iron Chefs are batting about .700. The last episode I saw, Flay’s record was something like 9-4.
I do wish they’d replace Morimoto with someone I liked, or whose food I would eat. The other three I love. I’ve eaten at one of Flay’s resteraunts and loved it, and we are planning on sampling Batali’s fare next month.
My brother and I liked to make up back-stories for the “nephew,” like he was an investment banker, and his uncle called him up and really forced him into the family business, or he was an acrobat and insisted that he do the flashy opening sequence to stay fresh.
I don’t know about the American version, but in the Japanese version the contestants were quite frequently complete unknowns who ran their own little neighborhood bistros. Granted, a far cry from flipping burgers, but still enough to make the David/Goliath setup more credible.
Now that I think about it, a 10% win rate is about average for Japanese game shows.