Right, but in watching these shows (Project Runway is the same), you have to accept that the elimination challenge is exactly that—an elimination based on your performance in one particular challenge.
The fact is that the very format of these shows does not allow for building up credit with good performances early in the competition. There’s no reward for consistency, or even for consistently excellent performances. You might have won every challenge so far, but if you fuck up badly today, then you’re out.
By all means, criticize the way that the show is set up (i’ve been critical of the format in the past), but when it has been made very clear that this is the format, it’s rather pointless to criticize the judges for sticking to the format.
Yeah, that’s been annoying me too. I want to see these chefs do what they’re supposed to do—cook high quality food in good surroundings with a decent budget. I know that cooking on a small budget, cooking under bad conditions, cooking under insane time pressures, etc., are all a part of being a chef, but if the judges are going to keep asking for amazing food, then they need to give the chefs a chance to shine.
I thought last week’s boat cruise sucked. Six bucks a person for high quality food? Also, the criticisms often seem contradictory. One of the judges last week (Padma?) was getting antsy when it looked like they might run out of food, but then the judges also told them that they should have gone for quality rather than quantity. Well, which is it?
Similarly, the restaurant challenge. While the challenge of preparing restaurant menu is fine, i think it’s silly making them run around like mad in order to actually decorate the place in one day. Again, that tells me nothing about how good they are as chefs, and it also makes the judging even more difficult and arbitrary by ensuring that one member of each team barely does any cooking, and gets judged instead on his or her front-of-house skills. I’m watching Top Chef, not Top Maitre D’.
Also, the nightclub challenge a few weeks back. I thought that getting them all dressed up for a night on the town, then making them cook in a cramped trailer, was not only a bad culinary challenge, but was pointlessly mean. All it told us about them was that they, like everyone else, don’t like it when they’re promised the night off and then told at the last minute that they’ll be working until 3am. That doesn’t tell me how good they are as chefs.
Yes, yes, yes. I realize that this is all part of the show, and that i should take the advice i gave treis above and just learn to deal with it. I also realize that the producers think that this type of “gotcha” challenge is good TV. But while some of the rinky-dink challenges like frozen food or using canned goods can be fun, they get a bit old, and i just want to see the chefs given an opportunity to show what they can do under good conditions.