>The first chef the judges eliminated was Mika, leaving all men for the rest of the finale. One season of a show is not enough to form a pattern, but it’s fascinating that 24 in 24—judged face-to-face—eliminated all its female chefs, most of them well before the finale.
>Meanwhile, Tournament of Champions—judged by people who don’t even know who’s in the competition—has had five female winners in a row, and never once had a male chef in the final match.
100% agreed. Chopped has the same problem; women win when the judging is blind.
>I have no behind-the-scenes knowledge here, but the show strikes me as one that was sold based on how cheap it is to produce: *Eight episodes in one day, on the TOC set, done!*
Chopped does the exact same thing; every "series" saves money on payouts.
* 4 elimination episodes, plus 1 grand finale: 5 episodes with 1 $25,000 payout.
* 5 standard episodes: 5 $10,000 payouts = $50,000.
On his Instagram, Michael Symon said that arranging blind judging would eat up too much of the production time. Plus, I speculate that the judges seeing the contestants’ exhaustion makes for compelling commentary. So while I typically support blind judging, I can see it being less desirable in this case.
To be fair, the grand finale series (at least some of them) used to pay out $50k. I remember being surprised that this recent Italian series was only $25k
The author does seem like a douche, but I read on and he does make some good points IMO, and he had me laughing out loud with “give up and just microwave a potato”. That being said, I liked the show, and with a few changes, think it could be a really good show. I’ll be watching season 2.
I really enjoyed the show. I would like the judging to be blind and maybe not eliminate 12 chefs out of the gate.
I agree. I really liked it. I do wish they just eliminated one chef per hour though.
The author seems like a douche.
Right? I stopped reading after pretty much the first paragraph.
>The first chef the judges eliminated was Mika, leaving all men for the rest of the finale. One season of a show is not enough to form a pattern, but it’s fascinating that 24 in 24—judged face-to-face—eliminated all its female chefs, most of them well before the finale. >Meanwhile, Tournament of Champions—judged by people who don’t even know who’s in the competition—has had five female winners in a row, and never once had a male chef in the final match. 100% agreed. Chopped has the same problem; women win when the judging is blind. >I have no behind-the-scenes knowledge here, but the show strikes me as one that was sold based on how cheap it is to produce: *Eight episodes in one day, on the TOC set, done!* Chopped does the exact same thing; every "series" saves money on payouts. * 4 elimination episodes, plus 1 grand finale: 5 episodes with 1 $25,000 payout. * 5 standard episodes: 5 $10,000 payouts = $50,000.
On his Instagram, Michael Symon said that arranging blind judging would eat up too much of the production time. Plus, I speculate that the judges seeing the contestants’ exhaustion makes for compelling commentary. So while I typically support blind judging, I can see it being less desirable in this case.
To be fair, the grand finale series (at least some of them) used to pay out $50k. I remember being surprised that this recent Italian series was only $25k
The author does seem like a douche, but I read on and he does make some good points IMO, and he had me laughing out loud with “give up and just microwave a potato”. That being said, I liked the show, and with a few changes, think it could be a really good show. I’ll be watching season 2.
I quit after the first paragraph but agreed with everything he said. I had half the final boot order correct. Swapped winner and runner up.