Thoughts on the various Reality (well, competition shows really, but that is another post) Shows. Spoilers? Yeah, Spoilers:
Finished:
Top Chef: Just Desserts.
This one whimpered to a finish. The edits created someone to root for, or more probably someone to root against, and the ‘villain’ didn’t win. I still never got as engaged in this one as any Top Chef season, and even prefer Chopped. Possibly this is because part of the challenge was reliant on artistic aspects versus flavor. Dunno. It was wise for this show to start when there was little competition, even so I don’t think I’ll be upset if I miss a new installment.
Project Runway.
Mixed feelings on this one. After the debacle of a win by the annoying Gretchen in the last installment, a win by Josh in this one would have allowed me to swear off this show for the future, or at least one done by these judges (look at me laying the groundwork for a viable excuse to watch the next all-star installment of PR). But he didn’t, and even though Anya didn’t blow me away, and they really did give her a second chance, at least Josh didn’t win. Victor really let me down. I’m down on this show. I felt it was too long when it was just a 60 minute show, at 90 it really bogs down for me. I can see me not watching the next one of these anyway. Well, except the All Star one. Damn!
In Progress:
Chopped.
This show remains reliable, not much more to say about it. It has slipped a bit, mainly due to the fact that they had a winner’s bracket where 16 previous winners came back to compete again. That set the bar a little higher, skill-wise, and now that we are back to people who can’t handle the time or screw up in other ways, it is falling a little flat. Like I said, reliable.
New:
Top Chef: Texas.
Watched the first one of these, and the quality increase over both Just Desserts and Project Runway were prevalent. As stated above, I think I just like the savory chef better than the dessert chef. As for the comparison with Project Runway, I find it interesting that both TC and PR did something a little different this year, bringing in more contestants than they really have slots for, and doing the final cut as an episode. And again, TC does it better. PR just brought them in to show their collection, as though the judges/producers hadn’t already seen this stuff (how did they trim down to 20 or whatever they had if not?). TC instead actually makes them do a challenge, and that is what leads to making it or not. This seems so obvious that I can’t believe that PR didn’t do this: take all the marginal folks and give them a challenge and let the winners move on. At any rate, I’m liking Top Chef so far, it is early though. Definitely recognized at least one of the chefs from the Future Food show. But right now The Beard (as I will call him) is my favorite. This will change of course if he trims or shaves it.
Next Iron Chef.
Only one episode so far, but this one has the potential to be awesome. First off, the skill set of the contestant pool is off the charts. As good as the Top Chef Masters group (there is even some overlap) from the first two seasons (the third Top Chef Masters show was a tier below). The format is cool as well. A challenge was introduced, and the two chefs deemed to be the least successful (words chosen carefully there, as I can only imagine that all the food is pretty damn good) then face off, Iron Chef style, to see who stays and who gets eliminated. Naturally it is a watered down version, only one dish to be prepared (shorter time limit as well), but there is still a mystery ingredient. Hopefully near the end of the show they will revert to a more standard format, it would be nice to have the winner do a couple “real” episodes before getting the title. Although it seems as though half the cast has competed on Iron Chef, several of them beating Bobby Flay.