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MasterChef Australia

MasterChef 2011 opens with a show of force, yet keeps a lot in reserve. Another tasty season has begun.

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By now everybody who has watched MasterChef Australia is an expert.

An expert of Matt Prestonesque proportions at critiquing food, and an expert at food television production thanks to a slew of kitchen programmes that have overwhelmed us.

From the comfort of our sofas it is “easy” to look at a close-up of a dish and size up its merits. Looks uninviting, where’s the zing, would I pay for that? We forget that cooking it under the pressure of a television production would be far more demanding.

In the opening episode of this year’s season there are again 50 contestants, all of whom have obviously passed some preliminary auditions.

On Cockatoo Island we open with a show of force, dropping a huge Mystery Box from a helicopter. Ten contestants will be culled and forced to undergo another challenge with a guest chef.

The contestants are again diverse in age, ethnicity and class -one of the show’s best attributes. There are mothers, factory workers and a radio DJ.

And there are some pretty lousy dishes served up by hopefuls whose heart and dreams lay on the plate. Two uncooked rissoles on some mash? Don’t they know what show this is?

Five contestants will be gone by night’s end. That’s the drama of MasterChef.

Judges Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris are again barking their one-liners underneath a ticking clock, even borrowing from Forrest Gump‘s “box of chocolate.” Preston watches on with a face that gives away nothing.

The first episode is an on-location adventure, dominated by an industrial look. You get the feeling FremantleMedia is keeping everything in reserve, and we presumably won’t arrive at the MasterChef kitchen until we reach the Top 24.

Once we get to know the people behind the aprons this kitchen will most surely heat up.

Another tasty season has begun. Dig in.

MasterChef Australia premieres 7:30pm tonight on TEN.

20 Responses

  1. As a cookery program MC fails because most of the stuff cooked is either badly-cooked junk or too elaborate to be practical. Are we to really believe that the “top 20 home cooks in Australia” can present pastry brown on the outside and raw on the inside! Also, even the successful dishes are so packed with calories as to constitute a death-sentence and/or so expensive in ingredients as to bankrupt most of us. If Colombaris and Mehigan really regularly eat this stuff, they’ll soon be looking as podgy and unhealthy as Peston.

    As theatre, the superficial formula of MC soon wears thin. The revolting false “passion” of the contestants for food quickly becomes tedious. A contestant from Brisbane was obviously so sick of the hypocrisy that he retired himself. Do these people not realize that the only animal genuinely so passionate about food is a pig!

    The elevation of chefs to superstars is barely credible. A very few of them are good cooks, most are merely managers of food factories – called restaurants. It is no accident that the greatest cookbooks are written by well-educated people who do not run restaurants. They do proper research and have a mission to inform. Books by celebrity chefs, by and large, are 70% pictures and devised simply to make money out of the gullible.

  2. I would like to see some emphasis shown towards food alleges. I have a daughter who is glutton intolerant and it can be very difficult and frustrating when cooking.

  3. I know that there have been a lot of episodes filmed of MC. In the first couple of episodes that I have seen, I am most upset that some of the contestants are wearing dirty old hats. I thought that this was a food show. If they want to wear hats put on a few nets to catch the hair and dandruff that must be falling into the food. Yuk. Where is the old rule that men remove hats when indoors?

  6. @ Tony H. if the Logies came “4th” as you claim, how did Nine end up with a 35% share for a night when the logies aired from 7:30pm-Midnight??

  8. @ Tony H, I wouldn’t say MC smashed the Logies, granted they won the night but the Logies still did respectable numbers. I wasn’t saying that MC would fail because most people I know wouldn’t be watching, and of course the people I know do not make up the majority of tv viewers. Most people I know are in the TV industry, and therefore would have either been at the Logies or watching at home.

  9. @Moanique – The Logies came 4th! Masterchef smashed it. It appears you don’t know many people (..”most people I know are not as interested in MC this year).

  10. @ Chris, I have worked for two FTA Networks and so I do understand the fundamentals of FTA TV. TEN ran lame with their Royal Wedding telecast, so why not for the Logies lol. I guess we will soon find out whether MC or the Logies rated highest, most people I know are not as interested in MC this year.

  13. @Moanique…Are you deranged?? Ten aren’t going to lie down and let Nine have the night free out of “respect”. The netowrks are running businesses in order to gain advertising revenue. They need to make money to make shows and satisfy shareholders. Networks aren’t goign to run lame for some crappy awards night. Your comments suggest that you tend to struggle with the fundamental premise behind FTA TV.

  15. don’t give a crap about Masterchef…To quote Kyle Sandilands Cooking shows are for old people who don’t know how to change the channel

  17. I say good on TEN for putting it up against the Logies on Nine. I hope it works for them.

    FYI over on Seven while Bones is a 2 year old re-run the Castle eps tonight are new and the first is a really good one, guest staring Laura Prepon from That 70s Show and October Road.

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