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MasterChef turns to sex appeal

Cooking? What cooking? Under ratings pressure, TEN says "See Hayden get his gear off tonight."

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Even on a cooking reality show, television can focus on your sex-appeal.

In tonight’s episode of MasterChef teams compete in a cooking challenge at Cronulla beach where they are required to make enough sausages and gelato to feed over 500 hungry nippers and their families.

The two teams have to raise the most money for the Cronulla Surf Club and escape elimination.

Under the competition pressure blonde lifeguard Hayden Quinn resorts to surfer tactics with a quick change that made it into the network promo.

Quinn has already become the golden boy of the series with his good looks and an Immunity pin to back up his skills.

After last night’s whipping from Australia’s Got Talent (1.81m to just under 1.3m), TEN has now issued a plug to media that ends with the words: “See Hayden get his gear off tonight – 7.30pm Wednesday 25 May on TEN.”

Reality contestants leaning upon their sex appeal to avoid elimination is nothing new (we’re looking at you Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother) and TEN is right to include it as part of the episode storytelling.

But is it too soon for MasterChef to shift focus from cooking with such blatant lines as “See Hayden get his gear off”?

48 Responses

  1. I wondered how long it would take!!! Ratings are down so they are getting semi clothed people on the show! Sex sells after all. I don’t watch this program and never will. It’s just so pathetic and tragic that they have to stoop so low for ratings!!!!

  2. Yes, he ran around in his tight little swimmers / togs…. but I thought it funny seeing those older Cronulla ladies egging him on.

    You could tell he was more interested in getting the food cooked than doing a parade around the beach to drum up business (of course this is something the judges pointed out would have helped them more).

    Also, his inside info on where to find the microphone to make that outdoor announcement was brilliant. Made the red team scramble.

  3. What we o now is watch the start, then turn back to the last few minutes to see who is elimated, won the chef challenge, or lost the team challenge, all the bit in the middle is now so mundane

  4. I don’t watch MasterChef that often but today’s task was more like a task on The Apprentice compared to Master Chef.
    There should have been some points or $$ value allocated to the taste of the food compared to victory just depending on only $$ sales .

  7. They should just do a Big Brother style spin on the show & be done with it, an Adults Only episode where they all cook in their underwear or something lol.
    Seriously though as others have said, i reckon 7 running MKR early could be something to do with the ratings drop, the casual watchers maybe getting tired of cooking shows, i know i am. I watched Masterchef last yr but not MKR, this yr it was the other way around & i really enjoyed MKR, i find the background music in Masterchef annoying is one reason & now i just dont have that much time to watch every night.

  10. Yes this season’s failing a little – I dislike how they’ve combined the ‘Mystery Box’ and ‘Invention Test’ into a one dish challenge.

  12. It’s not really a Masterchef thing, it’s more of a Ten thing. They *always* focus on sex appeal when promoting shows, which may or may not include the use of sultry voice overs and/or sax music.

  14. @ deedee – no they won’t.

    I don’t know who is even playing SOO, I don’t know if it is league or whatever the other one is called, what time it is on, where it is being played etc etc etc and I am sure I’m not the only one.

  19. I used to love MC but this year i have found it boring, dull and repetitive. Its basically the same thing week in week out. There isn’t much more too it.

  20. They lost the sexy one , Chelsea the other night, I think this season is the blandness , uninteresting series of them all, swapping judges all th time,no good, they are pinning their show on Hayden,watch him now dominate the show, notice howmany boring people on there, Kumar you never see in the outakes during the cooking , that is waht there is of the cooking all it is the judges talking and making strange faces, Jump the Shark is tonight!!!

  21. I think the show definitely peaked last year. It’s going to be downhill from here. I think it’s becoming like Groundhog Day – the show is edited exactly the same each episode, so from the first five minutes we can tell who the top 3 and bottom 3 will be by the way they focus on the contestants…and is it just me or are they all much poorer cooks than in the past 2 seasons? Almost every single challenge has been pretty run of the mill stuff (sweet and sour pork etc) and they struggle even with that.
    As for the judges…if I hear one more mention of “caramelisation”, “shall we taste”, “hero of the dish”, “honest food” or “explosion of flavour” I am going to vomit.

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