Top Chef Masters - Season 5

I do like the sous chef aspect of it, but people can get hugely fucked over at no fault of their own. If it wasn't all for charity I would care more about the unfairness.

Binkles_sl said:

http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef-masters

Season premier opens with gimmicks and social media integration. I was slightly disappointed with the chef selection and the entire skydiving affair. I just enjoy watching people cook under roughly equivalent circumstances. Trying to compare apples to oranges to lemons detracts from the competition aspect of the show.

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Problem I have with cooking shows as they have become more popular is the whole reality bit of it. Yes, it is interesting to see the different cooking personalities and how they work in kitchens, but the cooking is the most important part. I enjoy being able to see how they make things, and maybe try it for myself. It is nearly impossible in todays format of 10% cooking and 90% drama. The cooking being the most improvised part, as the drama in reality shows is all scripted/produced.

Hells Kitchen is horrible to watch now, as its so incredibly over the top overdramatized. Unless one of the chefs goes postal from the pressure and starts stabbing at people, the Requiem of a Dream soundtrack has no business in a cooking show. And I have no good feelings towards whatever person decided that each part between the commercials should have a "this just happened" and "coming up!" part. Should never have to be worried about spoilers in the thing you are watching, and about 10 minutes of 40 minute shows are repeted scenes from within the same episode. Madness.

As to Top Chef, I like it as it has a lot of focus still on the cooking as the personalities are usually already established, with reputations, so the drama is minimal and more professional.
Unlike this years Masterchef season. Some of the characters are very obviously there as drama cast. Chrissy for instance, would not ever be a "master" chef. Nobody would work for her. A pure and simple bully (with the matching looks). So stereotypical it hurts. Has a problem with everyone who has skill, hates all the pretty girls, but most of all HATES the shy introverted vegitarian girl who dares respond back to her. "She is like the people I used to beat up back in school". If that is true or not, saying it on TV is so incredibly stupid. And the show eats it up, as it is great "tv" to have a villain, so the episodes are edited to focus on it, and the episodes set up to maximize it. The actual cooking is secondary at most.

TV sucks now

I think it's because of people like me that DVR this shit and fast forward through commercials, it fakes you out :/

chopped is still there as the pure, interesting cooking show, hopefully they bring back some new iteration of Good Eats. I liked this TCM, its awesome to see one of the voltaggios kick ass. Skydiving was shitty, I feel bad that these guys who are basically geniuses in their field are forced to do stupid shit like that to entertain me. Its like getting Neil Degrasse Tyson on Fox News and asking him to rap with kanye or do the chickendance before he can talk about science. I'm sure Top Chef Masters will be like the past seasons, mildly interesting but don't really care that much about who wins.

Hells Kitchen by the way has never been about cooking and always about drama. They literally cook the same thing 90% of the time - beef wellington, scallops, a fish, risotto. People have said the producers fuck with temperatures and stuff on the sets, because there is no way so many people could fail to cook such basic shit so much. So yeah, you just watch HK to see some stupid fat cunt (boy or girl) flail miserably for 3/4ths of the season. I just watched the finale a few days ago and already have forgotten who won.

meStevo_sl said:

This is my biggest pet peeve in any television show currently, pisses me off and is so unnecessary. It's like they've gone through focus groups and found people are so uninterested in the show that they have to tease what's going to happen in 2-4 minutes to keep them.

Anyways, thanks for the thread, didn't realize there was a new one on with the recent marathons generating a lot of noise on my DVR.

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I swear to god I would literally hit the person responsible for the idea that I need a preview of something coming up in 10 minutes and then need somebody to remind me what the fuck just happened 5 minutes ago. Also the whole...and...the ........winner.....is............................. .................................................. .Commercial. Really WTF?? I now DVR everything. I am able to watch one of these shows in 20 minutes because by the time you get through the reviews and commercials and blow through the stupid drama parts, the show is about that long.

I enjoy Top Chef.. but Top Chef Masters is just boring as fuck. Tired of the Voltaggio or whatever brother too.

Noodleface_sl said:

I enjoy Top Chef.. but Top Chef Masters is just boring as fuck. Tired of the Voltaggio or whatever brother too.

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It's because none of these people actually care about winning. To them, it's all: "haha! I'm going to have fun for charity and let my whimsical side run free!" The people on regular top chef want that shit badly and they aren't fucking around.

in a surprise twist, asian chef wins asian challenge