Celebrity Masterchef

[britcook]

A new series of Masterchef, nightly on BBC1, with "celebrities" rather than regular folk. Still the same good ol' boys as presenters and annoying voice-over (India somebody or other) but far fewer of the annoyances and idiosyncracies of the normal series. There's more attention paid to the cooking and ingredients and, surprise, surprise (on the evidence of 2 programmes so far) these people can actually cook, one or two of them really well.

[britcook]

Am I the only one in step? After the rubbish that was the "new" Masterchef this is surprisingly intelligent with more cooking per show than anything I've seen for several years. The "celebrities", with the odd exception, turn out to be much better cooks than the aspiring Masterchefs of the regular series, and the comments from the two judges are much more enlightening, they actually manage to describe the dishes well. The only bad thing is that stupid woman doing the voiceover is as trite as ever.

[kutsu]

The format of

"Presenter 1 - hmm this food is good, but lacking in XYZ area"

"Presenter 2 - wow this food is perfect. I like it, I like it a lot"

Christ, I understand not agreeing on everything but its really annoying now they do it on everything slightly unusual.

Also, they slated one woman for making a potato salad with anchovies, capers, etc; as having shown no technical skill. Yet they praised roger black for putting a poached egg on some asparagus - hardly a technical feat.

[Tim Hayward]

The format of

"Presenter 1 - hmm this food is good, but lacking in XYZ area"

"Presenter 2 - wow this food is perfect. I like it, I like it a lot"

Christ, I understand not agreeing on everything but its really annoying now they do it on everything slightly unusual.

Also, they slated one woman for making a potato salad with anchovies, capers, etc; as having shown no technical skill. Yet they praised roger black for putting  a poached egg on some asparagus - hardly a technical feat.

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Surely that's the fundamental flaw in the show format. How can you possibly have a legitimate 'judging' procedure over something as subjective as food.

When Masterchef began I was still working in TV. If you wanted to get a show greenlighted back then, it had to be in some sort of gameshow format. These days, of course, you can screen anything as long as it contains heartwrenching scenes of entirely staged self-revelation and some half-baked 'life-coach' who's shite-awful attempts at cod psychology reduce the poor idiot punter to weeping. Masterchef's format is a relic of its time

To my mind it was always pointless taking the judging seriously. We watched the show to see people cooking, not because we felt the elevation of a particular amateur to notional primacy did anything for us or for cooking.

Of course, without the pretence of a national competition you have no reason to have amateurs cooking on TV (leave Ainsley Harriot out of it) and without judges attempting to describe the food (Hmmm, the lemon really cuts through the richness - Oh God, kill me now) the viewer just has to stare at a picture. So the competition has to be there even though it's absurd.

After seeing Vic Reeves' sketch parodying the show, I felt he should always present it and that it could be radically improved if at least one contestant each week was a random psychotic self-harmer.

[Matthew Grant]

Also, they slated one woman for making a potato salad with anchovies, capers, etc; as having shown no technical skill. Yet they praised roger black for putting  a poached egg on some asparagus - hardly a technical feat.

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I turned of at that point when I realised that they still don't know what they want. They seem to be looking for simple dishes with a high degree of technical skill, something different and classic . John Torode still can't stick a fork in his mouth without rattling it against his teeth, something to do with him shovelling it towards his mouth so fast that you would think rats were chasing the food. Do we really have to hear the lip smacking at such high volume.

I presume that a lot of decent chefs (of the non-celebrity variety) are put off entering non-celebrity masterchef because they don't know what the judges want (and neither apparently do the judges). I prefer the old format.

[Matthew Grant]

After seeing Vic Reeves' sketch parodying the show, I felt he should always present it and that it could be radically improved if at least one contestant each week was a random psychotic self-harmer. 

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What a great idea, that Vic Reeves sketch is fantastic. For those of you who have not seen it:

[Tim Hayward]

What a great idea, that Vic Reeves sketch is fantastic. For those of you who have not seen it:

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Brilliant!!

Jean Baptiste.... my culinary idol.

[Andy Lynes]

Celebrity Masterchef , the story so far:

Torode - "It's a good clean plate of food"

Wallace - "Hmm - pudding"

On the next episode of Celebrity Masterchef:

Torode - "It's a good clean plate of food"

Wallace - "Hmm - pudding"

[Matthew Grant]

Better get her name right if she is to be your culinary hero. Joan not Jean

"Its a faceplate in the form of Jeeesus"

[Basildog]

The only part of the show that interests me is when they go and do lunch service in real kitchens.Not for their performance, just nice to have a nose in other peoples kitchens.