Are they making them cater next episode? Really? REALLY? For another elimination before the "real" finale?
Tonight was horrible.
At least Paul got through. He seems to be the only one thinking it's supposed to be about the food now. (As opposed to revenge, redemption, or ratings.)
This whole episode was BS. I've never been this underwhelmed headed into a finale. I can't even comment on the food because, frankly, I didn't give a damn about the food in this episode.
I feel like the producers just took a dump all over a show I used to enjoy. If I want to watch people falling down, I'll watch Wipeout. None of those "challenges" tested their ability to work with food and none of them allowed interesting cooking. Why fucking bother? And next week we get catering again? Why?!? This season had good chefs and the show never let them cook.
1. TX State trooper on the highway w/crackers as the winner.
2. Steak and potatoes team challenge for Cattle Baron's Ball.
3. Highland Park progressive dinner with a love of "gummy bears."
4. All night BBQ challenge @ Salt Lick (bleh).
5. Outdoor challenge in San Antonio (chicken salad vs. meatball).
6. Ride a bike through San Antonio and beg for cooking privileges in "foreign" kitchens. Oh, and cook for the super chef Paul Ruben.
7. Chop a block of ice to make it into the final 3. Then ski and shoot your way into a cooking competition.
I am missing a couple but really? Really? No wonder the contestants are annoyed. The only one truly good episode was the Charlize Theron challenge and a few of the quick fires.
It seemed to me tonight that even Tom was embarrassed, but hell, he is utterly complicit in this charade. Bleh.
I hate that a competitor like Paul (sorry Ally) wins with an asterisk.
Like the rest of you, I'm incredibly irritated by the gimmicks, and dispirited by Sara and Lindsey's continued nastiness. I could get past their horrific personalities because they wouldn't be around next season...but these trained seal challenges this season are really eroding my interest in seasons to come.
No point in doing a power rankings Dom. There was absolutely nothing in this episode to indicate if a chef warrants a bump in either direction. Entire ep was a gimmick, and everyone knows it.
On a side note, based on the preview for next week's ep, does it seem like this season TC stands for Top Caterer? Granted, it rolls in the dough, but we're in the finals, man. Give them a theme and some fresh product and let them at it.
I have lost most of my respect for the show. I can't help but think that Ed and Bev are gone while Lindsay and Sarah remain. Lindsay and Sarah's mentors are long time TC participants. While I said that did not help Jen, I am now doubting the integrity of the show. A Paul win will help me think otherwise, but I just don't know how Sarah is still there.
Also, I am amazed no one tore a knee up while on the skis. Some of the twists they took when falling looked pretty bad.
And.....Sarah should have been eliminated immediately for mistaking a rifle for a shotgun. When she said her father took her to shoot at cans with a shotgun ----- eliminated. No one plunks cans with a shotgun. They use a rifle - probably a .22, although I would bet on it being a bb gun.
Catering challenges are staples of one finale episode, we've had catering challenges in Hawaii, Aspen, New Orleans, Napa, and Bahamas. Most of them worked out well to my recollection.
Awful. One silly challenge would have been fine, but three?
The editors are getting sloppy again. The interview cut to Beverly at the 20 minute mark made it clear that she was out. She wasn't just unhappy about the gondola, clearly.
Kudos to Paul for not only helping the others break ice but also give them extra ingredients, to his own detriment when his demi failed.
They were all silly, but the silliest, the gondola, was probably the most redeemable. It seemed to be the only one where cooking skill was all you needed. Sure it was a bit too "Kitchen Impossible" for us foodie types, but at least it didn't depend on ice breaking skill or biathlon ability to be able to complete.
The only redeeming thing is that it appears we get the extra episode this season so we get a true mano a mano final for the first time in awhile. That's a nice way to mix it up.
"On a side note, based on the preview for next week's ep, does it seem like this season TC stands for Top Caterer? Granted, it rolls in the dough, but we're in the finals, man. Give them a theme and some fresh product and let them at it."
No one is happier than me that Paul made it (sorry Kathy).
This was stupid and I had the same thought as Anne, do I want to even watch the final if Paul is eliminated during a catering challenge? Probably not. And it was so painful to hear Olympic athletes do stilted intros and try to sound like they knew the first thing about food.
Sarah is a terrible person, and now she has replaced Edward as contestant most in need of a haircut.
I agree with comments above; it was a really ridiculous episode.
Not sure about kitchen etiquette with the electrical outlet on Sarah's station but I also do not care. Am tired of the whole Bev v. Sarah/Lindsay conflict regardless of who was right to begin with.
Can we agree to boycott the finale if Paul doesn't make it? Hit them where it matters... the ratings. Maybe the majority of the viewers watch it for the drama? I guess I figured people watched it because it WAS one of the better cooking shows on television.
Would it have been so bad if they just made them cook crap that was frozen in round 2 and skip with the ski part in round 3? Or just round 2 make them dig through a pile of snow or something stupid like that?
Honestly, a catering challenge seems like a nice change of pace. This did seem rigged to make sure the LCK winner did not make it whomever it was.
I just don't feel like these final challenges should come down to who is stronger or more athletic or who happened to spend every winter skiing. Paul had such a clear advantage over the women in the second challenge because he's strong--one he recognized and thus helped them. (Now, he has a clear advantage over them because he's a better chef, too, but that's what the show is supposed to be about.) The gondola challenge was at least on a level playing field, but the other ones weren't and that bugged me.
"Can we agree to boycott the finale if Paul doesn't make it? Hit them where it matters... the ratings. Maybe the majority of the viewers watch it for the drama? I guess I figured people watched it because it WAS one of the better cooking shows on television."
I will not be watching the final. This show has become a joke, sadly.
So, at this point in the season, I couldn't care less about the actual TV show.
I go here, see who got booted off and if the show was worth watching. If so, over to Amazon for the online version. If not, then straight to the Bravo site to read Acheson's blog, which has been the highlight of the season for me. It's an utter bleeding shame they haven't given him more screen time.
I've been watching since season one and I've never been less interested in who was winning. This time last season I was tuning in with baited breath, hoping, praying Blaze was going to take the day.
Now, yeah, I want to see Paul win, but not enough to watch this crap.
I'm mostly a lurker here, but had to add my agreement. What a terrible, bad, no good episode!!!
Chopping through ice? Trying to ski, and then shoot their "food"? The show has always had silly gimmicks, but this was just the worst. boo to all who had a hand in designing and producing this show. I'm looking at you, Tom!
Now that I've calmed down a bit, I have a few thoughts:
1. I suppose the gondola was the *least* ridiculous of the 3 challenges. Still silly, but at least their ingredients and cooking supplies were readily available (and, you know, not trapped in huge blocks of ice).
2. Of course Paul blamed himself, not the swinging gondola, cold or motion sickness, on his dish's failures. I've always thought Kevin G was the most humble, likable contestant, but Paul is giving him a run for his money.
3. I thought Bev was going to lose a finger with that ice pick. I literally covered my eyes. I think she was using a pan at one point because the producers smelled an impending lawsuit and took the pick away from her.
4. If they wanted to incorporate the Olympics, why not have the chefs prepare food for athletes, like they previously did in the US Open challenge? They could even have certain proteins/ingredients assigned to each event, and if the gondola challenge had been a QF, they could have determined the selection of event/ingredients based on the QF rankings.
5. I'm not one to make "I"ll never watch the show again if x does/doesn't happen", but I really don't know if I would continue watching if Paul had been eliminated.
One other thing: the bravo's version of power rankings had a thing that was like "first thing the person should buy if they win." That was actually funny and incredibly accurate.
Of the three remaining:
Paul-- buy an ego. (The lack of which I think endears him to many.)
Lindsay -- a consistent accent (The drawl came out when the chips were down.)
Sarah -- a Map to find somewhere other than Italy to draw inspiration.
I'm watching the finals, of course. Most of us will. But where I think this kind of garabage hurts them is the spin off shows. I've watched Just Desserts and Masters in the past, but I'm sort of burned out on the franchise. I would rather watch Master Chef or Worst Chef in America (maybe) than the spinoffs of TC.
Do the producers have no understanding of what made TC popular in the first place?
You know what worries me? What if they're right - what if they have a better understanding of what makes it popular than we do, and ratings spike because of this crap?
"I just don't feel like these final challenges should come down to who is stronger or more athletic or who happened to spend every winter skiing."
100% yes. I wanted Bev to beat Sarah but not if it was because she was in better shape than Sarah -- that would've just been cruel in all the wrong ways. Also, it meant we spent tons of time watching them try to ski and chop ice rather than cook.
I also hate (1) that the person who cooked the second best dish in all three rounds was eliminated, (2) that there was no advantage in the next round for order of finish in the round before; (3) that Bravo showed us Beverly sobbing in a TH halfway in, (4) that the previews showed her shooting a gun so we knew each of the first 2 rounds that she couldn't win; (5) that, in the finale, someone was eliminated for a quickfire; (6) that ... ah, screw it
Worst episode ever, which is sad because they've got great talent to work with.
By comparison to the others, the Goldola challenge was fine. Gimmicky, a bad choice for a finale - but relatively tame.
We've had arbitrary challenges before with unfair advantages. We've even had challenges with unrelated physical components that could trip up the chefs (All-Stars had the diving challenge in the finale, for instance).
But we've never had one where the physical component was so obviously slanted the way the Ice Block challenge was. Paul had an absurd advantage there - the sexism in the design of the challenge was OVERWHELMING. We need Lee Anne back.
To his great credit, Paul recognized the unfairness of the situation and helped his competitors. With $10k and a shot at $125k on the line, I can't say I would have done the same. If I learned anything this episode, it's that Paul is a classy dude even in the most stressful situations.
... still, amazingly, as bad as that challenge was, it was better than the worst challenge in the history of Top Chef, which followed it.
Look, contestants on Top Chef have embarrassed themselves before. But they've embarrassed themselves by cooking poorly or behaving poorly. Never before have the producers gone out of their way to humiliate the chefs on national TV the way they did in that challenge. Asking two people who have never been on skis to navigate a slightly technical Cross Country course while wearing inappropriate clothing, and then make a gag reel of them falling and struggling, is simply cruel. I'd like to think that this show is better than that, but well, maybe it isn't. I've never wanted to hit the fast forward button during live air before on Top Chef, but I very nearly did there.
Setting that aside, there's the whole question of what happens if someone craps out with the gun. I assume that the shooting challenge was tricked up such that a relatively unathletic person with no shooting experience still had a decent chance of hitting targets. Still, both of them missed 6/10 shots. What if one of them had only hit 2/10 or 1/10? Are we sending someone home from the finale of Top Chef because they can't shoot an air rifle??
The only good thing about the final challenge was that they did give them both a set amount of time in a fully equipped kitchen to actually prepare the meal. And thanks to that (and good luck with the rifles) both of them did produce good dishes. Still, that doesn't excuse what came before.
Just a disaster - bad enough that it changes my whole perception of the show.
TxGriff, I thought PAUL was going to lose a finger, compliments of Bev, when Bev got to the giant crabsicle a split second after Paul did. I flinched because it looked to me like she came very close to stabbing his hand.
IG, I doubt the ratings would improve because of this. It seems as if they're trying to pump up flagging ratings by making the show more appealing to its bread-and-butter Real Housewives crowd, but I can't fathom this would work. Hmm...Maybe in next week's episode, all the contestants will be required to wear weaves, and whoever pulls the other contestants' out first gets a "significant advantage" in the finale.
I'm like Keryl. I read here to see who won and what the general comments are. I watch judges table (always last 15 minutes) & skip the rest.
Sadly, the producers obviously are trying to appeal to a larger, non-cooking audience. So now Top Chef is just another game show where the actual topic bears little resemblence to contestants skills.
Still, both of them missed 6/10 shots. What if one of them had only hit 2/10 or 1/10? Are we sending someone home from the finale of Top Chef because they can't shoot an air rifle??
I agree, what if Bev or Sarah took a bad fall and broke a leg? She'd be disqualified because she couldn't ski??
What the hell?
Has Top Chef bought into the full sleeve of tats,macho kitchen beast, bad ass fallacy that cooking is athletic? Tell that to Jonathan Waxman.
Gawd, how I hated this episode.
"Asking two people who have never been on skis to navigate a slightly technical Cross Country course while wearing inappropriate clothing, and then make a gag reel of them falling and struggling, is simply cruel." Yes to this, and to everyone's comments.
And the little teaser they do before going to commercial, this time showing Bev firing the rifle and then cutting to Sarah falling down on her skies. Har har har HAR! Get it? Bev shot Sarah! And the thing is, I laughed, it tickled me in that ol' Three Stooges kind of way. And then I felt sad that I laughed. I'm not embarrassed by being tickled by obvious humor, but in this context I felt sad. Sad for me and sadder for the show. (As long as I'm confessing I'll admit that I also laughed when Sarah tripped on her skis as she tried to pass by Beverly. Did Bev take a little poke at her as she went by?)
And the shabby, underutilized treatment of the guest judges (which is pretty low on the list of problems with this episode, but still.) Gretchen Bleiler got to speak all of, what, 2 sentences on camera? Most of the celebrities who've made appearances have clearly been TC fans and have some interest in food. So to come onto the show as a fan (and also as, yes, a public figure looking to get TV time) and getting to say 2 lines about a meal prepared in a gondola... eh, it makes me glum.
Gail's blog is good, among other things she speculates that maybe the producers didn't realize how tough it would be to hack the ingredients out of the ice blocks. Umm, wouldn't that be a BASIC thing that should occur to a TV producer beforehand? Doing a dry run of everything well before filming? Sigh, it just makes me glum.
Ludicrous...I couldn't wait for it to end last night. Why or why can it not be just about the cooking. Sarah and Lindsay were ugly. When Sarah asked Bev about Last Chance Kitchen and then as Bev started to explain, she interrupted to say "look at the trees"..was unbelievably rude. I have zero interest in watching those two in a final and zero interest in eating in any of their restaurants.
Next Season on Top Chef: "Join us on Bravo! as one housewife from Beverly Hills, Orange County, Miami, New York and New Jersey embark on a culinary adventure like no other!"
I know we keep saying that we are in the minority of TC viewers in that we care about the food more than the drama and gimmicks, but anyone who followed the #TopChef hashtag on Twitter last night saw that
1) It was a much higher volume of tweets than usual, and
2) The reaction to the gimmicks was overwhelmingly negative.
To be honest, I was pretty surprised to see so many people tweeting "just let them cook." Grayson and Richie were tweeting about how surprised they were at the challenges, and even Tom started tweeting in defense of the format.
[All this, plus a "coming up" teaser halfway through that was edited to suggest that Bev SHOT Sarah.]
Well, if you are shooting for your ingredients, and you can't find anything Asian, you take what you can get. I guess "mid-Western redneck/Italian fusion" would suffice.
Why did Tom ask them to discuss how/why they prepared the food, if they were going to award the win to whatsherface even though she wasn't able to discuss anything other than what geographical region it ostensibly came from?
In her blog Gail tries to persuade us that Sarah "gained an appreciation for Beverly". Nobody believes she was sincere in saying bye to Bev. I've got a bad, bad feeling about who wins this.
There is big potential for an upset and if Paul doesn't win what we might have is the most hated winner in the history of Top Chef.
Sure there is Hosea and Ilan but neither of the two were particularly mean or ugly to the other chefs.
If Lindsay who hasn't really shown us anything, wins, it would cement in my mind that the show should be called; "Best chef that can just hang in there until everyone else makes a mistake". Not to mention how nasty she was to Bev.
The there is Sarah, The mean girl who does what she does best cook the same italian food she cooks at the restaurant.
I would count on a lot of back lash if Lindsey or Sarah end up winning.
Well, if you are shooting for your ingredients, and you can't find anything Asian, you take what you can get. I guess "mid-Western redneck/Italian fusion" would suffice.
Ed T. that is so worng on many levels and I am secretly ashamed that I am laughing so hard at that. Thanks!
"Sure there is Hosea and Ilan but neither of the two were particularly mean or ugly to the other chefs."
Huh? Ilan filmed another chef assault Marcel. He then shaved his head as part of Elia's suggestion to minimize the assault on Marcel. I may not be rooting for Lindsey or Sarah but Ilan set a really, really low bar. (Not to mention that Ilan used Mario Batali's recipes for all of his successful dishes ...)
Ally -- your theory is too frighteningly plausible. Especially since Gail has always been Ilan's defender ...
All I could think of was how beautiful the scenery was. And how much I wanted to smack someone. These are good chefs, all of them. I may not like what I see of two of them on TV, but they are all good cooks. This was Japanese Game Show level dumb. Let. Them. Cook. Not hack through blocks of ice, or cook in a freezing gondola, or show their biathlon skills. Cook. Which is what they are ostensibly there to do. Just... Cook.
And yes, Paul is a major class act, and if I ever get the opportunity I will show my appreciation by going to his restaurant and ordering lots. Blais posted a blog on Bravo's site years ago, about how Top Chef was like the goose that lays the golden egg. The gold egg was the prize money at the end. The way you actually got the goose it's self was by cooking amazing food and selling people on you personally. That translates into a much more solid career boost. I know Paul already runs a very good restaurant, but I would bet it's even more popular these days. Good for him.
But Dom, putting the personality things aside, doesn't Sarah's food appeal to you? It certainly does to me. Yes, Paul SHOULD win because of the dominance and some of the glowing things they've said about his food. And, I'm more likely to travel to specifcally eat his food than Sarah's. But, man she's put out some Italian-ish plates that sound like they would be awesome. So, I wouldn't necessarily be bummed if she won. Lindsay on the other hand...
Sarah's already got a Michelin star; the publicity helps, but it's not like she's a heretofore unknown quantity. But for Paul, she'd have likely been the ringer this season.
I think (and hope) Tom has integrity and has not blogged because this@#$% is indefensible. I think they gave Tom LCK because he could see this train wreck coming and he would bolt if they didn't provide something to temper the show's evolution into bad attempts at slapstick humor.
We can't taste the food but from the amount of vitriol coming from Sarah and Lindsey it must be pretty bitter and I think this reflects badly on their "mentors" as well. The food has seemingly lost all relevance when a gimmicky prep is the highlight and the teasers show potential accidents as the reasons to watch the show. Pathetic and desperate are the best I can say about the episode and the trajectory of the season.
I hope Paul wins and the show can attract chefs like Kevin G or the Volt brothers again because at this stage I doubt I'd watch this garbage again.
So this was the first time I have ever watched a TC episode where i felt it was fixed from the beginning. Clearly the producers wanted a Beverly vs Sarah showdown and Tom and Gail and whatever olympic athlete can swear up and down to the integrity of the show, but i call BS. This was a fix, the game was rigged, and furthermore i think Bev was chosen to lose no matter what she did. Sarah could have put a rabbit turd with a side french fries and she still would have won. The winner of LCK was not going to the finals, and what great television it would make if the two rivals fight it out head to head. Total crap, which is another possible term explanation for the letters TC.
I'm willing to believe that Sarah saw the footage from early in the season, was embarrassed by how she came off as one of the Mean Girls, and resolved to represent herself better. She's not an idiot; she understands that the PR is a bit part of the prize of the show.
The only 100% no-edit annoyance we saw Sarah throw Bev's way was when Bev was using the blender at her station. I can't say I blame Sarah for that.
My guess is that the "look at the tree" line didn't cut Bev off at all. It was just fake editing, ginning up the drama. What, I'm supposed to think Bravo wouldn't stoop that low after this episode?
rf, I think you're mistaking cause and effect here. Yes they set up the whole episode of Sarah vs. Bev. But that's because of how they used the talking clips....and they put together what clips they're going to use AFTER THEY KNOW THE RESULTS.
I'd bet there's just as much unused footage of Lindsey talking about Bev and perhaps even Paul about Bev. Had either of those two been alone with Bev in the end, you wouldn't have seen the Sarah clips, but would've seen those.
*D*GV*FPWENF:WEIN. Those are unknown swear words. I would not put it past Andy Cohen and Bravo to turn Top Chef into another Real Housewives type show. To a certain extend they already did it to Top Chef Masters.
The "tricks" this season bear all the hallmarks of the Real Housewives stylings where reality is hidden behind gimmicks and flash and "how good someone looks" is far more important than their substances.
Just tell me who wins. I don't plan on watching much anymore.
Unbelievable nonsense. I routinely review the episode on Thursday morning (sorry Dom, no notes), but I couldn't stomach this one for a second. It's a rats ass of nonsense, and frankly as one has commented above, is demeaning to the Chefs. I'm wondering if they are embarrassed to be a part of this.
I am proud of how they came together as decent folks. Paul stepping in (sorry, Ally) to break the ice and assert that the competition was in fact, intended to be about ~cooking!~; Sarah and Paul's commiserating meeting in the hotel room, Bev and Lindsy's moment where they contemplated losing to the whims of the silly challenge, and without dignity. And lastly, that the food was not good, given the external factors. No surprise there!
Some interesting behind the scenes tidbits from the BC filming in this article from The Hollywood Reporter today, as well as some insight into the revenue that the Top Chef franchise represents to Bravo ("hundreds of millions of dollars"):
Sounds like the original structure of the biathlon challenge gave them only five bullets and if they missed or wanted more ingredients, they had to do another two laps on the skis. The ice block challenge had a time limit of only 30 minutes to hack, thaw, and cook their dish. Both challenges were extended/revised in the midst of filming when some producer recognized the ridiculocity. Too bad they didn't just scrap them entirely.
From respected Emmy winner to Wipeout in two short years. Bravo, Bravo.
Not much to add that hasn't already been said. I can tolerate challenges that at least have some relation to being a chef, such as dealing with resource constraints (ingredients, time, money, space etc), even if they do tend to take those to ridiculous extremes. I can't tolerate challenges that assess chefs on skills that have nothing whatsoever to do with cooking. The ice pick and biathlon challenges were utterly indefensible, and it's said to see someone like Tom trying to do just that (possibly at the urging of producers, I don't know).
The only good thing to come out of the episode for me was Paul again showing his character as a chef and person and his thinly-veiled 'fuck you' to the challenge that he won. As soon as they showed clips of Sarah and Lindsay saying vaguely complementary things about Bev I knew what the outcome was.
@Beth: I love how miserable Tom looks in that picture. I hope he realises how ridiculous it has become, even if he won't admit it publicly.
Thanks for that Hollywood Reporter article, Beth. Lots of juicy stuff in there -- the spinoff reality series that will follow around Jen Carroll, Fabio, Spike, and Blais, LCK will be back next season, etc. Plus this observation by the reporter during the biathlon challenge: "The tension builds: Will the producers have to reimagine the challenge to make for better viewing? (Challenges sometimes are scrapped altogether because they too closely mirror those of previous cycles. "It's becoming more and more difficult to come up with new stuff," says Kriley. "Fortunately, we have a lot of talented people who can come up with genius ideas out of nowhere.")" HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Genius ideas out of nowhere. Now THAT'S funny. I only wish Andy Cohen had been the one to say it.
Beth, thanks for the link. The article starts out "It sounds like the beginning of a classic joke". How true. Top Chef has become a classic joke.
Andy Cohen - tool or fool. Unfortunately, I started to watch his show after the episode where Ty was eliminated. Ty was a bartender. Hugh was a guest. Kept referencing his uni-brow and you had to drink when ever uni-brow was mentioned. I had to turn it off after a few minutes. And this sh!t is on every night?
"These days, Chef averages 2.8 million viewers a week (down from a cycle-five viewership of 3.9 million in 2008)"
----- Doesn't that tell them something??????
"Colicchio said, 'You can bet they don't do this shit on [Food Network's] Chopped.' ""
------- Precisely
""It's a food show, but it's a television show first. It needs to be entertaining -- balance the drama and tension, but also be a fantasy. It's all of the deliciousness without any of the calories.""
----- This explains a lot
"Web series Last Chance Kitchen was simultaneously shot alongside Chef this cycle to bring eliminated contestant and fan bete noire Beverly Kim back to the finale."
---- I take this as their purposely TRYING to make Bev hated. From this site, it seems like they failed.
""Fortunately, we have a lot of talented people who can come up with genius ideas out of nowhere.")
Not to worry: As the chefs begin their descent to the shooting range, one contestant loses her balance and, arms flailing, hooks her ski pole on the other chef's ski. Within seconds, both are in the snow -- one face up, the other face down. A roar of laughter erupts from the production tent, followed instantly by a debate as to whether the first contestant meant to trip the other. The general consensus: No, but it sure does make for fun television."
------ The roar of laughter is at how stupid they have become.
Hey, I've been saying on this blog since season 4 that y'all aren't the target audience for Top Chef. Bravo doesn't see this as a food first show. They see it as a drama first show.
This episode is proof of that.
/I really, really disliked this episode. Can we get a redo?
If the ratings peaked in season five, I can see how they fell after Hosea became the winner. Why don't those "geniuses" figure out how to make challenges so that MOPers aren't rewarded for playing it safe the entire season, allowing them to win. If viewership goes down, why do they think their gimmicks will improve viewership?
From that article (thank you Beth) it seems to me that their income doesn't depend on viewership here in the US. The more outrageous it is, the more the idea probably sells overseas, or at least grabs attention.
If Tom Colicchio, who seems to have been quality control in the past, is now buying in to this drivel, I think all hope is lost. I didn't even watch TC Masters 3 because the previews made the challenges look so stupid, so it's not like I'll watch just ANY crap they decide to throw at me.
In the past, I would have been really interested in seeing a show that followed a past contestant like Blais or Jen Norris. Now, with the way Bravo edits its shows and promotes them--and, honestly, with the way some of these chefs are so nakedly trying to be a brand rather than a person--no thanks.
"A roar of laughter erupts from the production tent, followed instantly by a debate as to whether the first contestant meant to trip the other."
This really makes me sick to my stomach. The production team setting up the contestants to humiliate themselves in a physical activity utterly unrelated to cooking and then laughing at them. Who's the bully?
The sad thing is, this was (more or less) as well as the challenge could have turned out given the stupidity of it. Someone could have been seriously hurt with the ice picks or the skiing. Someone could have been so disadvantaged by (1) motion sickness, (2) not getting any ingredients or having enough cooking time because they weren't strong enough to break gigantic blocks of ice, or (3) not getting any ingredients because they couldn't shoot. Not to say that they weren't stupid and painful to watch as it was, but at least it didn't completely rule someone out.
This would have been stupid as a quickfire, but is ghastly for narrowing down the finalists. And on top of last week's stupid quickfire for picking one of the finalists.
"If the ratings peaked in season five, I can see how they fell after Hosea became the winner. Why don't those "geniuses" figure out how to make challenges so that MOPers aren't rewarded for playing it safe the entire season, allowing them to win. If viewership goes down, why do they think their gimmicks will improve viewership? "
Agreed. I was thinking that if Lindsey does win they may want to try and tweek the formula.
Here is what I thought:
Through out the competition every EC dish is scored with a number the lowest one of the EC gets sent home. Same idea as before except when you hit top 5 they then start to judge based on body of work.
Those numbers they have been receiving through out the competition get added up to a combined score. With the lowest combined score going home. A winner would be chosen for the individual EC.
Sure there are lots of kinks to work out. but if you really hashed it out I think it could work.
Perhaps knowing this the chefs would push harder and try and be more creative. Trying to win and not just stay safe.
A. Once again, I'm going to point out that anyone who thinks the competition is fixed is a bit fooling themselves....I'd point out season 7 when the only drama the Elves could come up with was Kenny v Angelo...and Kenny got sent home early. At that point, conspiracy theories of fixing it so that those two would be in the finals were dashed, showing that the show IS a meritocracy.
B. That doesn't mean that the challenges aren't extremely poor sometimes. I agree that their struggle to find new unique challenges results more often than not with failure, rather than success (restaurant wars is never complained about for a reason).
C. This is not to say that the show's main audience is like us - as the article makes clear, the main audience for this show is closer to the typical Bravo viewer - the posters here are a small minority. Note how the spinoff would follow not just Jen C and Blais - two contestants who i'm sure people here would be interested in seeing more of - but Fabio (okay) and SPIKE, who's basically considered at best one of the more Meh contestants in the show.
D. There's still enough potential in the format that I at least won't quit watching. Paul's cooking has been very interesting this season and occasionally, episodes like the Wicked Queen episode occur, which are just terrific.
Libster - No one in the audience wants to watch chefs playing it safe, whether a foodie or a Real Housewives fan. That said, I think cumulative scoring might lead to more chefs playing it safe, rather than fewer. (It might still be a good idea but for different reasons.)
I think it's the design of the specific challenges that lead to playing it safe so a few changes to those might help. For example:
1) You could start out the season with an NCAA style tournament - seeding determined by a mise-en-place quickfire, $1,000 to each of the round 1 winners, $2,000 for round 2, etc. Meanwhile, the losers of round 1 are fighting to stay alive in a mirror image bracket.
2) For team challenges, you could let people know at the start that the worst 1 or two and one of the MoP (chosen by pure knife draw) would have to face off in a single dish cook-off, with only the best-performer of the losing team being safe.
3) Do more challenges with tiered structures (like the breakfast, lunch, dinner challenge they did with Nigella Lawson) so that winning is rewarded rather than losing being punished.
Also, we're never going to lose the catering challenges and we'll never lose the team challenges but neither are good places for a chef to show their vision so ... make all catering challenges be team challenges (and vice-versa) and cap their number at half (or less) of the season.
The problem with cumulative scoring is that once you're a few episodes in, many of the chefs will be safe until close to the end (especially if the early challenges are not too idiotic). Cumulative scoring may well be the way to pick the best chef(s), but I for one will fess up to liking the drama of "any chef could go home on any given day". I like it as long as it's for a legitimate mistake, as opposed to not living up to an idiotic challenge.
An actual numerical cumulative scoring system is also hard for people to follow I think. As opposed to worst dish goes home.
rab01, I thought the reason for all the rewards was to encourage people to try to win. Rewarding winners hasnt really worked to keep MOPers from having that strategy, as far as I can tell.
I think more head-to-head challenges, where you're on the chopping block if you don't make the better of the two dishes, might help.
I may have missed it in the prior comments - if so, apologies. What I hated most of all was that they changed the protocol at the end of the show just to get a Sarah vs. Bev moment. They had Bev leave after PPYKAG and held Sarah until Bev was on her way out of the kitchen. Then they had Sarah enter so that they were forced to have a one-on-one. Disgusting.
In the article, they mentioned the drive to avoid repeating challenges - that seems silly. I can definitely understand the need to bring new hurdles to each season, but perhaps they'd have fewer of these ridiculous challenges if they were more willing to re-use some successful challenges from past seasons - especially considering that most of their viewership probably doesn't have as encyclopedic a knowledge base about those seasons as we do.
I don't think that most of us are such purists that we don't mind a little creative editing, a bit of silliness in the challenges, or even some personal unpleasantness and drama. These seem to cause some grumbling, but don't seem to really dim anyone's enthusiasm. What causes real problems are when these things get out of control...and that just seems to be where we are now.
1.The editing over the years has given us progressively less context for the judging decisions.
2. Meanwhile, the same editing gives us more and more access to interpersonal drama. I think it absolutely sucks the way they are treating Bev...but I also think it's unnecessary for me to be so aware of it. Edit it down, not up.
3. The challenges seem to get more and more ridiculous, and less and less culinary every season.
Where did anyone find a story that said ratings peaked in S5? I am nearly 100% sure Season 3 was the highest average viewer per week rating. Season 5 had several extra weeks so total viewers may have been higher if you use that metric.
This show like most game show reality shows does suffer when the contestants have seen several iterations of the show. I think most have pointed out this has led to some people just playing it dead level safe.
If you look at the majority of what everyone but paul is doing is just
-Take protein and season/cook it to order well
-Dice up whatever veg they have on hand
-Make some sauce
They aren't being pushed to do anything but make your standard restaurant plate. And it is hard to blame them when you see most of the out there technique guys slipping early when they try too hard.
So now we are treated to having our time wasted by the Kelly Liken's of the world. Gag.
Congrats to Paul! Edward also made the longlist for Best Chef Southeast, along with Hugh Atcheson. Stephanie Izard and Bryan Voltaggio both made the semifinalist list in their regions, and Kevin Gillespie is nominated for Rising Star. Tony Montuano and Spiaggia (Best Service) also got mentions, but not Sarah. Good showing for Top Chef overall - I saw a couple of Masters names on there too like Anita Lo and Jonathan Waxman.
Okay, I'm putting on my Freakonomics hat to think about how to incentivize the chefs to actually try and win each contest.
For me, the easiest way to do this is, instead of $125k at the end, dole out the prize money at the end of each eppy.
So, if it's a twelve eppy long season, say the win is $15K per eppy (since we get extra prize money tossed about here and there.) That way, you want to win each challenge because the prize is at each challenge.
All surviving does is get you another shot at another prize. (And media attention.) But you've actually got to win each challenge to get the money.
Maybe there'll be a crown or something for the last chef standing, the Food and Wine thing in Aspen? But the way to get the money, which from the looks of it is the reason the chefs are there, is to win each episode.
Oh well, I doubt they'll play any safer that way then they are now.
The 2/15 episode had 1.743 million viewers; the previous week close to 2 mil; believe over all season to date season 9 has averaged about 1.8 viewers. Those are Nielsen numbers. Dont know how the new technology (apps, tweets; all the stuff I know nothing about) are added for revenue generating purposes.
The 2/15/12 episode had 1.743 million viewers (persons 2+) and the previous week was close to 2 million. These are Nielsen overnights. Have no idea how or if Bravo uses new media (apps, tweets - am too old to understand that stuff) to calculate their ad rates.
It would seem that season 9's numbers are significantly lower that the season 5 2.8 million viewers discussed in the THR article.
One can gather from the article (thanks Beth) that it's quite possible that the company that owns TC doesn't give a damn about ratings. They make a lot of money on selling the show to others in other countries. Possibly, the more outrageous the US show is, the better.
On the other hand, there could be a worm called "inanity on bravotv" that has entered the brains of all TC personnel, which is now dictating challenges etc. for hapless TC contestants. That is my best guess. :)
Nomx3, isn't cooking meat and a veg with a sauce the essence of most cooking? Kelly wasn't flashy, but she didn't suck. She's Not saying I disagree that this season is underwhelming, but I don't think that just because the crop doesn't screw up, you can write off their talent.
As someone who used to be in broadcasting, it isn't just raw numbers, but also share. If the overall eyeballs have shrunk but the share stayed the same, you can probably write a llot of that off to technology. Ad rates are falling, but my understanding is that viewers and share are a component of online ad returns. There's a growing analysis of trying to fire out if sme shows over or underperform online compared to broadcast, but I don't know much about them except anecdotally.
Top Chef should have something to offer besides meat veg and sauce. So I agree with nomnomnom. Can you really say that Sarah or Lindsay have reached outside of their respective boxes to give us TopChef material? I think that Paul has. I don't think Sarah or Lindsay have. (btw Sarah matches season 7 winner Kevin in most # of bottom dishes, which is 5. Although she has 3 wins, and Kevin had only 1 before getting the title.)
By the way, if the "title" involves surving all these stupid shenanigans and getting the last, best, meal .. is that all that Top Chef means? I think seasons past have shown that true (not to mention any names ... ilian, hosea and kevin *coff*). Top Meal will be Top Chef. After this season and an anticipated Sarah win, all I can say is...whatever.
I didn't watch TC Masters 3 because it looked so stupid. I won't watch TC again if it looks equally stupid. Not that they care. :)
Actually the "pet troll" that Alli refers to is indeed our "Alli." She sows discord with every step of the way. Recall when Dom was gone and she did the middle school "tweet" to somehow signify Dom. She assumed the unwanted "position." Tacky. No one put her in charge. Heather/Sarah = Ally
Kathy, everyone who regularly reads this blog knows I made an asinine comment about how you mention going to Uchi, Gucci, and other Chis. You made your point. Still doesn't make me a troll. That is all.
Ally, if it makes you feel better, I read this blog regularly and I have no idea what you're taking about. #notintothedrama
Totally agree with the earlier commenter that the editing has given us less food context as time has gone on. I used to be able to predict winners and losers much more accurately - now I often feel robbed of the real story of an episode when a clear winner was hidden from us.
I'm not sure I agree that drama is more ginned up now than before. It's been plenty ginned up in the past. That said, I'm still not convinced that Sarah or Lindsey treated Bev poorly in the finale - I think it was mostly editing. Watch the scene in the car again, and tell me if you think Bev really got cut off by "look at the trees", or if that was editing.
I agree doktarr - my frustration with the increasingly ridiculous challenges and overblown drama is far outweighed by the loss of context in the judging. I honestly think that's been my biggest frustration with the season - I really have no sense of these cheftestant's food (other than Paul, who has distinct enough a style that it manages to translate to a degree). But I blame the elves rather than the judges or the chefs for that. Like Dom I find that reading the recipes helps some, but those are as poorly edited as the show (I tried making Paul's winning Brussels sprouts recipe last week and while the flavor profiles were great, the recipe was all kinds of busted - proportions off, entire components unexplained). The blogs can be instructive too, but there's a huge amount of cognitive dissonance when Gail or Padma or Hugh waxes rhapsodic about a dish that was downplayed on air, or describes flaws that were not even mentioned as being part of the judging criteria.
As for the "look at the TREES!" moment, I'm pretty sure that wasn't invented out of whole cloth, but it was clear that the reaction shots were edited to make the interuption feel as supremely awkward (and malicious) as possible. What I found to be more telling in terms of revealing Sarah's true personality was the brief moment in the kitchen after blendergate, when Beverly zipped past saying, appropriately, "Behind!" and Sarah said "Beverly, REALLY?" in the most exasperated and condescending tone imaginable. That was not the elves using editing tricks to make her look bad, that was just Sarah revealing her true colors.
Doesn't mean she can't cook though. I just wish I had a better sense of what the judges were tasting in her food because what I'm seeing in her personality and leadership style is not Top Chef caliber.
Not to get involved with personal drama, but...was that really Kathy from Austin? You start to get a feel for people who post on here a lot, and that post definitely didn't have the typical KfA "feel" to it. I just ask because I remember when someone posted under Ted Allen's name, and he had to come on the blog to clarify that he did not make those comments.
Beth- I agree with you, both about the trees moment and the "really?!" moment. At the very least, it's clear Sarah does not have as much respect for Bev as she does for the remaining contestants.
The "really?" moment was definitely real. However, I can forgive her that one. Bev had a blender at her station, but for some odd reason she was using the one two feet away from Sarah while she worked. It was legitimately strange, and if there was a good explanation (e.g. the power was out at Bev's station?) we never heard it.
Setting that largely excusable incident aside, we NEVER saw an unedited moment when Sarah or Lindsey behaved in a disrespectful way towards Bev in that episode. I really do think the "look at the TREES" was invented out of whole cloth. What, do you not think the elves would do that to you? These are the people who thought it was a good idea to force chefs to compete in a biathlon and made a gag reel of them falling down.
Obviously Bev was mistreated at various times this season. But my read of the situation was that Sarah saw the early episodes, was personally embarrassed by seeing how she came off in those interactions, and resolved to treat Bev with respect in the finale.
Anne, me too. I can't help but picture poor Dom sitting at his screen, trying to muster enough energy to write up the Power Rankings, tentatively reaching a sole index finger toward the keyboard and then...breaking down and weeping into his hands.
Also, this Ally/KFA stuff is wigging me a bit. I have no idea what that's all about. Dom has abandoned us and now we're all turning on one another!!
I read the ratings article. I think it is hopelessly vague about the ratings. It is possible they were just comparing to S5 more as a matter of drawing a line to an arbitrary time in the past before they diluted the brand. I am still quite confident on the major rating metrics S3 was the highest value. This also was before torrents, hulu, etc. took hold.
I don't really know what value that has. I mean at some point a show gets boiled down to a core audience and then the network decides if the core audience brings enough cashflow to justify it staying on the air.
It does not seem they have hit that line yet.
I do think that the judging has gotten lazy. Lazy both in the discussion of the merits, and also the heavy lean to the technical performance of the dish more than the creativity. This allows them to hit happy hour much quicker, but leaves the chefs at the end looking more like Hosea, Kelly, and Ed and less like Carla among others.
paula, if you look at the last comment in a recent thread, you'll see why kfa is mad. i was just being an ass.
also apparently she was offended that i posted my own rankings a few weeks ago. i guess she missed the 50 other times that posters have provided rankings.
nomnomnom, i hadn't thought about the fact that they have completely gone to technical issues but you're right. Tom C is probably the arbiter of that, since if you look at his judging for LCK, he always says something about seasoning or what have you, not about creativity. So mostly as viewers we've been left guessing about what is worse, poor seasoning or raw meat? Maybe they have a cheat sheet ranking for technical sins. Maybe raw veal is the Royal flush of bad technique, to poor seasoning's four of a kind.
Agreed on the lack of weighing creativity more heavily. The evil queen episode this season was amazing because of the wildly creative dishes all the chefs produced, not just because there were fewer errors than usual. For me, that's a big reason I tune into Top Chef - to see a level of creativity in the food that isn't present in most other cooking/food shows.
The "Style" section of our daily paper (Mississippi Clarion Ledger) had a big color picture of Tom C., FLOTUS and White House Chef Sam Kass who was on Top Chef either last year or the year before. They are dong Top Chef "Let's Move" events. Tom C. and Top Chef are not mentioned in the article, but......if they are doing these propaganda events, how can they throw a chef off of Top Chef for not using enough salt on a meal.
Sorry, my level of disgruntled-ness is affecting any and all things Top Chef related.
@anne & Paula - Maybe Dom is now the subject of a Direct TV type ad - "if you have been deflated by Top Chef, you will be mad and wear a bathrobe everywhere....you will stop shaving and showering.....you will take in stray dogs......"
@Kevin - thanks for the link. We are not the only unhappy ones.
I almost never do look at them, but I did this week, and the comments on the Bravo TC blogs have been extremely angry.
I guess our host is too demoralized to power rank and I can't blame him.
Last week made me want to wiggle into a Forever Lazy(You'll be the talk of the tailgating party!) snuggie and throw covers over my head.
Silly
Posted by: Redpoint | February 15, 2012 at 09:06 PM
Ridiculous. Thank God Paul made it though (sorry, Ally!).
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | February 15, 2012 at 09:08 PM
was that honestly the worst episode of all time?
Posted by: jordanhc | February 15, 2012 at 09:11 PM
Annoying. At least Paul got through.
Posted by: Shelly | February 15, 2012 at 09:13 PM
dumb dumb episode. Bev was a spaz and deserved to go, but wtf
Posted by: tigerpiper | February 15, 2012 at 09:15 PM
sarah is a fake faker
Posted by: tigerpiper | February 15, 2012 at 09:15 PM
I was getting a rage stroke watching this episode. What. Was. That??? Absolutely ridiculous- not to mention dangerous!
Posted by: TxGriffin | February 15, 2012 at 09:16 PM
Agreed on all points. And Sarah was so hateful I had to start fast forwarding through her. She just took the mantle from Heather and ran off.
I live in fear Paul will be eliminated early next week. I don't know if I'd even want to watch and Sarah Lindsay finale.
Posted by: anne | February 15, 2012 at 09:20 PM
Now I know what a jumping shark sounds like.
Posted by: Bawdy George | February 15, 2012 at 09:23 PM
Absolutely stupid episode.
Oh did I want Sarah to go home. When Tom said Bev's fish was under-seasoned, I knew I would be disappointed.
Posted by: gilmore | February 15, 2012 at 09:25 PM
Agree with all the previous comments.
I did not mind the gondola challenge too much. But the other 2 were crap. I thought Bev was going to stab herself with the ice pick.
And shocker, Sheila D won the most votes for her chef this week...again...
Posted by: Dreamboat | February 15, 2012 at 09:28 PM
"Bev was a spaz and deserved to go"
What? She out-cooked Sarah in two of the three rounds, and out-shot her.
Posted by: Redpoint | February 15, 2012 at 09:28 PM
Are they making them cater next episode? Really? REALLY? For another elimination before the "real" finale?
Tonight was horrible.
At least Paul got through. He seems to be the only one thinking it's supposed to be about the food now. (As opposed to revenge, redemption, or ratings.)
Posted by: mar | February 15, 2012 at 09:33 PM
This whole episode was BS. I've never been this underwhelmed headed into a finale. I can't even comment on the food because, frankly, I didn't give a damn about the food in this episode.
Posted by: Independent George | February 15, 2012 at 09:56 PM
I feel like the producers just took a dump all over a show I used to enjoy. If I want to watch people falling down, I'll watch Wipeout. None of those "challenges" tested their ability to work with food and none of them allowed interesting cooking. Why fucking bother? And next week we get catering again? Why?!? This season had good chefs and the show never let them cook.
Posted by: rab01 | February 15, 2012 at 10:10 PM
Let's reflect on the silliness:
1. TX State trooper on the highway w/crackers as the winner.
2. Steak and potatoes team challenge for Cattle Baron's Ball.
3. Highland Park progressive dinner with a love of "gummy bears."
4. All night BBQ challenge @ Salt Lick (bleh).
5. Outdoor challenge in San Antonio (chicken salad vs. meatball).
6. Ride a bike through San Antonio and beg for cooking privileges in "foreign" kitchens. Oh, and cook for the super chef Paul Ruben.
7. Chop a block of ice to make it into the final 3. Then ski and shoot your way into a cooking competition.
I am missing a couple but really? Really? No wonder the contestants are annoyed. The only one truly good episode was the Charlize Theron challenge and a few of the quick fires.
It seemed to me tonight that even Tom was embarrassed, but hell, he is utterly complicit in this charade. Bleh.
I hate that a competitor like Paul (sorry Ally) wins with an asterisk.
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | February 15, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Well, it can only get better from here...I hope?
Posted by: attheapollo | February 15, 2012 at 10:53 PM
Like the rest of you, I'm incredibly irritated by the gimmicks, and dispirited by Sara and Lindsey's continued nastiness. I could get past their horrific personalities because they wouldn't be around next season...but these trained seal challenges this season are really eroding my interest in seasons to come.
Posted by: Dmantell | February 15, 2012 at 11:49 PM
I don't think "travesty" is an exaggeration. Do the producers have no understanding of what made TC popular in the first place?
Posted by: DF | February 16, 2012 at 12:04 AM
No point in doing a power rankings Dom. There was absolutely nothing in this episode to indicate if a chef warrants a bump in either direction. Entire ep was a gimmick, and everyone knows it.
On a side note, based on the preview for next week's ep, does it seem like this season TC stands for Top Caterer? Granted, it rolls in the dough, but we're in the finals, man. Give them a theme and some fresh product and let them at it.
Posted by: Al | February 16, 2012 at 12:55 AM
I have lost most of my respect for the show. I can't help but think that Ed and Bev are gone while Lindsay and Sarah remain. Lindsay and Sarah's mentors are long time TC participants. While I said that did not help Jen, I am now doubting the integrity of the show. A Paul win will help me think otherwise, but I just don't know how Sarah is still there.
Also, I am amazed no one tore a knee up while on the skis. Some of the twists they took when falling looked pretty bad.
Posted by: gilmore | February 16, 2012 at 04:15 AM
It has gotten so bad that Tom C. has not blogged for the last three episodes. Gail's blog is mistakenly put under Tom's name this week.
Posted by: gilmore | February 16, 2012 at 04:27 AM
And.....Sarah should have been eliminated immediately for mistaking a rifle for a shotgun. When she said her father took her to shoot at cans with a shotgun ----- eliminated. No one plunks cans with a shotgun. They use a rifle - probably a .22, although I would bet on it being a bb gun.
Bring on MasterChef.
Posted by: gilmore | February 16, 2012 at 04:56 AM
All this, plus a "coming up" teaser halfway through that was edited to suggest that Bev SHOT Sarah. I almost spit my wine all over the TV.
Posted by: paula | February 16, 2012 at 05:27 AM
Catering challenges are staples of one finale episode, we've had catering challenges in Hawaii, Aspen, New Orleans, Napa, and Bahamas. Most of them worked out well to my recollection.
This episode was terrible though.
Posted by: wowsobad | February 16, 2012 at 05:47 AM
Awful. One silly challenge would have been fine, but three?
The editors are getting sloppy again. The interview cut to Beverly at the 20 minute mark made it clear that she was out. She wasn't just unhappy about the gondola, clearly.
Kudos to Paul for not only helping the others break ice but also give them extra ingredients, to his own detriment when his demi failed.
They were all silly, but the silliest, the gondola, was probably the most redeemable. It seemed to be the only one where cooking skill was all you needed. Sure it was a bit too "Kitchen Impossible" for us foodie types, but at least it didn't depend on ice breaking skill or biathlon ability to be able to complete.
The only redeeming thing is that it appears we get the extra episode this season so we get a true mano a mano final for the first time in awhile. That's a nice way to mix it up.
Posted by: Anon Man | February 16, 2012 at 06:12 AM
"On a side note, based on the preview for next week's ep, does it seem like this season TC stands for Top Caterer? Granted, it rolls in the dough, but we're in the finals, man. Give them a theme and some fresh product and let them at it."
Top sCallop
Posted by: tigerpiper | February 16, 2012 at 06:53 AM
No one is happier than me that Paul made it (sorry Kathy).
This was stupid and I had the same thought as Anne, do I want to even watch the final if Paul is eliminated during a catering challenge? Probably not. And it was so painful to hear Olympic athletes do stilted intros and try to sound like they knew the first thing about food.
Sarah is a terrible person, and now she has replaced Edward as contestant most in need of a haircut.
Posted by: ally | February 16, 2012 at 07:06 AM
I agree with comments above; it was a really ridiculous episode.
Not sure about kitchen etiquette with the electrical outlet on Sarah's station but I also do not care. Am tired of the whole Bev v. Sarah/Lindsay conflict regardless of who was right to begin with.
Posted by: Kimberly | February 16, 2012 at 07:23 AM
Boooo.
Posted by: Caulder | February 16, 2012 at 07:23 AM
Can we agree to boycott the finale if Paul doesn't make it? Hit them where it matters... the ratings. Maybe the majority of the viewers watch it for the drama? I guess I figured people watched it because it WAS one of the better cooking shows on television.
Posted by: gdis | February 16, 2012 at 07:25 AM
Would it have been so bad if they just made them cook crap that was frozen in round 2 and skip with the ski part in round 3? Or just round 2 make them dig through a pile of snow or something stupid like that?
Honestly, a catering challenge seems like a nice change of pace. This did seem rigged to make sure the LCK winner did not make it whomever it was.
Posted by: nomnomnom | February 16, 2012 at 07:56 AM
>No point in doing a power rankings Dom.
Al, speak for yourself!
I just don't feel like these final challenges should come down to who is stronger or more athletic or who happened to spend every winter skiing. Paul had such a clear advantage over the women in the second challenge because he's strong--one he recognized and thus helped them. (Now, he has a clear advantage over them because he's a better chef, too, but that's what the show is supposed to be about.) The gondola challenge was at least on a level playing field, but the other ones weren't and that bugged me.
Posted by: anne | February 16, 2012 at 07:58 AM
"Can we agree to boycott the finale if Paul doesn't make it? Hit them where it matters... the ratings. Maybe the majority of the viewers watch it for the drama? I guess I figured people watched it because it WAS one of the better cooking shows on television."
I will not be watching the final. This show has become a joke, sadly.
Posted by: CDub | February 16, 2012 at 08:00 AM
So, at this point in the season, I couldn't care less about the actual TV show.
I go here, see who got booted off and if the show was worth watching. If so, over to Amazon for the online version. If not, then straight to the Bravo site to read Acheson's blog, which has been the highlight of the season for me. It's an utter bleeding shame they haven't given him more screen time.
I've been watching since season one and I've never been less interested in who was winning. This time last season I was tuning in with baited breath, hoping, praying Blaze was going to take the day.
Now, yeah, I want to see Paul win, but not enough to watch this crap.
Here's hoping next season is better!
Posted by: Keryl | February 16, 2012 at 08:05 AM
I'm mostly a lurker here, but had to add my agreement. What a terrible, bad, no good episode!!!
Chopping through ice? Trying to ski, and then shoot their "food"? The show has always had silly gimmicks, but this was just the worst. boo to all who had a hand in designing and producing this show. I'm looking at you, Tom!
Posted by: Karen B | February 16, 2012 at 08:12 AM
Now that I've calmed down a bit, I have a few thoughts:
1. I suppose the gondola was the *least* ridiculous of the 3 challenges. Still silly, but at least their ingredients and cooking supplies were readily available (and, you know, not trapped in huge blocks of ice).
2. Of course Paul blamed himself, not the swinging gondola, cold or motion sickness, on his dish's failures. I've always thought Kevin G was the most humble, likable contestant, but Paul is giving him a run for his money.
3. I thought Bev was going to lose a finger with that ice pick. I literally covered my eyes. I think she was using a pan at one point because the producers smelled an impending lawsuit and took the pick away from her.
4. If they wanted to incorporate the Olympics, why not have the chefs prepare food for athletes, like they previously did in the US Open challenge? They could even have certain proteins/ingredients assigned to each event, and if the gondola challenge had been a QF, they could have determined the selection of event/ingredients based on the QF rankings.
5. I'm not one to make "I"ll never watch the show again if x does/doesn't happen", but I really don't know if I would continue watching if Paul had been eliminated.
Overall: ugh.
Posted by: TxGriff | February 16, 2012 at 08:13 AM
One other thing: the bravo's version of power rankings had a thing that was like "first thing the person should buy if they win." That was actually funny and incredibly accurate.
Of the three remaining:
Paul-- buy an ego. (The lack of which I think endears him to many.)
Lindsay -- a consistent accent (The drawl came out when the chips were down.)
Sarah -- a Map to find somewhere other than Italy to draw inspiration.
I'm watching the finals, of course. Most of us will. But where I think this kind of garabage hurts them is the spin off shows. I've watched Just Desserts and Masters in the past, but I'm sort of burned out on the franchise. I would rather watch Master Chef or Worst Chef in America (maybe) than the spinoffs of TC.
Posted by: Anon Man | February 16, 2012 at 08:20 AM
Do the producers have no understanding of what made TC popular in the first place?
You know what worries me? What if they're right - what if they have a better understanding of what makes it popular than we do, and ratings spike because of this crap?
Posted by: Independent George | February 16, 2012 at 08:50 AM
@gilmore, I noticed that too. Basically, Tom hasn't blogged since the finale was shot.
Posted by: Shelly | February 16, 2012 at 08:51 AM
"I just don't feel like these final challenges should come down to who is stronger or more athletic or who happened to spend every winter skiing."
100% yes. I wanted Bev to beat Sarah but not if it was because she was in better shape than Sarah -- that would've just been cruel in all the wrong ways. Also, it meant we spent tons of time watching them try to ski and chop ice rather than cook.
I also hate (1) that the person who cooked the second best dish in all three rounds was eliminated, (2) that there was no advantage in the next round for order of finish in the round before; (3) that Bravo showed us Beverly sobbing in a TH halfway in, (4) that the previews showed her shooting a gun so we knew each of the first 2 rounds that she couldn't win; (5) that, in the finale, someone was eliminated for a quickfire; (6) that ... ah, screw it
Posted by: rab01 | February 16, 2012 at 09:18 AM
I'm glad everyone else here feels the way I do.
Worst episode ever, which is sad because they've got great talent to work with.
By comparison to the others, the Goldola challenge was fine. Gimmicky, a bad choice for a finale - but relatively tame.
We've had arbitrary challenges before with unfair advantages. We've even had challenges with unrelated physical components that could trip up the chefs (All-Stars had the diving challenge in the finale, for instance).
But we've never had one where the physical component was so obviously slanted the way the Ice Block challenge was. Paul had an absurd advantage there - the sexism in the design of the challenge was OVERWHELMING. We need Lee Anne back.
To his great credit, Paul recognized the unfairness of the situation and helped his competitors. With $10k and a shot at $125k on the line, I can't say I would have done the same. If I learned anything this episode, it's that Paul is a classy dude even in the most stressful situations.
... still, amazingly, as bad as that challenge was, it was better than the worst challenge in the history of Top Chef, which followed it.
Look, contestants on Top Chef have embarrassed themselves before. But they've embarrassed themselves by cooking poorly or behaving poorly. Never before have the producers gone out of their way to humiliate the chefs on national TV the way they did in that challenge. Asking two people who have never been on skis to navigate a slightly technical Cross Country course while wearing inappropriate clothing, and then make a gag reel of them falling and struggling, is simply cruel. I'd like to think that this show is better than that, but well, maybe it isn't. I've never wanted to hit the fast forward button during live air before on Top Chef, but I very nearly did there.
Setting that aside, there's the whole question of what happens if someone craps out with the gun. I assume that the shooting challenge was tricked up such that a relatively unathletic person with no shooting experience still had a decent chance of hitting targets. Still, both of them missed 6/10 shots. What if one of them had only hit 2/10 or 1/10? Are we sending someone home from the finale of Top Chef because they can't shoot an air rifle??
The only good thing about the final challenge was that they did give them both a set amount of time in a fully equipped kitchen to actually prepare the meal. And thanks to that (and good luck with the rifles) both of them did produce good dishes. Still, that doesn't excuse what came before.
Just a disaster - bad enough that it changes my whole perception of the show.
Posted by: doktarr | February 16, 2012 at 09:20 AM
TxGriff, I thought PAUL was going to lose a finger, compliments of Bev, when Bev got to the giant crabsicle a split second after Paul did. I flinched because it looked to me like she came very close to stabbing his hand.
IG, I doubt the ratings would improve because of this. It seems as if they're trying to pump up flagging ratings by making the show more appealing to its bread-and-butter Real Housewives crowd, but I can't fathom this would work. Hmm...Maybe in next week's episode, all the contestants will be required to wear weaves, and whoever pulls the other contestants' out first gets a "significant advantage" in the finale.
Posted by: paula | February 16, 2012 at 09:28 AM
I'm like Keryl. I read here to see who won and what the general comments are. I watch judges table (always last 15 minutes) & skip the rest.
Sadly, the producers obviously are trying to appeal to a larger, non-cooking audience. So now Top Chef is just another game show where the actual topic bears little resemblence to contestants skills.
Posted by: Lon | February 16, 2012 at 09:36 AM
I think the ice pick did not have a point. I think they were using what amounted to a knife sharpener. Lets not get carried away.
Posted by: nomnomnom | February 16, 2012 at 09:55 AM
Still, both of them missed 6/10 shots. What if one of them had only hit 2/10 or 1/10? Are we sending someone home from the finale of Top Chef because they can't shoot an air rifle??
I agree, what if Bev or Sarah took a bad fall and broke a leg? She'd be disqualified because she couldn't ski??
What the hell?
Has Top Chef bought into the full sleeve of tats,macho kitchen beast, bad ass fallacy that cooking is athletic? Tell that to Jonathan Waxman.
Gawd, how I hated this episode.
Posted by: Sweet Sue | February 16, 2012 at 10:02 AM
Jumped the shark and did a massive belly flop.
Dom - I'm glad I found you through TC. Your main blog is far better than the crap that Bravo's been putting out.
Posted by: TokenOmnivore | February 16, 2012 at 10:06 AM
"Asking two people who have never been on skis to navigate a slightly technical Cross Country course while wearing inappropriate clothing, and then make a gag reel of them falling and struggling, is simply cruel." Yes to this, and to everyone's comments.
And the little teaser they do before going to commercial, this time showing Bev firing the rifle and then cutting to Sarah falling down on her skies. Har har har HAR! Get it? Bev shot Sarah! And the thing is, I laughed, it tickled me in that ol' Three Stooges kind of way. And then I felt sad that I laughed. I'm not embarrassed by being tickled by obvious humor, but in this context I felt sad. Sad for me and sadder for the show. (As long as I'm confessing I'll admit that I also laughed when Sarah tripped on her skis as she tried to pass by Beverly. Did Bev take a little poke at her as she went by?)
And the shabby, underutilized treatment of the guest judges (which is pretty low on the list of problems with this episode, but still.) Gretchen Bleiler got to speak all of, what, 2 sentences on camera? Most of the celebrities who've made appearances have clearly been TC fans and have some interest in food. So to come onto the show as a fan (and also as, yes, a public figure looking to get TV time) and getting to say 2 lines about a meal prepared in a gondola... eh, it makes me glum.
Gail's blog is good, among other things she speculates that maybe the producers didn't realize how tough it would be to hack the ingredients out of the ice blocks. Umm, wouldn't that be a BASIC thing that should occur to a TV producer beforehand? Doing a dry run of everything well before filming? Sigh, it just makes me glum.
Posted by: Tom W. | February 16, 2012 at 10:13 AM
Ludicrous...I couldn't wait for it to end last night. Why or why can it not be just about the cooking. Sarah and Lindsay were ugly. When Sarah asked Bev about Last Chance Kitchen and then as Bev started to explain, she interrupted to say "look at the trees"..was unbelievably rude. I have zero interest in watching those two in a final and zero interest in eating in any of their restaurants.
Posted by: natmicstef | February 16, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Man, that [Kyle Rovinsky] is a real [troll].
[Comment edited by the management]
Posted by: Kyle Rovinsky | February 16, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Two thoughts:
Tom Colicchio: "It's all about the food."
Next Season on Top Chef: "Join us on Bravo! as one housewife from Beverly Hills, Orange County, Miami, New York and New Jersey embark on a culinary adventure like no other!"
Posted by: Alamos Road | February 16, 2012 at 11:10 AM
I know we keep saying that we are in the minority of TC viewers in that we care about the food more than the drama and gimmicks, but anyone who followed the #TopChef hashtag on Twitter last night saw that
1) It was a much higher volume of tweets than usual, and
2) The reaction to the gimmicks was overwhelmingly negative.
To be honest, I was pretty surprised to see so many people tweeting "just let them cook." Grayson and Richie were tweeting about how surprised they were at the challenges, and even Tom started tweeting in defense of the format.
Posted by: Kevin | February 16, 2012 at 11:17 AM
[All this, plus a "coming up" teaser halfway through that was edited to suggest that Bev SHOT Sarah.]
Well, if you are shooting for your ingredients, and you can't find anything Asian, you take what you can get. I guess "mid-Western redneck/Italian fusion" would suffice.
~EdT.
Posted by: EdT. | February 16, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Why did Tom ask them to discuss how/why they prepared the food, if they were going to award the win to whatsherface even though she wasn't able to discuss anything other than what geographical region it ostensibly came from?
In her blog Gail tries to persuade us that Sarah "gained an appreciation for Beverly". Nobody believes she was sincere in saying bye to Bev. I've got a bad, bad feeling about who wins this.
Posted by: ally | February 16, 2012 at 11:39 AM
There is big potential for an upset and if Paul doesn't win what we might have is the most hated winner in the history of Top Chef.
Sure there is Hosea and Ilan but neither of the two were particularly mean or ugly to the other chefs.
If Lindsay who hasn't really shown us anything, wins, it would cement in my mind that the show should be called; "Best chef that can just hang in there until everyone else makes a mistake". Not to mention how nasty she was to Bev.
The there is Sarah, The mean girl who does what she does best cook the same italian food she cooks at the restaurant.
I would count on a lot of back lash if Lindsey or Sarah end up winning.
Posted by: Libster | February 16, 2012 at 12:06 PM
Redeeming feature of this ep (Only one really): Paul's mocking of Sarah being from Houston "Well I guess I'm from Chicago now."
Posted by: garik16 | February 16, 2012 at 12:16 PM
Well, if you are shooting for your ingredients, and you can't find anything Asian, you take what you can get. I guess "mid-Western redneck/Italian fusion" would suffice.
Ed T. that is so worng on many levels and I am secretly ashamed that I am laughing so hard at that. Thanks!
Posted by: Anon Man | February 16, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Now I want one of those YouTube mashups of Top Chef and The Running Man.
Posted by: Independent George | February 16, 2012 at 12:49 PM
"Sure there is Hosea and Ilan but neither of the two were particularly mean or ugly to the other chefs."
Huh? Ilan filmed another chef assault Marcel. He then shaved his head as part of Elia's suggestion to minimize the assault on Marcel. I may not be rooting for Lindsey or Sarah but Ilan set a really, really low bar. (Not to mention that Ilan used Mario Batali's recipes for all of his successful dishes ...)
Ally -- your theory is too frighteningly plausible. Especially since Gail has always been Ilan's defender ...
Posted by: rab01 | February 16, 2012 at 12:55 PM
"I've got a bad, bad feeling about who wins this."
I know a lot of people think I'm crazy, but I've been trying to say that Sarah can take Paul if he stumbles.
Not that I'd be particularly happy about that.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | February 16, 2012 at 01:21 PM
All I could think of was how beautiful the scenery was. And how much I wanted to smack someone. These are good chefs, all of them. I may not like what I see of two of them on TV, but they are all good cooks. This was Japanese Game Show level dumb. Let. Them. Cook. Not hack through blocks of ice, or cook in a freezing gondola, or show their biathlon skills. Cook. Which is what they are ostensibly there to do. Just... Cook.
And yes, Paul is a major class act, and if I ever get the opportunity I will show my appreciation by going to his restaurant and ordering lots. Blais posted a blog on Bravo's site years ago, about how Top Chef was like the goose that lays the golden egg. The gold egg was the prize money at the end. The way you actually got the goose it's self was by cooking amazing food and selling people on you personally. That translates into a much more solid career boost. I know Paul already runs a very good restaurant, but I would bet it's even more popular these days. Good for him.
Posted by: KinderJ | February 16, 2012 at 01:26 PM
KinderJ, thanks for that bit of perspective. The Top Chef title will help Sarah about as far as she can throw Beverly.
Posted by: ally | February 16, 2012 at 01:37 PM
But Dom, putting the personality things aside, doesn't Sarah's food appeal to you? It certainly does to me. Yes, Paul SHOULD win because of the dominance and some of the glowing things they've said about his food. And, I'm more likely to travel to specifcally eat his food than Sarah's. But, man she's put out some Italian-ish plates that sound like they would be awesome. So, I wouldn't necessarily be bummed if she won. Lindsay on the other hand...
Posted by: Anon Man | February 16, 2012 at 01:52 PM
Sarah's already got a Michelin star; the publicity helps, but it's not like she's a heretofore unknown quantity. But for Paul, she'd have likely been the ringer this season.
Posted by: Independent George | February 16, 2012 at 01:55 PM
I think (and hope) Tom has integrity and has not blogged because this@#$% is indefensible. I think they gave Tom LCK because he could see this train wreck coming and he would bolt if they didn't provide something to temper the show's evolution into bad attempts at slapstick humor.
We can't taste the food but from the amount of vitriol coming from Sarah and Lindsey it must be pretty bitter and I think this reflects badly on their "mentors" as well. The food has seemingly lost all relevance when a gimmicky prep is the highlight and the teasers show potential accidents as the reasons to watch the show. Pathetic and desperate are the best I can say about the episode and the trajectory of the season.
I hope Paul wins and the show can attract chefs like Kevin G or the Volt brothers again because at this stage I doubt I'd watch this garbage again.
Posted by: Lou | February 16, 2012 at 01:58 PM
"I think (and hope) Tom has integrity and has not blogged because this@#$% is indefensible."
Tom is defending it non-stop on twitter.
Posted by: rab01 | February 16, 2012 at 02:05 PM
So this was the first time I have ever watched a TC episode where i felt it was fixed from the beginning. Clearly the producers wanted a Beverly vs Sarah showdown and Tom and Gail and whatever olympic athlete can swear up and down to the integrity of the show, but i call BS. This was a fix, the game was rigged, and furthermore i think Bev was chosen to lose no matter what she did. Sarah could have put a rabbit turd with a side french fries and she still would have won. The winner of LCK was not going to the finals, and what great television it would make if the two rivals fight it out head to head. Total crap, which is another possible term explanation for the letters TC.
Posted by: rf | February 16, 2012 at 02:41 PM
I'm willing to believe that Sarah saw the footage from early in the season, was embarrassed by how she came off as one of the Mean Girls, and resolved to represent herself better. She's not an idiot; she understands that the PR is a bit part of the prize of the show.
The only 100% no-edit annoyance we saw Sarah throw Bev's way was when Bev was using the blender at her station. I can't say I blame Sarah for that.
My guess is that the "look at the tree" line didn't cut Bev off at all. It was just fake editing, ginning up the drama. What, I'm supposed to think Bravo wouldn't stoop that low after this episode?
Posted by: doktarr | February 16, 2012 at 02:56 PM
So you're all telling me that this was not the best season to start watching Top Chef? ;-)
Posted by: Mary | February 16, 2012 at 02:59 PM
rf, I think you're mistaking cause and effect here. Yes they set up the whole episode of Sarah vs. Bev. But that's because of how they used the talking clips....and they put together what clips they're going to use AFTER THEY KNOW THE RESULTS.
I'd bet there's just as much unused footage of Lindsey talking about Bev and perhaps even Paul about Bev. Had either of those two been alone with Bev in the end, you wouldn't have seen the Sarah clips, but would've seen those.
Posted by: garik16 | February 16, 2012 at 03:55 PM
*D*GV*FPWENF:WEIN. Those are unknown swear words. I would not put it past Andy Cohen and Bravo to turn Top Chef into another Real Housewives type show. To a certain extend they already did it to Top Chef Masters.
The "tricks" this season bear all the hallmarks of the Real Housewives stylings where reality is hidden behind gimmicks and flash and "how good someone looks" is far more important than their substances.
Just tell me who wins. I don't plan on watching much anymore.
Posted by: Lon | February 16, 2012 at 05:32 PM
I'd really like somehow to blame Andy Cohen, too. Just because... he's such a tool.
Posted by: Tom W. | February 16, 2012 at 07:48 PM
Interesting factoid:
Tom doesn't deny it being rigged. His response on twitter to suggestions that it's rigged is "why do you think it is rigged", not "it isn't rigged".
I am not a conspiracy theorist at all and I never really thought it was rigged ... but I think that's a suspicious non-denial...
Posted by: ally | February 16, 2012 at 07:50 PM
Unbelievable nonsense. I routinely review the episode on Thursday morning (sorry Dom, no notes), but I couldn't stomach this one for a second. It's a rats ass of nonsense, and frankly as one has commented above, is demeaning to the Chefs. I'm wondering if they are embarrassed to be a part of this.
I am proud of how they came together as decent folks. Paul stepping in (sorry, Ally) to break the ice and assert that the competition was in fact, intended to be about ~cooking!~; Sarah and Paul's commiserating meeting in the hotel room, Bev and Lindsy's moment where they contemplated losing to the whims of the silly challenge, and without dignity. And lastly, that the food was not good, given the external factors. No surprise there!
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | February 16, 2012 at 08:08 PM
Oh and Tom W: How right you are. Andy is indeed a "tool."
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | February 16, 2012 at 08:14 PM
Some interesting behind the scenes tidbits from the BC filming in this article from The Hollywood Reporter today, as well as some insight into the revenue that the Top Chef franchise represents to Bravo ("hundreds of millions of dollars"):
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-chef-texas-finale-padma-lakshmi-tom-colicchio-291913
Sounds like the original structure of the biathlon challenge gave them only five bullets and if they missed or wanted more ingredients, they had to do another two laps on the skis. The ice block challenge had a time limit of only 30 minutes to hack, thaw, and cook their dish. Both challenges were extended/revised in the midst of filming when some producer recognized the ridiculocity. Too bad they didn't just scrap them entirely.
From respected Emmy winner to Wipeout in two short years. Bravo, Bravo.
Posted by: Beth | February 16, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Wow. What the hell was that.
Not much to add that hasn't already been said. I can tolerate challenges that at least have some relation to being a chef, such as dealing with resource constraints (ingredients, time, money, space etc), even if they do tend to take those to ridiculous extremes. I can't tolerate challenges that assess chefs on skills that have nothing whatsoever to do with cooking. The ice pick and biathlon challenges were utterly indefensible, and it's said to see someone like Tom trying to do just that (possibly at the urging of producers, I don't know).
The only good thing to come out of the episode for me was Paul again showing his character as a chef and person and his thinly-veiled 'fuck you' to the challenge that he won. As soon as they showed clips of Sarah and Lindsay saying vaguely complementary things about Bev I knew what the outcome was.
@Beth: I love how miserable Tom looks in that picture. I hope he realises how ridiculous it has become, even if he won't admit it publicly.
Posted by: OmicronPersei8 | February 16, 2012 at 11:54 PM
Thanks for that Hollywood Reporter article, Beth. Lots of juicy stuff in there -- the spinoff reality series that will follow around Jen Carroll, Fabio, Spike, and Blais, LCK will be back next season, etc. Plus this observation by the reporter during the biathlon challenge: "The tension builds: Will the producers have to reimagine the challenge to make for better viewing? (Challenges sometimes are scrapped altogether because they too closely mirror those of previous cycles. "It's becoming more and more difficult to come up with new stuff," says Kriley. "Fortunately, we have a lot of talented people who can come up with genius ideas out of nowhere.")" HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Genius ideas out of nowhere. Now THAT'S funny. I only wish Andy Cohen had been the one to say it.
Posted by: Tom W. | February 17, 2012 at 12:48 AM
Beth, thanks for the link. The article starts out "It sounds like the beginning of a classic joke". How true. Top Chef has become a classic joke.
Andy Cohen - tool or fool. Unfortunately, I started to watch his show after the episode where Ty was eliminated. Ty was a bartender. Hugh was a guest. Kept referencing his uni-brow and you had to drink when ever uni-brow was mentioned. I had to turn it off after a few minutes. And this sh!t is on every night?
Posted by: gilmore | February 17, 2012 at 04:02 AM
Also from the article:
"These days, Chef averages 2.8 million viewers a week (down from a cycle-five viewership of 3.9 million in 2008)"
----- Doesn't that tell them something??????
"Colicchio said, 'You can bet they don't do this shit on [Food Network's] Chopped.' ""
------- Precisely
""It's a food show, but it's a television show first. It needs to be entertaining -- balance the drama and tension, but also be a fantasy. It's all of the deliciousness without any of the calories.""
----- This explains a lot
"Web series Last Chance Kitchen was simultaneously shot alongside Chef this cycle to bring eliminated contestant and fan bete noire Beverly Kim back to the finale."
---- I take this as their purposely TRYING to make Bev hated. From this site, it seems like they failed.
""Fortunately, we have a lot of talented people who can come up with genius ideas out of nowhere.")
Not to worry: As the chefs begin their descent to the shooting range, one contestant loses her balance and, arms flailing, hooks her ski pole on the other chef's ski. Within seconds, both are in the snow -- one face up, the other face down. A roar of laughter erupts from the production tent, followed instantly by a debate as to whether the first contestant meant to trip the other. The general consensus: No, but it sure does make for fun television."
------ The roar of laughter is at how stupid they have become.
Posted by: gilmore | February 17, 2012 at 04:21 AM
Hey, I've been saying on this blog since season 4 that y'all aren't the target audience for Top Chef. Bravo doesn't see this as a food first show. They see it as a drama first show.
This episode is proof of that.
/I really, really disliked this episode. Can we get a redo?
Posted by: Bart | February 17, 2012 at 07:28 AM
If the ratings peaked in season five, I can see how they fell after Hosea became the winner. Why don't those "geniuses" figure out how to make challenges so that MOPers aren't rewarded for playing it safe the entire season, allowing them to win. If viewership goes down, why do they think their gimmicks will improve viewership?
From that article (thank you Beth) it seems to me that their income doesn't depend on viewership here in the US. The more outrageous it is, the more the idea probably sells overseas, or at least grabs attention.
If Tom Colicchio, who seems to have been quality control in the past, is now buying in to this drivel, I think all hope is lost. I didn't even watch TC Masters 3 because the previews made the challenges look so stupid, so it's not like I'll watch just ANY crap they decide to throw at me.
Posted by: ally | February 17, 2012 at 08:15 AM
In the past, I would have been really interested in seeing a show that followed a past contestant like Blais or Jen Norris. Now, with the way Bravo edits its shows and promotes them--and, honestly, with the way some of these chefs are so nakedly trying to be a brand rather than a person--no thanks.
Posted by: paula | February 17, 2012 at 08:37 AM
"A roar of laughter erupts from the production tent, followed instantly by a debate as to whether the first contestant meant to trip the other."
This really makes me sick to my stomach. The production team setting up the contestants to humiliate themselves in a physical activity utterly unrelated to cooking and then laughing at them. Who's the bully?
Posted by: mar | February 17, 2012 at 09:19 AM
[Kyle Rovinsky]... [annoying] or not?
[Comment edited by the management]
Posted by: Kyle Rovinsky | February 17, 2012 at 10:21 AM
The sad thing is, this was (more or less) as well as the challenge could have turned out given the stupidity of it. Someone could have been seriously hurt with the ice picks or the skiing. Someone could have been so disadvantaged by (1) motion sickness, (2) not getting any ingredients or having enough cooking time because they weren't strong enough to break gigantic blocks of ice, or (3) not getting any ingredients because they couldn't shoot. Not to say that they weren't stupid and painful to watch as it was, but at least it didn't completely rule someone out.
This would have been stupid as a quickfire, but is ghastly for narrowing down the finalists. And on top of last week's stupid quickfire for picking one of the finalists.
Posted by: chrish | February 17, 2012 at 10:21 AM
"If the ratings peaked in season five, I can see how they fell after Hosea became the winner. Why don't those "geniuses" figure out how to make challenges so that MOPers aren't rewarded for playing it safe the entire season, allowing them to win. If viewership goes down, why do they think their gimmicks will improve viewership? "
Agreed. I was thinking that if Lindsey does win they may want to try and tweek the formula.
Here is what I thought:
Through out the competition every EC dish is scored with a number the lowest one of the EC gets sent home. Same idea as before except when you hit top 5 they then start to judge based on body of work.
Those numbers they have been receiving through out the competition get added up to a combined score. With the lowest combined score going home. A winner would be chosen for the individual EC.
Sure there are lots of kinks to work out. but if you really hashed it out I think it could work.
Perhaps knowing this the chefs would push harder and try and be more creative. Trying to win and not just stay safe.
Posted by: Libster | February 17, 2012 at 12:02 PM
A. Once again, I'm going to point out that anyone who thinks the competition is fixed is a bit fooling themselves....I'd point out season 7 when the only drama the Elves could come up with was Kenny v Angelo...and Kenny got sent home early. At that point, conspiracy theories of fixing it so that those two would be in the finals were dashed, showing that the show IS a meritocracy.
B. That doesn't mean that the challenges aren't extremely poor sometimes. I agree that their struggle to find new unique challenges results more often than not with failure, rather than success (restaurant wars is never complained about for a reason).
C. This is not to say that the show's main audience is like us - as the article makes clear, the main audience for this show is closer to the typical Bravo viewer - the posters here are a small minority. Note how the spinoff would follow not just Jen C and Blais - two contestants who i'm sure people here would be interested in seeing more of - but Fabio (okay) and SPIKE, who's basically considered at best one of the more Meh contestants in the show.
D. There's still enough potential in the format that I at least won't quit watching. Paul's cooking has been very interesting this season and occasionally, episodes like the Wicked Queen episode occur, which are just terrific.
Posted by: garik16 | February 17, 2012 at 12:57 PM
I guess you know your blog has made it when you get your own pet troll.
Posted by: ally | February 17, 2012 at 01:50 PM
Libster - No one in the audience wants to watch chefs playing it safe, whether a foodie or a Real Housewives fan. That said, I think cumulative scoring might lead to more chefs playing it safe, rather than fewer. (It might still be a good idea but for different reasons.)
I think it's the design of the specific challenges that lead to playing it safe so a few changes to those might help. For example:
1) You could start out the season with an NCAA style tournament - seeding determined by a mise-en-place quickfire, $1,000 to each of the round 1 winners, $2,000 for round 2, etc. Meanwhile, the losers of round 1 are fighting to stay alive in a mirror image bracket.
2) For team challenges, you could let people know at the start that the worst 1 or two and one of the MoP (chosen by pure knife draw) would have to face off in a single dish cook-off, with only the best-performer of the losing team being safe.
3) Do more challenges with tiered structures (like the breakfast, lunch, dinner challenge they did with Nigella Lawson) so that winning is rewarded rather than losing being punished.
Also, we're never going to lose the catering challenges and we'll never lose the team challenges but neither are good places for a chef to show their vision so ... make all catering challenges be team challenges (and vice-versa) and cap their number at half (or less) of the season.
What do you think?
Posted by: rab01 | February 17, 2012 at 02:04 PM
The problem with cumulative scoring is that once you're a few episodes in, many of the chefs will be safe until close to the end (especially if the early challenges are not too idiotic). Cumulative scoring may well be the way to pick the best chef(s), but I for one will fess up to liking the drama of "any chef could go home on any given day". I like it as long as it's for a legitimate mistake, as opposed to not living up to an idiotic challenge.
An actual numerical cumulative scoring system is also hard for people to follow I think. As opposed to worst dish goes home.
Posted by: chrish | February 17, 2012 at 02:18 PM
rab01, I thought the reason for all the rewards was to encourage people to try to win. Rewarding winners hasnt really worked to keep MOPers from having that strategy, as far as I can tell.
I think more head-to-head challenges, where you're on the chopping block if you don't make the better of the two dishes, might help.
Posted by: ally | February 17, 2012 at 02:20 PM
I was trying to say that while they are scoring the dishes that the cumulative score would have no effect until the top 5 perhaps.
I thought if they knew this chefs wouldn't try to be so safe.
Posted by: Libster | February 17, 2012 at 03:07 PM
I may have missed it in the prior comments - if so, apologies. What I hated most of all was that they changed the protocol at the end of the show just to get a Sarah vs. Bev moment. They had Bev leave after PPYKAG and held Sarah until Bev was on her way out of the kitchen. Then they had Sarah enter so that they were forced to have a one-on-one. Disgusting.
Posted by: wolfefan | February 17, 2012 at 05:34 PM
In the article, they mentioned the drive to avoid repeating challenges - that seems silly. I can definitely understand the need to bring new hurdles to each season, but perhaps they'd have fewer of these ridiculous challenges if they were more willing to re-use some successful challenges from past seasons - especially considering that most of their viewership probably doesn't have as encyclopedic a knowledge base about those seasons as we do.
I don't think that most of us are such purists that we don't mind a little creative editing, a bit of silliness in the challenges, or even some personal unpleasantness and drama. These seem to cause some grumbling, but don't seem to really dim anyone's enthusiasm. What causes real problems are when these things get out of control...and that just seems to be where we are now.
1.The editing over the years has given us progressively less context for the judging decisions.
2. Meanwhile, the same editing gives us more and more access to interpersonal drama. I think it absolutely sucks the way they are treating Bev...but I also think it's unnecessary for me to be so aware of it. Edit it down, not up.
3. The challenges seem to get more and more ridiculous, and less and less culinary every season.
So, in conclusion, barf.
Posted by: dmantell | February 19, 2012 at 04:21 PM
Well, a new week and onward to the end. Dom, your selective editing of certain posts is highly amusing.
Posted by: Anon Man | February 21, 2012 at 07:52 AM
And appreciated.
Posted by: nm | February 21, 2012 at 09:29 AM
Agree with Anon and nm
Posted by: gilmore | February 21, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Where did anyone find a story that said ratings peaked in S5? I am nearly 100% sure Season 3 was the highest average viewer per week rating. Season 5 had several extra weeks so total viewers may have been higher if you use that metric.
This show like most game show reality shows does suffer when the contestants have seen several iterations of the show. I think most have pointed out this has led to some people just playing it dead level safe.
If you look at the majority of what everyone but paul is doing is just
-Take protein and season/cook it to order well
-Dice up whatever veg they have on hand
-Make some sauce
They aren't being pushed to do anything but make your standard restaurant plate. And it is hard to blame them when you see most of the out there technique guys slipping early when they try too hard.
So now we are treated to having our time wasted by the Kelly Liken's of the world. Gag.
Posted by: nomnomnom | February 21, 2012 at 12:45 PM
Paul made the semi-finals for best chef SW (James Beard). Way to go Paul!
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2012-02-01/webextra14.php
Posted by: TxGriff | February 21, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Congrats to Paul! Edward also made the longlist for Best Chef Southeast, along with Hugh Atcheson. Stephanie Izard and Bryan Voltaggio both made the semifinalist list in their regions, and Kevin Gillespie is nominated for Rising Star. Tony Montuano and Spiaggia (Best Service) also got mentions, but not Sarah. Good showing for Top Chef overall - I saw a couple of Masters names on there too like Anita Lo and Jonathan Waxman.
Posted by: Beth | February 21, 2012 at 01:06 PM
@nomnomnom - Beth posted this link where the decline in audience was mentioned - http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-chef-texas-finale-padma-lakshmi-tom-colicchio-291913
Posted by: gilmore | February 21, 2012 at 01:24 PM
Okay, I'm putting on my Freakonomics hat to think about how to incentivize the chefs to actually try and win each contest.
For me, the easiest way to do this is, instead of $125k at the end, dole out the prize money at the end of each eppy.
So, if it's a twelve eppy long season, say the win is $15K per eppy (since we get extra prize money tossed about here and there.) That way, you want to win each challenge because the prize is at each challenge.
All surviving does is get you another shot at another prize. (And media attention.) But you've actually got to win each challenge to get the money.
Maybe there'll be a crown or something for the last chef standing, the Food and Wine thing in Aspen? But the way to get the money, which from the looks of it is the reason the chefs are there, is to win each episode.
Oh well, I doubt they'll play any safer that way then they are now.
Posted by: Keryl | February 21, 2012 at 02:45 PM
The 2/15 episode had 1.743 million viewers; the previous week close to 2 mil; believe over all season to date season 9 has averaged about 1.8 viewers. Those are Nielsen numbers. Dont know how the new technology (apps, tweets; all the stuff I know nothing about) are added for revenue generating purposes.
Posted by: foodiewannabe | February 21, 2012 at 03:39 PM
Wonder if the 2.8 million average cited in the article includes re-runs, on-demand, hulu, etc.
If not, the numbers are WAAAAAAY down. Hard to ignore.
Posted by: Gilmore | February 21, 2012 at 03:50 PM
The 2/15/12 episode had 1.743 million viewers (persons 2+) and the previous week was close to 2 million. These are Nielsen overnights. Have no idea how or if Bravo uses new media (apps, tweets - am too old to understand that stuff) to calculate their ad rates.
It would seem that season 9's numbers are significantly lower that the season 5 2.8 million viewers discussed in the THR article.
Posted by: foodiewannabe | February 21, 2012 at 07:18 PM
One can gather from the article (thanks Beth) that it's quite possible that the company that owns TC doesn't give a damn about ratings. They make a lot of money on selling the show to others in other countries. Possibly, the more outrageous the US show is, the better.
On the other hand, there could be a worm called "inanity on bravotv" that has entered the brains of all TC personnel, which is now dictating challenges etc. for hapless TC contestants. That is my best guess. :)
p.s. i believe the worm might be named "andy".
Posted by: ally | February 21, 2012 at 08:35 PM
A few random responses:
Nomx3, isn't cooking meat and a veg with a sauce the essence of most cooking? Kelly wasn't flashy, but she didn't suck. She's Not saying I disagree that this season is underwhelming, but I don't think that just because the crop doesn't screw up, you can write off their talent.
As someone who used to be in broadcasting, it isn't just raw numbers, but also share. If the overall eyeballs have shrunk but the share stayed the same, you can probably write a llot of that off to technology. Ad rates are falling, but my understanding is that viewers and share are a component of online ad returns. There's a growing analysis of trying to fire out if sme shows over or underperform online compared to broadcast, but I don't know much about them except anecdotally.
Posted by: Anon Man | February 21, 2012 at 08:49 PM
Top Chef should have something to offer besides meat veg and sauce. So I agree with nomnomnom. Can you really say that Sarah or Lindsay have reached outside of their respective boxes to give us TopChef material? I think that Paul has. I don't think Sarah or Lindsay have. (btw Sarah matches season 7 winner Kevin in most # of bottom dishes, which is 5. Although she has 3 wins, and Kevin had only 1 before getting the title.)
By the way, if the "title" involves surving all these stupid shenanigans and getting the last, best, meal .. is that all that Top Chef means? I think seasons past have shown that true (not to mention any names ... ilian, hosea and kevin *coff*). Top Meal will be Top Chef. After this season and an anticipated Sarah win, all I can say is...whatever.
I didn't watch TC Masters 3 because it looked so stupid. I won't watch TC again if it looks equally stupid. Not that they care. :)
Posted by: ally | February 21, 2012 at 09:12 PM
Actually the "pet troll" that Alli refers to is indeed our "Alli." She sows discord with every step of the way. Recall when Dom was gone and she did the middle school "tweet" to somehow signify Dom. She assumed the unwanted "position." Tacky. No one put her in charge. Heather/Sarah = Ally
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | February 21, 2012 at 10:03 PM
Kathy, everyone who regularly reads this blog knows I made an asinine comment about how you mention going to Uchi, Gucci, and other Chis. You made your point. Still doesn't make me a troll. That is all.
Posted by: ally | February 21, 2012 at 10:16 PM
P.s. please stop telling on me. I'm gonna tell mom.
Posted by: ally | February 21, 2012 at 10:21 PM
Ally, if it makes you feel better, I read this blog regularly and I have no idea what you're taking about. #notintothedrama
Totally agree with the earlier commenter that the editing has given us less food context as time has gone on. I used to be able to predict winners and losers much more accurately - now I often feel robbed of the real story of an episode when a clear winner was hidden from us.
I'm not sure I agree that drama is more ginned up now than before. It's been plenty ginned up in the past. That said, I'm still not convinced that Sarah or Lindsey treated Bev poorly in the finale - I think it was mostly editing. Watch the scene in the car again, and tell me if you think Bev really got cut off by "look at the trees", or if that was editing.
Posted by: doktarr | February 21, 2012 at 11:04 PM
I agree doktarr - my frustration with the increasingly ridiculous challenges and overblown drama is far outweighed by the loss of context in the judging. I honestly think that's been my biggest frustration with the season - I really have no sense of these cheftestant's food (other than Paul, who has distinct enough a style that it manages to translate to a degree). But I blame the elves rather than the judges or the chefs for that. Like Dom I find that reading the recipes helps some, but those are as poorly edited as the show (I tried making Paul's winning Brussels sprouts recipe last week and while the flavor profiles were great, the recipe was all kinds of busted - proportions off, entire components unexplained). The blogs can be instructive too, but there's a huge amount of cognitive dissonance when Gail or Padma or Hugh waxes rhapsodic about a dish that was downplayed on air, or describes flaws that were not even mentioned as being part of the judging criteria.
As for the "look at the TREES!" moment, I'm pretty sure that wasn't invented out of whole cloth, but it was clear that the reaction shots were edited to make the interuption feel as supremely awkward (and malicious) as possible. What I found to be more telling in terms of revealing Sarah's true personality was the brief moment in the kitchen after blendergate, when Beverly zipped past saying, appropriately, "Behind!" and Sarah said "Beverly, REALLY?" in the most exasperated and condescending tone imaginable. That was not the elves using editing tricks to make her look bad, that was just Sarah revealing her true colors.
Doesn't mean she can't cook though. I just wish I had a better sense of what the judges were tasting in her food because what I'm seeing in her personality and leadership style is not Top Chef caliber.
Posted by: Beth | February 22, 2012 at 06:59 AM
Not to get involved with personal drama, but...was that really Kathy from Austin? You start to get a feel for people who post on here a lot, and that post definitely didn't have the typical KfA "feel" to it. I just ask because I remember when someone posted under Ted Allen's name, and he had to come on the blog to clarify that he did not make those comments.
Beth- I agree with you, both about the trees moment and the "really?!" moment. At the very least, it's clear Sarah does not have as much respect for Bev as she does for the remaining contestants.
Posted by: TxGriff | February 22, 2012 at 08:22 AM
The "really?" moment was definitely real. However, I can forgive her that one. Bev had a blender at her station, but for some odd reason she was using the one two feet away from Sarah while she worked. It was legitimately strange, and if there was a good explanation (e.g. the power was out at Bev's station?) we never heard it.
Setting that largely excusable incident aside, we NEVER saw an unedited moment when Sarah or Lindsey behaved in a disrespectful way towards Bev in that episode. I really do think the "look at the TREES" was invented out of whole cloth. What, do you not think the elves would do that to you? These are the people who thought it was a good idea to force chefs to compete in a biathlon and made a gag reel of them falling down.
Obviously Bev was mistreated at various times this season. But my read of the situation was that Sarah saw the early episodes, was personally embarrassed by seeing how she came off in those interactions, and resolved to treat Bev with respect in the finale.
Posted by: doktarr | February 22, 2012 at 08:37 AM
I'm sad that that episode deflated Dom's will. I feel TC owes him an apology.
Posted by: anne | February 22, 2012 at 09:48 AM
Anne, me too. I can't help but picture poor Dom sitting at his screen, trying to muster enough energy to write up the Power Rankings, tentatively reaching a sole index finger toward the keyboard and then...breaking down and weeping into his hands.
Also, this Ally/KFA stuff is wigging me a bit. I have no idea what that's all about. Dom has abandoned us and now we're all turning on one another!!
Posted by: paula | February 22, 2012 at 10:37 AM
I read the ratings article. I think it is hopelessly vague about the ratings. It is possible they were just comparing to S5 more as a matter of drawing a line to an arbitrary time in the past before they diluted the brand. I am still quite confident on the major rating metrics S3 was the highest value. This also was before torrents, hulu, etc. took hold.
I don't really know what value that has. I mean at some point a show gets boiled down to a core audience and then the network decides if the core audience brings enough cashflow to justify it staying on the air.
It does not seem they have hit that line yet.
I do think that the judging has gotten lazy. Lazy both in the discussion of the merits, and also the heavy lean to the technical performance of the dish more than the creativity. This allows them to hit happy hour much quicker, but leaves the chefs at the end looking more like Hosea, Kelly, and Ed and less like Carla among others.
Posted by: nomnomnom | February 22, 2012 at 11:41 AM
paula, if you look at the last comment in a recent thread, you'll see why kfa is mad. i was just being an ass.
also apparently she was offended that i posted my own rankings a few weeks ago. i guess she missed the 50 other times that posters have provided rankings.
anyways, hopefully it is over now. Bleh!
Posted by: ally | February 22, 2012 at 12:32 PM
nomnomnom, i hadn't thought about the fact that they have completely gone to technical issues but you're right. Tom C is probably the arbiter of that, since if you look at his judging for LCK, he always says something about seasoning or what have you, not about creativity. So mostly as viewers we've been left guessing about what is worse, poor seasoning or raw meat? Maybe they have a cheat sheet ranking for technical sins. Maybe raw veal is the Royal flush of bad technique, to poor seasoning's four of a kind.
Posted by: ally | February 22, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Agreed on the lack of weighing creativity more heavily. The evil queen episode this season was amazing because of the wildly creative dishes all the chefs produced, not just because there were fewer errors than usual. For me, that's a big reason I tune into Top Chef - to see a level of creativity in the food that isn't present in most other cooking/food shows.
For what it's worth, Time Magazine posted an interesting article on Top Chef vs Chopped today: http://entertainment.time.com/2012/02/22/top-chef-vs-chopped-who-rules-the-food-tv-kitchen/
Posted by: Kevin | February 22, 2012 at 01:09 PM
The "Style" section of our daily paper (Mississippi Clarion Ledger) had a big color picture of Tom C., FLOTUS and White House Chef Sam Kass who was on Top Chef either last year or the year before. They are dong Top Chef "Let's Move" events. Tom C. and Top Chef are not mentioned in the article, but......if they are doing these propaganda events, how can they throw a chef off of Top Chef for not using enough salt on a meal.
Sorry, my level of disgruntled-ness is affecting any and all things Top Chef related.
Posted by: Gilmore | February 22, 2012 at 01:17 PM
@anne & Paula - Maybe Dom is now the subject of a Direct TV type ad - "if you have been deflated by Top Chef, you will be mad and wear a bathrobe everywhere....you will stop shaving and showering.....you will take in stray dogs......"
@Kevin - thanks for the link. We are not the only unhappy ones.
I almost never do look at them, but I did this week, and the comments on the Bravo TC blogs have been extremely angry.
Posted by: Gilmore | February 22, 2012 at 02:25 PM
I guess our host is too demoralized to power rank and I can't blame him.
Last week made me want to wiggle into a Forever Lazy(You'll be the talk of the tailgating party!) snuggie and throw covers over my head.
Posted by: Sweet Sue | February 22, 2012 at 02:41 PM