{"id":37682,"date":"2013-06-08T13:14:14","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T19:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/08\/tv-review-masterchef.html"},"modified":"2013-06-10T06:27:47","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T12:27:47","slug":"tv-review-masterchef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/08\/tv-review-masterchef.html","title":{"rendered":"TV Review: "MasterChef""},"content":{"rendered":"
We watch a number of competition\/reality shows of the skilled\/craftwork variety, including cooking competitions. \u00a0Somehow, though, we'd missed Fox's\u00a0+<\/span>MasterChef<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Aaaand, I'm kind of glad, because after four episodes (two 120 minute broadcast blocks) of the current season, I'm so over it.<\/p>\n

1. Glitz over Substance:<\/b> \u00a0Yes, you have a great big budget. Making something to rival "Kitchen Stadium" on the screen tells me you're going for glitz. I'm interested in the food.<\/i> \u00a0The constant emphasis on Biggest and Best Production is … so overblown and distracting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Conflict over Cooking:<\/b> The show encourages sniping between the competitors. It sets up and foments rivalries. The contestants not only get to act strategically against one another, but are encouraged to gloat about it, and are asked by the judges who they think are good and bad competitors. \u00a0A bit of interpersonal head-bumping? That's okay. \u00a0Zeroing in on it as one of the main focuses of the show? \u00a0Sorry, left that behind in high school.<\/p>\n

3. So Much the Drama:<\/b> So there's always got to be some drama, some expectation, some dramatic reveals. "MasterChef" cranks that up to 11. \u00a0Dramatic music! Dramatic hesitations! Dramatic announcements broken up by commercials! All! Punctuated! By! Gordon! Ramsay!<\/p>\n

Intersperse this with point #2 above, as well as occasional Tear-Jerking Stories (suitable for Olympic coverage), and it's like you don't trust the cooking competition to be enough.<\/p>\n

4. Judgmental Judges:<\/b> \u00a0Yes, let's be abusive. Not challenging. Not driving to perfection. Not even testing against pressure. No, let's be abusive, insulting, cranking up the drama-meter through insult. \u00a0Or, put another way, when Gordon Ramsay is not<\/i> the most snarky attack-dog judge on the team, something is wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In short: too much of the show is just mean.<\/i><\/p>\n

There was some good stuff, to be sure. Most of it had to do with food. Most of it was in spite of the elements above. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Kay's assessment was "It's like 'Total Drama Island,' but less fun."<\/i> \u00a0Yup.<\/p>\n

Plenty of other fish in the ocean in this category. Think we'll watch them instead.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We watch a number of competition\/reality shows of the skilled\/craftwork variety, including cooking competitions. \u00a0Somehow, though, we'd missed Fox's\u00a0+MasterChef. Aaaand, I'm kind of glad, because after four episodes (two 120 minute broadcast blocks) of the current season, I'm so over it. 1. Glitz over Substance: \u00a0Yes, you have a great big budget. Making something to … Continue reading “TV Review: "MasterChef"”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,40],"tags":[164],"class_list":["post-37682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-media-tv","tag-164"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11329,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/20\/five_five_five_lets_talk.html","url_meta":{"origin":37682,"position":0},"title":"Five, five, five, let’s talk about five!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Sep-07 2:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The new $5 bill.\u00a0 In color! \"It's full of stars ...\" And ... guys?\u00a0 I know you're out to kick the counterfeiters butts -- but for all the glitz and...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/five-dollar-bill-2007.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/five-dollar-bill-2007.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/five-dollar-bill-2007.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13586,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/07\/obama_night_pictures.html","url_meta":{"origin":37682,"position":1},"title":"Obama Night pictures","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 7-Nov-08 9:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"President-elect Obama has released (released, heck, he's allowed them to be posted on Flickr) pictures taken by David Katz of the Obama campaign of the family on Election Night. 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I can't speak to whether he reads Hitler's speeches at night, but the concept of the \"Big Lie\" seems alive and well in his multi-cycled career: say something outrageous enough times and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3223,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/01\/10\/chum.html","url_meta":{"origin":37682,"position":3},"title":"Chum","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 10-Jan-03 8:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"USA Today is holding a \"Star Wars vs Lord of the Rings\" write-in poll. 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Cool.\u00a0 Amanda: Yep\u00a0 me: I'll have to see if I can find that in reruns.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Food & Drink"","block_context":{"text":"Food & Drink","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131720,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/03\/on-the-joys-of-the-swanson-tv-dinner.html","url_meta":{"origin":37682,"position":5},"title":"On the Joys of the Swanson TV Dinner","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Oct-16 12:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I, too, used to love these things. Mind you, my mom always cooked us great meals at home, but Swanson TV Dinners included stuff we usually didn't get: fried chicken, Tater Tots, weird crusty desserts, things like that. 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