The danger in identifying a formula for success is that you can very quickly find yourself accused of being formulaic.
As a passionate convert to the first series of Masterchef, I’m starting to side with those viewers who are finding that series two is becoming increasingly manipulative and confected, as the producers wring every last drop out of emotion out of the generally routine practice of preparing food.
I’m not trying to ridicule the likes of Melbourne lawyer Clare, who wept when she prepared a pork and apple dish which was the last meal ever made by her late grandmother, or Phillip, who broke down in recounting how his grandma lost one of her sons at an early age, and always regarded him as a kind of surrogate son. These are genuinely moving tales, and in the heat of battle you can see how re-telling them before a national audience would be emotionally draining.
What’s starting to give me the pip is how the hosts are so cravenly determined to tease out these emotional stories, and how totally marginal, or non-existent, the stories often are.
It’s like watching some current affairs host trying to make their interview subject break down on air. Worse, some of the contestants are so irrationally hysterical, or possessed of a fairly transparent level of mock sympathy for the people they are trying to beat, that they’re now bursting into tears at the drop of a chef’s hat.
The elimination round between the unpopular Jonathan and the much-loved Italian mama Adele (to use her excruciating nickname) was a case in point. It felt more like the final ham-fisted scene of that deeply irritating private school tossfest Dead Poets Society than a cooking competition, with Jonathan appearing to have mastered the art of defeating an opponent, then tearing up with remorse for what he has done. He was at it again last Wednesday when the blue team narrowly held on to win the French menu challenge, zut alors.
It’s getting to the point where the show now feels like Dr Phil, or the tear-inducing mini-series about doomed love The Thorn Birds, rather than an educational and entertaining diversion which the whole family can enjoy. You can see why the Victorian policewoman Sarah was missing her kids, but the blubbering ensemble reaction from the judges and contestants to her apparently life-affirming exit was seriously long on overblown sentiment. And as for Jonathan, now known as The Terminator for his ability to dispatch opponents in the challenge stages, well he now has the rare honour of being the first man to have an emotional seizure on national television after beating an egg.
I won’t quote Chopper Read in full as it’s a family show and this is a family website but these people should harden up.
The other emerging problem for the show is that as the frequency of the emotional outbursts has increased, the quality of the cooking appears to have declined. The three-way elimination contest between Kate, Carrie and Fiona – Kate being the purveyor of the nasty chicken and potato slice bound together with sloppy supermarket mayo – was something of a culinary lowpoint for Australian TV. Kate said it was a secret family recipe. It was secret in the same way that waterboarding was once a CIA secret. I almost burst into tears watching it. And for once, nobody had actually died.
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