Masterchef Australia

Anyone know what Ben was arrested for?

I've watched almost all previous seasons, although for the past few years I've only lasted for maybe half the season before getting totally fed up. Still, it's probably the best made food reality contest in the world because the seasons are over 60 episodes long and the production is top notch, and that includes the writing team. They manage to make the journey of every contestant count in a way that feels quite natural. And then the judges. The original trio, Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston, was perfect. They worked seamlessly together and they were the soul of the show. But now they are gone and even though they most certainly were sometimes annoying you now realize what they brought to the show.

I'm just watching the season opener because I only today noticed the new season had started already weeks ago. All the contestants are former contestants from the show. I assume this was a panic move by the production when they fired the judges last fall and realized people might hate the new judges. They needed to make it all feel very familiar by overloading us with the show's history.

The show has always been incestuous but this season takes it to another level, and not in a good way. One of the judges is a previous Masterchef winner and a business partner and good friend of one of the contestants. Another judge is a former boss of another contestant. And then we have people like Poh who've been around way too much, and I say that as a non-Australian. I just don't like her enough to keep seeing her.

All the hysterics of both the contestants and the judges feel totally ridiculous. Everything is hyper hyper. I was rarely wild about the exuberance before but you can see it's now happening mostly out of fear. The judges clearly have no idea what they are doing, and they know they have the impossible job of replacing the original trio. Well, i dislike each of them. I sort of used to like the one who won the show but in this role he's just not believable. I've never heard of the other two which would be just fine if their output was pleasant to watch but it's really not. I believe all three are very professional and know their craft inside and out but making them the judges dropped Masterchef Australia from its earlier heights to just another Masterchef among countless others around the world. Production values are still high and I assume not much has changed from the previous seasons. But why oh why did they have to bring back the earlier contestants? They should've just released the season under the All-stars moniker.

One of the things that has always made the show so touching were the new contestants and their journeys into the industry. I've never cared about the previous ones who are treated like superstars when they visit the show later on, which is obviously part of the show's brand of creating a "Masterchef family". Well a whole season of the same old faces from previous years seems so daunting that I've no idea if I will keep watching. I mean a part of me does enjoy watching the frenzy of food making so it's very well possible I'll keep come back, but I very much doubt it. That said, there's actually one contestant I do enjoy seeing, and that's Reynold. He's always been super likeable and I was truly happy for him when his career skyrocketed.

[quote]I think big swinging dick Scottish Judge Jock "I'm an expert in Indigenous ingredients" Zonfrillo is fucking his protégée Laura.

Yeah I'm sorry to say but Zonfrillo is way above Laura in the looks department. Sure it's possible they might've boinked at some point but he probably attracts model level beauties. I'm obviously being totally shallow here and could be wrong.