MasterChef Australia
The first taste of TEN's new reality series spun FremantleMedia's lazy susan of audition devices previously employed for singers & dancers. But the real test is to come.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming, Reviews
“You’re going to Sydney!”
TEN served up it’s new reality series MasterChef Australia tonight cooked with a splash of colour, personalities and ambitions as its mid year main course.
The search to transform an amateur cook into the next big thing in the food industry will become stripped television, airing six nights a week.
For Australia it is a new format, with a new television host and new judges. The question is whether it can be eaten up by a new audience.
The first episode focussed on its searches in Sydney and Adelaide. 7500 people applied to be on the show. Some made it to these city cook-offs.
The show began safely, with a montage of what was to follow with a voice-over hyping up the stakes (or is that steaks?) and moments of drama.
Host Sarah Wilson introduced us to the Sydney cook offs with shots of the Sydney Opera House and queues of hopeful contestants. You could be mistaken for thinking you had tuned in to another reality show.
Select contestants soon followed in profile. Here contestants had an hour to cook and five minutes to serve up their best dish for three well-fed judges Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston.
Alas, several contestants didn’t cut the mustard until one woman was embraced, literally, for her home-cooked style as a tasty and honest dish.
Across the Sydney auditions the format stuck like glue to other FremantleMedia reality shows. Two judges have even borrowed Jason Coleman’s trademark “yeah?” (“We’re expecting something bam, yeah?” / “I want to see it, yeah?”).
Some contestants emerged jubilant to the waiting throng, elated they were ‘going to Sydney.’ Had they just sung a song or danced? Not quite.
Adelaide chefs were next, as Wilson told us the huddled masses were waiting to find out who would be Australia’s next MasterChef. Make that first MasterChef, Sarah? Reiterate the brand, perhaps…
But Adelaide failed to get the message, as it seemingly always does when TEN visits for reality television. At Mehigan’s insistence, Calombaris had to bark at the contestants to lift their game. Lo and behold, the next cook was a wonder. It’s a technique often employed by FremantleMedia -in fact so was the show.
The audition week on its first outing played it unexcitingly safe. A lazy susan of devices for auditioning singers and dancers was applied to chefs here. But cooking doesn’t translate anywhere near as well as singing or dancing. We don’t smell or taste the dishes in the same way as when we are moved by song or watching dancers crumble in such a tele-visual heap. So it’s up to the judges to do it for us.
At first glance Preston is very good, larger than life, with an easily communicated character. He’s like a royal taste tester with an upper-class delivery. He’d have been perfectly good fronting his own show once a week. Mehigan, Calombaris -and for that matter Wilson- are yet to really prove their stuff. At least they weren’t pigeon-holed into good judge / bad judge.
This preliminary week is not the real test. That comes next week when MasterChef moves into its weeknight challenges. Then it will be up to viewers to take the taste test and decide if MasterChef works as an expanded feast or is just a television progressive dinner.
MasterChef Australia airs Sunday – Friday nights on TEN.
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92 Responses
What a joke, these judges desperately need new script writers. Basically telling every contestant they are going home then turning it round to let them know they are staying gets old, Fast!
Maybe use it once or twice but everytime? Come on! It was embarrasing to watch.
i like it but the contestants are all such a bunch of boot lickers
Judge “that’s horrible”
Contestant “thank you”
Jeezuz,
Master Chef. a really great programme being ruined by the background music. Please remember Chanel 10, the contestants are ordinary people and so are the Chefs etc, they have not been trained to project their voice and are not schooled in delivering their lines. The music is so loud and overbearing it belongs as backing for some epic movie not a cooking show. Please do something about it.
I love the show and the further it gets into it the more exciting it gets…but… Please turn the background music down as I cant hear the dialogue because it is so loud…
I have to listen through a headset on account of my deafness and the loud music is very distracting and I am sure there are many more like me…..Please, please turn it down ! better still.. Turn it off !
George Calombaris has to stop saying ‘yeah?’
“lets make it happen, yeah?”
“Dont stuff it up yeah?”
‘Just nail it, yeah?”
Insane.
Its growing on me – people who have branded it horrible and woeful – have you actually sat down and watched it and its like only on its 5th day – still not the real thing. Calm down!
When Jamie Oliver is talking to anyone he ends almost every sentence with “Yeah?”. It drives me nuts and I can’t watch him because of it.
The bald guy on this show feels he has to do the same thing. Why can’t we Aussies do something different.
Reasons MasterChef may not work:
* More reality rubbish from Channel 10
* Hells Kitchen had died in the ratings late last year, so it was unlikely that another cooking program was going to last
* People may be sick to death of the 3 judges and 1 is a bitch routine.
* Cooking programs are really for one particular demographic, so it’s hard to imagine a mass audience will find it appealing ……
Is this another Yasmine on the menu ?
More rubbish from Channel 10 – what will they think of next ………..
Hey. I am from sweden, i am just here in australia and vistinig some friends.
I really like Masterchef Australia, i am a chef back in sweden so it is fun to see some cooking, and different food dishes than we use to cook in sweden,
one negative thing is all the commercial all the time, in the premier show there where like 5 commercial breaks in 30 minutes, that’s way to mutch, in sweden we have one commercial break per 30 min. it is not just masterchef australia that has so mutch breaks all the time, all the tv channels here in australia seems to have more commercial than the actuall tv show it self .
i hope you understand something i wroted, my english spelling sucks -_-
They should not be allowed to use the Masterchef name as it nothing like the UK version (which I find far more entertaining by the way.). The show should be called Australian Idol Chef or So You Think You Can Cook. The only thing constructive about the judges is how they can think of ways to belittle the contestants. I dont think I will be able to watch it as I am tired of this format weather it be for singers, dancers, chefs or lazy teens sitting around a house.
As someone who made it through to the first audition, it’s interesting to hear people voicing the thoughts of those who auditioned. I saw very talented people not get through simply because they didn’t tear up, dress up, or have an interesting story to tell. And those who did, certainly didn’t present the best or tastiest dishes.
Diasppointing really, because I think most of us thought it would follow in the steps of the UK series.
Dreadful. They turned a cooking show… a bloody Cooking Show into an Aussie Idol clone. Jeez…
The fact that all 3 judges are so far up their own backsides isn’t helping either.
Ready Steady Cook would have been a better fit in that timeslot.
I have watched and loved the UK version of this show for years!
What have they done to it…… they should change the name of the show as to not put doubt in peoples minds in regard to the real UK version! – perhaps “RealityChef” is a better name.
Its about the food as much as it is about the people, i think they have put too much focus on the people.
Lets be honest we all love it whe people stuff up and masterchef is no different. But hit & miss in the kitchen is different to “road-kill” or cooking a pasta sauce with “cream and sweet chilli sauce” – Does masterchef australia have the best amateur chefs onboard it’s show……. i think not!
I for one (a foxtel subscriber and food channel lover) wont bother with this show, i can only say i hope next year they go back to basics and follow suite.
It actually reminds me of top-gear! lets stuff up another already great show/platform from the UK.
My2Cents
Dan.
You dont have to cook well. Just have a really good sob story and your in….
The auditions are an awful waste of time. Sooooo draaawn out and predictable. “i’m passionate”, “i’m passionate”, “I have an inferno in my heart” !!!!
I love the show, even if it is following a tried-and-tested formula. And, James, everyone knows that Brisbane food is shite!
Wow. I understand what people are saying, but I liked it, and will probably continue to watch it. Agree that it’s way OTT drama-wise, but still, I prefer cooking to dancing or singing.
Why did they only show the Brisbane auditions for 15 minutes out of an hour? A city of almost 2 million gets less airtime then Adelaide or Perth? Also, the whole Adelaide bashing is pretty old too.
This whole city based, Australian Idol BS needs to stop. Have one audition in one city, pick the best 20, and get on with it.
Masterchef UK is a hell of a lot better. Less melodrama, more focus on the quality of the food rather then the personality of the chef.
Very poor overall, and I was looking forward to it. Even the judges look like they hate how they are made to over-act.
Ok.. Watched the second episode and was not really blown away, however I will stay tuned in for the challenges because I reckon that’s when the show will shine.
what a truely horrible show. gave it 2 nights. that’s me done.
I like the show!
This is from David Mott, Ten’s Chief Programming Officer – “It’s an entirely new format on Australian television.” Excuse me? Dance crud, idol crud, biggest loser crud, crud brother.
Mott, you’re an idiot.
Its already been said but I also watched all the UK seasons of Masterchef and found the auditions very boring. If people who haven’t seen this show before and get bored with the auditions there is no reason why they would bother coming back in a weeks time. They should have jumped straight into the cooking.
OMG. I can see why BB needed a rest, and I’m glad TEN is trying something different. But, personally I cannot believe the stupidity TEN has come up with. It is a friggen cooking show.
Glamorize it up as a heart pumping, next big thing, it reality series as much as you want TEN, it isn’t reality no more than Ready Steady Cook is.
It may be about real people, but it is about cooking, about buying, preparing and cooking meals, it is about doing this in different ways, hence, it is a cooking show.