Opinion

MasterChef cooks up a masterstroke

The unthinkable has happened. Marion is gone. Skewered by a satay, no less.

When last night's two-stage MasterChef elimination reduced the four members of the blue team to just two, and then demanded they each produce a satay sauce in 15 minutes, the conspiracy theorists (and there are many) must have thought the fix was in. How could Marion – with her technical brilliance, her grace under pressure, her Thai cook for a mother – not win? Aaron was a goner, for sure.

But Gary and George decreed that Aaron had produced the better sauce (that's sure how it looked in viewerland, too), and the conspiracy theorists were proved wrong.

Or were they? Rather than losing its star talent, has MasterChef in fact just pulled off an absolute masterstroke?

Consider this. Marion Grasby has been the clear favourite to take out the MasterChef crown almost from the beginning. The 27-year-old former ABC journalist was the first to win a celebrity chef challenge (sorry to bring that up again, Frank Camorra) and the sight of her winning yet another competition had become as much a staple of the show as that of watching Jonathan "the Eliminator" fight his way back from the brink yet again (last night's elimination battle was, from recollection, his seventh of the season).

That air of predictability threatened to rob the show of much of its tension as it enters its final fortnight. But now it's anyone's game. As back-from-the-dead contestant Jimmy said last night, "I see two looks on everyone's faces. It's a look of shock and a look of relief. 'Marion's gone . . . now I stand a chance to win this'."

MasterChef has been ratings gold for Ten this season, and three times this week has topped the 2 million figure (with a series high of 2.14 million last night), an astonishing result for a show that runs six nights a week. But the benchmark that the series has set itself is massive: last year's grand finale was watched by a staggering 3.7 million people in the five mainland capitals (the traditional guide to "all people" ratings figures), and by an estimated 4.2 million people in the entire country. That's almost one in five Australians.

It achieved that result because a lot of people who had followed the show sporadically returned for the finale. That happens with all long-form reality contests – Dancing With the Stars, Australian Idol, Australia's Got Talent – but numbers like that are rare. Only the first season of Idol has come close to matching them.

This season, MasterChef's ratings have been consistently strong, averaging in recent weeks 1.8 million or so per night. But there was a danger that, as Marion's inevitable victory drew near, those figures wouldn't spike in the way they did last year. The rusted-on viewers would keep watching, but the casuals would not.

Now, though, it's a different game. There's a genuine excitement again to the question "who do you think will win?" It's always been compelling television, but now MasterChef has got back the one ingredient it looked to have lost: surprise.

In offices, at kitchen tables, in schoolyards, everyone will be talking about MasterChef today.

Conspiracy or not, for everyone associated with the show that is the tastiest result imaginable.

Karl Quinn is the entertainment editor at The Age

Page:

single page

Posted By: Karl Quinn on 9/07/2010 4:08:00 PM | Comments (5)

Share on
Facebook

Tweet on
Twitter

Email to
a friend

comments

Date: Newest first | Oldest first

IF I SEE ONE MORE SHOW OF MASTER CHEF I WILL SCREAM! What is it run 24 hours day?

Posted by carmatt, 11/07/2010 11:30:03 AM

My God it's a reality show get over it. I cannot believe that people have been sucked in by this nonsense. The greatest con job of all is the reality show. The networks in a grab for cheap thrills for the underclass have collectively killed off the need for real talent or acting ability and decimated employment opportunities for actors across the entire entertainment business. Throw a group of overrated ‘celebrities’ in with a bunch of mediocre people with no real talent and you have a cheap as chips show to entertain the ‘westies.

Posted by Lara, 12/07/2010 2:41:26 PM

Following the uproar over Marion's elimination, a new format has been announced for the next season. Ten contestants will cook five dishes over five days. The judges will pick the best, and the competition's over - no danger of the best cook being eliminated. If this format proves too short for viewers, an alternative format will see all the contestants continue to cook stuff daily, with one of the nine losing contestants kicked off the show each week in pre-determined order based on the initial five-day cook-off, once again ensuring that the best cook eventually wins. But, and here's the twist, a viewers' favourite, based on a phone-in poll (max. call cost 55c) will be secretly retained and will place second regardless of their cooking ability. That, after all, seems to be what the viewers want.

Posted by Shady, 13/07/2010 4:05:47 PM

With the obesity problem affecting approx. half of the population, the prevalence of reality cooking shows is sickening. When people are not stuffing their faces, they have to find more ways of adding to the `sugar and fat' assaults on their bodies. Aren't there better ways to pass the time?

Posted by Cheeba's Mum, 15/07/2010 9:38:00 PM

These idiots that make masterchef contestants cook things like that 8 layer vanilla cake in 4 hours when they make it over 3 days themselves are wankers and need to pull their head in and put forward something that the AMATEUR chef contestants can reasonably make within the time constraints. Not only does it stuff the contestants, but it also makes the idiots who want the contestants to make those unrealistic products look like like the tossers that they obviously are. DICKHEADS! GET REAL FOOLS!

Posted by bob, 20/07/2010 7:53:55 PM

Here is the place for you to vent on any national or world news and lifestyle stories on the YourGuide websites. If there is anything you see or hear that you like or don't like, tell us. Don't keep it to yourself!