What have they done to my show?!! I love Masterchef. It's one of the best "competition shows" on television - or was. It used to be a small, interesting cookery competition with an aim to find the best amateur cooks in the country. There was a sweaty bloke who looked like he'd been drinking and a grocer and sometimes that nice fella off Michel Roux's Service would pop in to judge as well. But now, what have they done?!!
They've turned the show into an X Factor-style sob-story contest. One contestant this week actually said that her inspiration for the mandatory Roast Round was her dead father.
WHAT? I don't get it... you HAVE to make a Roast, that's what the round is all about... so how is your dead dad an inspiration in any way? I don't want to make light of the fact that he's dead, but he has little to do with the fact that you've been given ingredients and told to cook something as per the rules of the show.
It's all about the sob-stories - sorry, human interest anecdotes. The same old judges are there, but they've gone all shiny! All snappy sound-bites and swishy camera angles. The cooking has become secondary to the "plot" - there's a wacky American, a weepy housewife, a posh fella, a timid Italian Mum... it's about the characters, not the food. It's been ruined. Fuck off Masterchef-changers. Give us our lovely little show back.
