Top Chef 7/18

[C-Dog]

I am not sure they meant to do the time move up. Even during the lunch at the TV show, I thought I heard Tom talking to the cast how they moved their lunch up. It may have not been planned.

C-Dog

[Aloysius]

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It just felt very contrived, artificial and pointless.

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Agree on the first two points, but pointless? What exactly are you arguing? He changed the rules of a game where the time limit was arbitrary to begin with. And it forced the chefs to think on their feet and adjust on the fly. I imagine this is an important skill to have in most restaurant kitchens.

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I understand that it's all fair play. I just think it makes the show less interesting to watch when you have one guy making chocolate mouse and someone else making rabbit, then competing against each other.

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Also, you think it's less interesting when a very versatile ingredient, allowing for tons of room for creativity, is the focus of a cooking challenge? I guess you haven't noticed this, but many ingredients can go savory or sweet and you see this variety in choice all the time in these challenges. Honestly don't understand your complaint here, either.

Stevie - Actually in my list above Brian should probably be ahead of Joey. I think Tre and Hung are locks for Top 4, with Brian not too far behind.

Can't see any of the women making the Top 4, unless Casey emerges or every future challenge involves cheese and Sarah M starts dominating.

Dids:

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Hung kinda thinks way inside the box on a lot of these challenges and is getting outclassed. He's the only guy who just basically made a pie.

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Good point - I guess when he's out of his element he just sticks to the basics (which isn't a terrible strategy). Actually, Hung just looked exhausted this episode, maybe he's starting to be affected by this.

-Al

[bernie]

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When you go out and tell them that today they have 3 hours I think it's just stupid to change it after the fact because it can create really unfair situations if one person picked dishes that NEED to cook for more time and others picked dishes where no component can't be rushed.

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I guess you and many of the chefs glossed over Tom's initial comments to them about how the cast of the Spanish soap opera is on a tight, unpredictable schedule. In fact, if I recall correctly he made numerous statements to them about this. Of course, all many of them heard was "you will have three hours to prepare."

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Nope, I heard it. Obviously it was setup for the "surprise" but it was still lame. When I'm on a tight and unpredictable schedule I don't eat elaborate lunches with 10 different entre options. It just felt very contrived, artificial and pointless.

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There is no way that little change wasn't contrived. Gaurantee it was preplanned out. That's the way tv works on these types of shows. The only wildcards are the contestants and even some of them they're predicting their reactions.

But it did make for an interesting situation.

b

[Evan]

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When you go out and tell them that today they have 3 hours I think it's just stupid to change it after the fact because it can create really unfair situations if one person picked dishes that NEED to cook for more time and others picked dishes where no component can't be rushed.

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I guess you and many of the chefs glossed over Tom's initial comments to them about how the cast of the Spanish soap opera is on a tight, unpredictable schedule. In fact, if I recall correctly he made numerous statements to them about this. Of course, all many of them heard was "you will have three hours to prepare."

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Nope, I heard it. Obviously it was setup for the "surprise" but it was still lame. When I'm on a tight and unpredictable schedule I don't eat elaborate lunches with 10 different entre options. It just felt very contrived, artificial and pointless.

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There is no way that little change wasn't contrived. Gaurantee it was preplanned out. That's the way tv works on these types of shows. The only wildcards are the contestants and even some of them they're predicting their reactions.

But it did make for an interesting situation.

b

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I can totally understand people disagreeing that it was lame, as that's completely dependent on personal taste. However, I can't understand how anyone thinks the time change wasn't 100% planned.

Whether or not it's a realistic thing that happens I have no idea. It seems weird to me, but multiple people, including those on the show, have implied that it is common, so I certainly will not argue. That doesn't make it any more interesting though. I'm sure that drawing knives to randomly determine what cocktail you will pair your dish with isn't common at all in restaurants, but that makes for a fun challenge to watch. I didn't feel that the time crunch scenario did, but again, I get it if some people do. I just don't get how you can think it was anything but planned.