Top Chef "Chef Overboard" Sept 5, 2007

[StevieG]

Less than an hour until Howie addresses the panel.

I'm psyched to see the bulldog go insane.

[StevieG]

Really tough quickfire. I kind of like how Hung said "screw this, I'll just act silly."

Brian made the right move by choosing himself to be team leader. Definitely a risk to stick your neck out, but if he ducked and let someone else take the lead, he might as well quit.

Like Colicchio says, it's not "it's Top Chef, not Top Sous Chef."

[StevieG]

And indeed, Brian acknowledged it himself. "Was there any other choice?"

[Don_Lapre]

Good episode so far, why was all the food on bread? I hope Howie doesn't go, he makes the show interesting.

[Don_Lapre]

Well there goes that.

[Autocratic]

Howie was the obvious choice, throwing himself under the bus was actually a bitch move, he knew he was probably being sent home regardless and was trying to give himself a valiant exit.

[StevieG]

That Michael Schwartz judge was a real douche. I bet Deterle calls him out on his blog.

I thought Hung was in real trouble there. He really seemed to mail this one in.

[ElSapo]

First time at judge's table: You all put out crap.

Second time at the table: Some dishes wowed us.

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I think Top Chef has made some serious errors this season. They chose a bunch of chefs that are all relatively talented, not that interested in drama, and are fairly mature. For me, this episode actually showed that the competitors may have more integrity than the judges (who, of course, are bound by the network to be entertaining, so it's not exactly their fault).

Sending Howie hokme was the obvious and probably right choice. But I really came to like that guy over the last three weeks, and I would have liked to see some of his choices and his integrity be rewarded. But who you would send home besides him, well, no idea.

It's tough to see a frontrunner at this point. Maybe that's what they were going for, but it feels weird. I feel like a few people won't go much further, but at the same point I felt like Howie should still be here.

Who knows.

[XXXNoahXXX]

I feel like any of the final four from either Season 1 or 2 would be an easy winner if they were in this season.

The overall quality is just bad. Chicken salad on a crustini? Hung's salmon and cucumber? As someone who rarely cooks, I feel like they should at least be doing things that I wouldn't do.

There was very little thinking outside the box in the main challenge.

[Dids]

I kinda hated this challenge.

WRT to "safe" choices. I feel like at some point the chef's remember and the judges forget that they're cooking as part of a real event that they want to go off well. Yes, people could throw out crazy ideas and take risk, but then you're sitting there with egg on your face and a room full of people that hate you. There's some wisdom in "safe" especially when you're asking to make fancy food on a limited budget.

I also thought that Hung's point, while not well delivered, was valid. Not a lot of this as new. Hung is still haunted with a tragic lack of imagination in a lot of these challenges. When he did get creative, in the quickfire, it was just weird.

I think a good idea in this show is to never take a leadership role. Not doing it doesn't hurt you, and if you do take it, you're subject to a pretty difficult moving target wrt to expectations. I think this

I swear a lot, I know people in kitchens swear a lot, but I can turn it off when I need to, and I wish they would when they're on TV. I'm surprised to see myself say this, but it just seems really low rent when somebody is like "wtf is this". It feels like each guest judge is trying to be more frank and dickish than the next, and that's not fun to watch.

Obviously Howie should have gone. There was almost no tension in the ep as it was obvious from jump his time was up.