All of which might lead all sensible, right-thinking New Zealanders to assume that Come Dine With Me has supplanted this year's X Factor as the most loathsome product to emerge from TV3's reality TV factory in 2015.
Only, it's not. In fact, it's comfortably the best. It's early days, but the show has a real chance at toppling New Zealand's Next Top Model as the greatest locally produced version of an imported reality TV franchise. Admittedly, that's a title almost no one cares about, or even knows exists, but it's not nothing.
There are two main reasons the show works. Firstly, slobby amateurism has always been the core of the show's appeal. Unlike every other cooking show, this one glories in the casual culinary incompetence of regular people. So there are no production values for New Zealand television's famously lean budgets to fail to support.
Secondly, the casting has been extraordinary so far. In three completed weeks (the fourth has just started, and is shaping up well) we've had the following archetypes: pervy, two-faced real estate villain; a 50s-obsessed pin-up model; a vegan bodybuilder; two beautiful, naive socialites; two eye-poppingly over-the-top actors; and a delightful muslim chap named Khalid.
They've each taken turns cooking and hosting a meal for one another, with the aim of winning $2000 - a very simple premise which nonetheless leaves room for calamity. Pretty Shore girl Jemima called all theatre actors "weird", while professing a profound desire to be an actress, then innocently named a cocktail Taste My Kitty. Tall African-American Calvin talked earnestly about how basketball was in his "soul", before sending up a cascade of tragically misdirected airballs. Loathsome Tony the estate agent danced around his garden with an inanimate woman constructed principally from a broom.
And in every potentially dull moment, narrator Williams gently pokes fun at his diners. He's nowhere near as riotously ruthless as his standup - or his acerbic UK counterpart Dave Lamb - but the situation doesn't call for it. These are (Tony aside) good-hearted people, trying their best to make a meal for some strangers. It's a sweet, open premise, and those who welcome us into their homes for the chance to win a small pot of gold deserve a modicum of respect. Williams mostly errs on the side of affectionate humour - aside from chiding them for their pronunciation, which is very pot-kettle-black.
That, and the distinct lack of alcohol-fuelled lunacy are the show's chief failings by comparison to the Australian and UK versions, both of which often have a healthy glow on. But those are minor issues, easily forgotten when you're watching a middle-aged woman discussing cultural mores while dressed as a taco.
It brings me no pleasure to point out that both The Bachelor and Come Dine With Me were produced by Eyeworks, the production company recently vacated by Julie Christie on her way to a new lair at MediaWorks, where she would soon execute a beloved show in favour of a production by her own former company. But that's beside the point. Because each Eyeworks show succeeds - where X Factor manifestly failed - thanks to the attention to detail paid to the people we'd be watching each night.
Ironically enough, that was something Campbell Live thought hard about too. But while it remains deeply sad that it's gone, we shouldn't let the entirely innocent show forced to march in Campbell Live's wake take the blame for its demise. Because, while not yet out of the oven, Come Dine With Me is coming along nicely.
