Like talent shows Idol, X Factor, and The Voice, it's about the judges.
Shouldn't it be focused on the contestants and their cooking?
For my money they are performing in a tortuous arena, the pressure, the stress, and the personal agony is legendary.
Cursory once-overs at the cooking benches aside, mostly we get an entertainment-style running commentary from the judges.
In Australian MasterChef the judges are a deeply irritating threesome.
Brit/Aussie foodie, restaurant critic writer and "television personality" Matt Preston is a well-nourished chap who wears an eclectic array of cravats and various plaid jackets.
I find it difficult to watch him at the judges' table, savouring the dishes with mostly knitted brows, his thick, conditioned hair flopping perfectly from it's carefully combed parting .
George Calombaris, an Australian chef and restaurateur with Greek heritage, is a short but loud chap with a wide smile and criticism to match. He bounces his way around the competition kitchen with alacrity, maddening enthusiasm ... he really is an annoying sort of stooge person. His tasting at the judge's table is an entertainment in itself; quirky, cartoonish impersonations and jerky head movements.
The judge I see as Mr Much-To-Say is Gary Mehigan, an English-Australian chef. He's the smooth chap of the trio in the mould of King of Cool Dean Martin to the others' Jerry Lewis. He is smiling and well elocuted, so at the final sitting at the close of each show he's the fund of information about whether the dish was the right or wrong side of delicious.
These nightly comments concentrate most on the flavours and are obviously based on personal taste and bents. In essence (pardon the pun) I want more of the cooking of those creative dishes, their ingredients, methods and the processes.
Show me the blood, sweat and heat from the cooking benches, the extraordinary culinary masterpieces these mostly youngish contestants are whipping up. I have the utmost admiration for them.
I don't need celeb judges with too much to say, who are hellbent on being great entertainers ... it's about cooking not entertainment isn't it?