Mediocre Chef
Season 5 of Top Chef was surely not about about being top. It was about scraping by with decent dishes and then somehow pulling off a win in the finale. For Hosea, the least talented winner in all five seasons, that’s how he won. For Stefan, it was proof that greatness through an entire season doesn’t mete out. And for Carla, it was a lesson in taking the lead when you are, you know, the leader.
For those of you not familiar with the show, here’s how it works. A number of chefs assemble in a city where they compete in challenges of cooking, management, and product placement. On each week’s episode, they first complete a short challenge; the winner receives serious advantage in the main challenge. After the main challenge, one chef is eliminated. At the end, the last few remaining contestants pack up and go to another city, where they cook one final meal for the judges. After that, one chef is chosen as the season’s winner.
The show has a variety of issues, as does any show. But usually, these don’t cause problems. The biggest issue is that the judges are quite adamant that each challenge is judged on its own. If you were the best chef four weeks in a row but then produce a terrible meal, you will be eliminated. This works very well through the first half of each season, when it’s quite unlikely that any chef will be so wildly inconsistent without seeming like they deserve to go home quite clearly. But as things wind down, we get a feel for which chefs have real talent and which are merely coasting by.
The downfall of the show was precisely because of the judges’ lack of consideration for what it means to be “top chef.” It doesn’t mean that you happen to produce the best three courses for the final challenge. It means that you shined through the whole season and continually showed good skill, good vision, good palette, and good leadership. Hosea never clearly demonstrated any of these things. He had moments where he did well, but mostly he flopped.
Here’s how the finale should work. Make it more like Project Runway. Have each chef return home, concentrate on their work, prepare some great dishes. Then bring their ideas back to the same city (rather than going somewhere else), let them work alone in the kitchen (rather than scrambling around with other chefs) with the materials they brought along or purchased, and then serve their meal, their way, to the judges. It takes all the manufactured drama out of the finale. Luck shouldn’t play a big role at any part of the show, but it’s necessary for fairness. That is, until the finale, when skill and talent should be the only factor.
Hosea is worthless, Stefan should have won, and the show is at risk of becoming a joke.
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