A Rat in the Kitchen!

Last year I made a promise to myself. It wasn’t made lightly or without much thought. It was a matter of principle and something that I cared deeply about. The promise I made to myself:

NEVER WATCH MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA EVER AGAIN!

Why did I make such a decision? Call it a protest of sorts: a protest against deliberately manipulated outcomes that increasingly dominate reality television. Anyone who watched the series would attest to the fact that Julie Goodwin (the eventual winner and I‘m happy to note a somewhat insignificant figure on the Australian television landscape except for her target audience: stupid, gullible housewives who watch crap like Kerri-Anne) should have been eliminated multiple times in the last two weeks and was somehow kept in the competition. As a dead give away to the ridiculous meddling this involved: for most of the final week we didn’t see the judges deliberation as presumably they would have had to admit that her performance did not warrant her continuation in the competition. Ultimately though, she didn’t deserve to win because she wasn’t a master CHEF. Julie was a great cook no doubt but was clearly an inferior chef in terms of her presentation and style of food.

The reason why I rehash this old news, much to my satisfaction there was a significant backlash from the netizens about this travesty of justice, is that history is repeating itself. A feature of Julie’s tarnished run to the line was a series of incomplete dishes that failed at a basic level to meet the requirements of the challenges. For instance, the task was to complete a two course meal and she completed one or half or not much of it at all. Regardless, the judges gushed about how tasty her food was and a contestant who actually completed the task (shock, horror: someone actually doing what they asked) was shown the door because they weren’t overweight, had a stupid Australian accent, cried at the drop of a hat and gushed constantly about cooking for their kids.

It seems Callum from South Australia has the same such luck. In tonight’s elimination challenge he failed to plate up the five dishes as required in the task (notice the similarity) but somehow avoided the bottom three because it tasted so good (despite ALL THE OTHER CONTESTANTS plating up the 5 dishes as required). This is a joke: if not completing all aspects of the task are required to go through then previously eliminated contestants have a right to complain. Maybe if the judges had chosen to ignore incomplete task at other stages then they might have survived.

It’s left me wondering why Callum is having so much luck. A few things immediately come to mind: large puppy dog eyes, a cute but stupid sounding lisp, looking like an idiot, being only 20 years old and residing in South Australia. All these things normally spell disadvantage and probably do for him in normal life: he probably has problem relating to people (perhaps living in South Australia this is negated as most people are weird in that state) and being a young man obsessed with lisping and cooking would make him a bit different from the football crowd. Moreover, his constant looks of disappointment and blinking back tears probably make it hard to maintain a conversation with him as you would be afraid of him breaking into great big sobs. However, maybe this is a demographic that Channel 10 has identified as the next big money spinner. Due to the failure of Julie Goodwin’s cookbooks (its already on sale at Borders which is a bad sign) maybe they have realized that stupid housewives tune in but don’t fork out the money for the merchandise.

Either way, there is definitely a rat in the kitchen and no amount of over dramatic acting by the three judges can hide the fact!