Top Chef Season 3
Like Lauren at television blog Everybody Loves Saturday Night, I’m very much missing Bravo’s Project Runway, but Top Chef is ably filling my guilty pleasure of reality television. Like PR, TC has a room full of artists who are given escalatingly inventive challenges each week. They face time and budget constraints. In the end their creations are judged by a panel that includes chef Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi (married to Salman Rushdie, and who flaunts a long scar on her right arm that she got from an auto accident), Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine, and a guest judge, most often Ted Allen, formerly of Queer Eye. The TC judges panel is nowhere near as snarky as that of PR, but there’s still lots of criticism that might not be entirely constructive.
The first two shows’ eliminations weren’t suprising. Both Clay and Sandee were much less experienced than other chefs in the competition. While Tre seems to be an early favorite (not unlike Michael Knight of PR3), I think Hung might be the chef to beat.
What engages me about both shows is how creativity and performance can either bloom or wilt under pressure. I couldn’t do what they do, but I enjoy watching what they do.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:29 am
I think the show would be improved with Anthony Bourdain in every episode. I think Tre and Hung are good bets, but we don’t really know any of the other chefs yet.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Anthony Bourdain was a good judge, though when I watched his show again I still didn’t like it enough to watch it every week.
I think Tre will be gone sooner than later. I really appreciated Howie’s comeback in the last episode, and look forward to tonight.