dewelar

Yes, I'm in the US, but read about GBBO's impending return on the board here. I checked Wikipedia, and that's where I found out they filmed the whole season in six weeks. If GCBS can do the same, I don't see any reason it can't be on the air by January.

Obviously I don't know for sure, but when the media says "winter" this is generally what they mean. If they mean December, they'll say "autumn". Also, if the show runs ten weeks and they start filming soon, they can have it wrapped by the end of November and have plenty of turnaround time. Alternatively, they could follow the lead of the GBBO and do quarantine filming for six weeks.

Winter 2021 almost certainly means January/February, not December.

Also, since you're including Pixar, there's Atta. (Also Eilonwy, but nobody remembers her.)

Ah, Janet. I liked her quite a bit, as I have most of the older competitors. I do wonder if there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation developing, in that older bakers may be applying less often because of the everything-Instagrammable mindset the show has formed.

There was also Brendan from S3, who according to Wikipedia was 63 (Nancy was 60 when she won) and also made the final. ETA: Also S7's Jane was 61, but Brendan looks like the oldest finalist to date. Mind you, given S10's cast (only one over 40), that record will likely stand for a bit.

So, I finally broke down and watched this episode while eating lunch today. Someone upthread said the episode lacked life, and I agree -- and not just because of my missing Malarkey. Gregory being obviously off his game didn't help -- I had to laugh at him putting what had to be several hundred dollars worth of truffle on each plate and his dish was STILL missing truffle flavor! Will miss him, though, as he was my second-favorite after Melissa. Indeed. If anything -- and this may make me a bad person -- whenever they highlight someone's inspirational (or, often, "inspirational") story, I immediately begin rooting against that person. Beyond just feeling manipulated, it immediately makes me think that someone's thumb is on the scale for that person, and I would prefer to believe people win these competitions on merit (even if it's not true).

Oh, very well, if I must 😄 . I mean, it's not that I dislike any of the remaining chefs, it's just that I don't really find any of them interesting to watch. They're either super-low-key (Melissa, Gregory, Bryan) or bring negative energy (Stephanie, Kevin), which for me portends a flat finale. Anyway, I've been rooting for Melissa pretty much all season, so will continue to pick her to win.

I didn't get the chance to watch until tonight, but I noticed something about the elimination challenge: Melissa, who picked first, won. Gregory and Malarkey, who picked next-to-last and last, finished next-to-last and last. How often does that happen, I wonder? To be frank, and I know this will be an unpopular sentiment: I will miss Malarkey greatly, as I need as much joy as I can get right now, quality of cooking be damned since, after all, I can't taste it anyway 😞 . I may even skip the finale.

Now THAT would have been a feat -- taken out by two double eliminations in the same season!

A philharmonic is pretty much just a full-size orchestra -- the term is used to differentiate it from smaller types of orchestra. More here.

Oh, no doubt. I didn't mean 16 new chefs necessarily, although that would be cool. I fully expect Antonia back, and Paper Chef AG, and probably some of the competition junkies like Falkner and Greenspan.

Or, alternatively, a whole new bracket of 16, with the winner facing Brooke for the title.

Even the second TOS pilot...Gary Mitchell, human frailty..... Also true, though less specifically applicable -- for that matter, the entirety of TOS was essentially about exploring the human condition. "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", of course, was more directly about a number of topics covered in ST:P, and came to quite different conclusions.

Indeed, it was the theme of the seventh episode of TOS for goodness sake.

The reject pile from her other FN shows, no doubt.

Ah, this forum is up just in time for me to say I'm done with this show 😄 . I had been enjoying it up until tonight, but wow, was the ending of tonight's show quite the dumpster fire. How does an executive chef hear someone say they're not good with flour, and then assign them something that's pretty much entirely dependent on flour?! Let Janey do the frittata, or the Benedict, and have someone else do the pancake/waffle. It's that simple -- a leader would recognize that immediately and course-correct. Jeff should have gotten booted just for utterly biffing that simplest of decisions, and yet the judges didn't even give him any flack for it. But that's not the end of it. I sort of get them calling Janey unprofessional for changing her dish without telling Jeff, but did Jeff really not notice this until well into prep? Scones are so hard to make he can't take five seconds to check in with Janey? Oh, and Jeffrey and Juan were the most professional for keeping their mouths shut? Apparently, "professional" to the judges just means "shut up and stay in your lane". Bah. This whole thing made me legitimately angry, and has pretty much cemented my utter dislike for Anne Burrell. I thought Scott Conant was better than this, too. After tonight, I don't think any of these people should get this job, and if they do I'll know what restaurant to avoid next time I'm in Vegas.

I don't think so (other than cooking time, anyway). My theory has been that if something was picked by the wheel, it was removed and replaced with something else -- and if that's true, I approve.

When Sohrob did his cherry "splatter", the first thing I thought of was "someone stabbed that poor dog and it bled out on the plate".

I'm pretty sure that much was evident from the beginning 😄.

Well, the seeding gimmick seems to have fallen flat. It's one thing when there are a couple of upsets, but when upsets are the norm -- which I'd say is true when five of the top six seeds lose in round one -- then everyone (except Antonia) is an underdog, and that takes some of the fun out of it.

I can't help but notice that thus far, half the higher seeds have won, and half the lower. Number 1 seeds are 1-1, the one #2 and one #3 have each lost, but both the 4 seeds won their rounds. It's almost like the seeding is random or something 😉.

I've been ranting this same rant since the beginning of time (well, the beginning of cooking shows with briefs, anyway). This was actually one of the lesser examples, because at least it was in the ballpark of the brief (i.e., still a fault line, just a sideways one). I keep waiting for someone to come on of these shows and, say, bake the perfect chocolate cake every single week no matter what the challenge, and see how long it took for them to get the boot. That would be more entertaining than watching someone have to combine kiwi and kiwi 😒.

They mentioned he was 20 when he cooked for Team USA in 2008, so that would make him 31-32 now. Loved this show, loved that they did blind judging, and especially loved that Paper Chef Guarnaschelli lost. Best thing FN's done in ages.

Just coming to post that Mrs. Dewelar pretty much made the exact same comment about not none of these kids standing out to her. The only thing she remembered was that one of them (Sam, I think) sounded like Homestar Runner (which I felt slightly bad for laughing at).