retrograde

Yay, Conor. Also yay minimal larrikins and blond chicks "inspired" by that one time they went to Bali.

Yeah I could do without the auditions (we've seen half the people who get through in the ads anyway) but I don't think there was anyone I disliked.

I liked the other three episodes but this one was rough. It's mean to satirize a kid (OK, Google says she's now 18 [whaaaat?!?] but still), Lauren's surprise congratulations powerpoint was so contrived (I know she's someone who acts first and thinks later, but c'mon, she didn't even try to confirm they're engaged?), the declarations of love at the meeting were mega inappropriate, Liza's "meeting halfway on marriage" was dumb and Charles' guilt trip about "bending" was also dumb. I did laugh a C-Lit, though.

I would say that NYPD cops refusing to wear masks is the most realistic thing about this season!

To be fair, it seems like there might be more constructive criticism that isn't usually shown, as the feedback on all but the best dishes is usually very truncated, and it often seems like the clip cuts in at "...but apart from that, the sauce was great." I can understand not wanting to shit on 8-year-olds' food on camera, but I agree it makes it a bit more boring for the viewer.

In the adult version, I'm always complaining that most so-called dessert kings and queens won't bake anything and instead just serve up plated dessert after plated dessert. But credit to these kids for trying cakes and biscuits and pies and pastries and tarts. I reckon they've done more dessert baking already than most full adult seasons.

Yes! This was the greatest line. He said it with all the sincerity of an adult contestant raving about a dish they had in Sri Lanka. (The dining scene in Albury has clearly improved since I was last there about 25 years ago and La Porchetta was the top option, though.) I'm also definitely going to be using "I'm gonna redo it... Sorry, no, I'm not gonna redo it. This is fine" as a meme for basically everything in life. Anyway, I'm not gonna critique anything (except the judges, but actually, Andy is much better suited to working with children it seems) or anyone because they're kids. I'm curious when this was filmed, they must have got pretty lucky between lockdowns in Melbourne.

Looks like the Kat/Ava ending was actually changed at the absolute last minute following the criticism.

I never liked team challenges (the food so often winds up mediocre, one shit contestant can sink a bunch of good ones) and am still enjoying the season. But if there's one thing that makes it less exciting to me, it's the fact that these guys are all already accomplished cooks. There isn't the thrill of seeing an amateur pull off something amazing, or seeing them improve significantly throughout the season. Like, of course Laura can make a great pasta dish and Amelia the perfect choux, that's their job. I still enjoy watching them compete against each other, but the special sauce of the regular season for me is discovering these unknown home cooks

Jesus. And I hadn't even heard about the Tudge thing. Although neither should have to spend their time and energy dealing with or educating people about this bullshit, good on Sarah for calling out Triple M and I'm glad that Melissa was able to back her up. Can you imagine the old judges offering anything constructive here?

Plus they probably have no more service challenges, which usually involve many diners. But I agree they must still have some insight into who competed in the finale itself. Every other online betting site has the same top three, but a fair bit of variation in places 4-9. And as we just saw, Sportsbet didn't seem to have banked on Sarah T going last night.

Latest odds: Emelia Jackson 1.19 Laura Sharrad 5.00 Reynold Poenomo 7.00 Poh Ling Yeow 20.00 Callum Hann 45.00 Khanh Ong 51.00 Sarah Tiong 67.00 Reece Hignell 81.00 Brendan Pang 91.00 Tessa Boersma 101.00

Even is Simon's dish hadn't been gross, what about sous vide broccoli screams "Australia"? Reynold's inability to make pastry as a dessert specialist is pretty lame. Poh really knows how to make incredible pies.

Argh, Masterchef Australia will screen Sunday-Tuesday for the remainder of the season to stretch it out because of the lack of other new content due to the coronavirus. I live in a city that is still under lockdown after more than two months, and now cops are beating people in the streets after curfew. This show is the only bright spot in my day.

Glad Andy was finally able to eat a slice of cake without telling us how he doesn't usually like cake. Growth.

I like all three fine, but agree they still need to learn how to describe the food. The other thing I'm surprised I miss is when a contestant is eliminated, the old judges would specifically name their highlights and best dishes. I'm sure the producers were feeding it to them through an earpiece, but still. The new judges just say "You were great and we'll miss you."

Boooo! I was really liking Jess this season. She was an actual underdog to support, while most of the remaining contestants are professionals now. Meanwhile, I assume Ben Ungermann's lawyer will be asking that he get a sentence of time served -- having suffered enough at the indignity of being kicked off the show before a wacky ice cream challenge.

Hmm the fact that Jess had good odds so recently does make me more skeptical this season. I always assumed they were paying off staffers on the show?!

I believe actually this season they put them up in separate serviced apartments rather than one big house (and I don't think we've seen the cars since they started the "social distancing" episodes). But I would've thought it wasn't so much the judges but the large crew around them all -- touching all the same surfaces and equipment, miking them up, etc. Every cameraman and PA and stylist is going home to their family at the end of the day, maybe even catching public transport. Anyway, the contestants are outside in that picture and not breathing in each others' faces or touching each other so they're probably fine. I reckon they're worse off when they're all crammed in the pantry together. And the judges also seem to come up waaay closer than six feet to them during the cooks and talk face to face.

Bit anticlimactic. Amelia barely broke a sweat. Cool dish though. Loved Melissa's earrings.

Laughed at the half-arsed attempts at "social distancing" -- locking 3/4 of the contestants in a small room together, Reynold and Simon standing face to face while putting on gloves, everyone walking off shoulder-to-shoulder at the end. And surely they were all touching the utensils and pot handles? How did Brendan overcook prawns in under 5 minutes? I think it's because for OHS (OSH in the US) reasons, they have to stop cooking and wait for a medic, and then probably have to do a bunch of checks to make sure there is no blood around. So I imagine you do lose a fair bit of time

I find both fish and the term "fish butchery" gross, so this was difficult to sit through. But the promise of fairytale-themed molecular gastronomy next week makes me want to gag in a different way.

Yeah it was a joke made after he said that cooking fish was out of his comfort zone, and he gave a cheery "exactly" to her remark. If she'd penalized him for actually making a cake, sure, that would've been hypocritical without similar reprimands for Laura and Reynold etc, but that is not what happened.

Channel 10 claiming it was "not aware of the nature of the charges laid against Ben Ungermann by Victoria Police." Seems... hard to believe, given they kicked him off the show. Because it could've been an arrest for all sort of minor things that you wouldn't expect to lead to his firing. I mean, it's possible the cops showed up at the hotel/apartments where they were all staying and arrested him there and that was enough to do it, but... they didn't ask?

Wow, huge change. But I usually find the odds get far more accurate by this point of the season (I guess because the final/final episodes actually happen and people on set leak), so I have to imagine that's a likely top 3?