Starry-Eyed

Just watched this. I definitely think the editing was trying to push the "Sergeiline" angle as much as it could - but I think I would be quite upset if I were either of their significant others, especially Sergei's gf. Whether or not they ever did anything physical, it seemed quite obvious that Sergei was into Caroline. Caroline, I think, is just used to being a beautiful woman and using that to get a bit of an edge.

This was a lot of fun! Enough like the season Food Network competitions to scratch that itch, but a nice break from some of the irritating production stuff. I only let myself watch an episode a day to stretch it out, and I liked all the competitors by the end. I think the young woman, Cat, was a bit of a production darling, but I really liked her too, so I didn't mind.

That makes me so happy. I used to live in that area and my best friend's parents still do, so maybe I will get a chance to visit.

In earlier seasons, there have been accounts here of producers seeding money to drum up business - ie giving people 50 dollars or whatever to go spend at whatever food truck they liked, which some have blamed the rampant price-gouging of earlier seasons on. Watching the drama unfold, I wondered if that was what happened, and the man and his daughter misunderstood what was happening. For obvious reasons, Tyler's not going to come out on camera and say, "This wasn't Bao Bei cheating; it was just production meddling."

Yes! I have to believe that was producer-motivated. Even the teams seemed to have a hard time drumming up believable outrage. Honestly, this show has gotten so BORING and to me that is the worst sin.

Yeah, exactly. It's frustrating, because it seems like a normal food truck would be fine for their concept - just do overnight prep. Honestly, I don't understand why the trucks can't have designated prep hours outside of selling hours. As long as they all have the same chance, why would it be unfair? We'd get to see a better variety of food sold, and probably some better food too.

Maybe I'm wrong, but even if he's not technically a producer, Tyler seems to hold a lot of sway over the production. I'm not saying Tyler designed the "squad" system - I'm sure that was the producers - but I doubt Tyler has to stir the pot at eliminations if he doesn't want to.

The guy from the Po boy truck is driving me nuts. He wants to paint his partner as a nagging shrew who won't leave him alone, but the reality seems to be that she is a decisive leader type who is accurately assessing the situations he doesn't want to deal with. Tyler seems so desperate to start drama between trucks (and it is starting to feel like the entire point of the squads is to create drama), probably because the challenges are so boring.

...because they are splitting it between 4 teams. Stripes is the name of the squad. There are (were) four teams on the Stripes squad, one of which is Fishmarket, who won the challenge for the whole squad.

I noticed too! I couldn't figure out what exactly was different about his face, but it seemed smoother and fresher to me. I thought maybe he shaved differently than usual.

Yeah, the stupidness of the promo tie-in pretty much ruined this episode for me. This would have been fine on a season of Kids Baking Championship, but having adults do it was just weird and absolutely didn't fit the theme, no matter how hard they tried to crowbar it in. Having a pre-recorded video message from Amy Poehler and Maya Hawke just hammered in how lazy and corporate this was. If they'd actually gone to the set, met the contestants, and tasted the bakes, it would have come across a little cooler for the contestants and not so demeaning.

Yeah, I DEFINITELY think there were some producer shenanigans. It might not necessarily have been about Keely specifically, although I think she is a production darling, but about making sure they didn't get down to all dudes halfway through the show.

That was the first thing that popped into my head. Could be something else entirely, of course.

The voiceover even sounded edited to me. I definitely think she actually said something longer, talking about how it was a lose/lose either way, similar to what Keely said, but they trimmed out that part.

I think the brown branches would have been fine if he had done a real stained glass effect like Stephen did, painting in the areas. It was the brown lines combined with the fact that the lines had nothing to do with what was colored that made it not look like stained glass.