S01.E01: Welcome to the Next Level

[Meredith Quill]

Quote

Fifteen contestants from around the country prepare to level up their cooking skills.

 

[DanaK]

I've only seen the first episode so far and it's rather interesting. I've gotten more into cooking and learning how to cook since the pandemic started so I'm still fairly amateur. I don't like Ramsey yelling at contestants in ads of other shows he's done so I hope he doesn't do it here

[mlp]

I'm watching this but I can't say I'm very excited about it.  The dearth of comments tells me I'm not alone.  So far, it seems like the season of MC when Gordon, Aaron and Joe each had a team but with the addition of the levels.  

I like the cute fellow who won the last episode but the fact that he won after all the problems he was having seemed a bit, um, questionable.

[whinewithwine]

Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef are my guilty pleasures, but this one doesn't make the cut.  Not much focus on cooking....too much on inane comments by the chefs and Blais and his stupid hair...bleh.

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 1/14/2022 at 1:48 PM, DanaK said:

I've only seen the first episode so far and it's rather interesting. I've gotten more into cooking and learning how to cook since the pandemic started so I'm still fairly amateur. I don't like Ramsey yelling at contestants in ads of other shows he's done so I hope he doesn't do it here

He doesn't, not really at all :). You're fine.

On 1/17/2022 at 10:21 AM, whinewithwine said:

Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef are my guilty pleasures, but this one doesn't make the cut.  Not much focus on cooking....too much on inane comments by the chefs and Blais and his stupid hair...bleh.

I'm the opposite, I watched the latest season of MC and it was the most boring thing I've ever seen.  I like this show a lot more.  I like HK though.

I don't mind Richard and Nya at all, but I definitely have my fair share of people I hate from the Food Network.  Gordon's t-shirts bug me way more than Nya or Richard.

[DaWezl]

Just starting this show now, and I pretty much watch all of the Gordon Ramsey shows.  The overall premise here just sounds like an extended Masterchef challenge, not a unique concept, and I’m not surprised that interest levels are low.  It feels simultaneously too much high concept and not enough at the same time.  I’ll finish out this season but it’s going to be one of my filler shows that I watch when nothing new is on rather than anything I care about.  In contrast I love HK and MC and make more of an effort to keep up to date with them.

Im finding that the whole conceit of the show (ie the different levels of equipment and food choices) feels like a less creative Cutthroat Kitchen.  We don’t have anything beyond the “random” key card choices to decide what kitchen each team is assigned to, so no fun moments of sudden setbacks or boosts.  The contestants seem to be evenly divided between home cooks, social media cooks and working chefs, but the skill levels seem pretty close, so there’s no advantages to the chefs backgrounds—initially I thought that the home chefs might actually do better with the limited equipment in the basement than the pros for example.

My impression from the ads was that contestants would work their way up the levels and try not to get sent back down.  I don’t know exactly what that would look like in practice but the current setup ain’t it lollll.

[lu1535]

I only made it halfway thru the first episode. The premise reminds me too much of the horror film The Platform that I am totally creeped out. 😬