Top Chef: Just Desserts 2, Watching #1

Who here would like to do a weekly series with me, The Chocolate Priestess, and talk about the second season of "Top Chef: Just Desserts?"  I taped the first episode and what I am proposing is that every Friday evening I post my thoughts on the episode that aired Thursday evening and you all comment and we discuss.

This gives us up to 24 hours for each of us to watch the show live or DVRed or taped and thus we are each forewarned that we need to keep up or risk spoilers.

Who is with me?  If I get enough interest, I'll post again next week and I'll keep it up as long as your comments keep flowing.

The first episode introduced far too briefly 14 dessert specialists.  Before they even entered their show kitchen they had to do a "Quick Fire Challenge," a very short at a moment's notice event that generally offers one or two people immunity.  This first "Quick Fire Challenge" had them using a soda foundation shop set up to create a modern classic dessert.  I had two problems with this challenge: Not everyone knew what a soda foundation or this sort of shop was thus making it innately uneven from the start.  The second was that most of these people barely had time to get to know each others' names yet they were paired off and expected to perform.  That is part of the "intensity" of the show but I want to see and hear about quality desserts.  Very few had much chocolate I sadly noted.

There was more chocolate in the "Elimination Challenge" with each team's project featuring some chocolate.  The theme was fairytales and again this left some people with an immediate disadvantage because they were not familiar with the fairytales.  The second disadvantage was the fact that they split into four teams but had 14 people thus two teams of three and two teams of four.  Guess which teams had the best work and the most finished?  That's right, the teams of four people.

There were four regular judges but I only saw two judges per team's efforts.  Those efforts were to create 150 plated desserts and a centerpiece that told the fairytale.  The randomness of team selection made for great difficulties in the two teams who did not impress the judges. 

Let's talk about the cast, Sisters and Brothers.  The judges, I recognize three from last season, also seemed more cold and harsh than last year.  The contestants were not people I'd want to spend time with by and large. The arrogance of some was amazing and the over all childishness of others was astounding.  While I know they judge by final products, I really think they judges need to watch the tapes and see how things go down in the kitchens when they make decisions.

So what did you all think?  Leave your comments and let's talk. Remember if you keep commenting, I'll keep watching and posting week by week.

Comments

Cacao-Me said…
i'd love to participate as i did watch season 1 last year. unfortunately, i am living in a place in the mountains where i don't currently have tv access and have been watching shows via the internet. i may not be able to participate live, but would love to read your summaries and perspectives on each episode.