Masterchef Australia Is Back!!!

I literally squealed with excitement when I was scrolling through the TV guide and discovered that yes, Masterchef Australia has returned to British shores. This show is amazing! Its judges are over the top, the contestants are irritatingly enthusiastic and the challanges are of epic proportion! I'm not sure if a show of this format would go down quite as successfully here in Britain. Although our version of Masterchef boldly claims that it changes its format every year, I think it's quite misleading. It seems to me that the BBC are serving up slightly tweaked variations of the same thing. An invention test. A professional restaurant test. A mass catering test. A 2 course critics test. But just in a slightly different arrangement.

 I'd love for the British version to take a leaf out of the Australians book, maybe not quite to the same extent as I think us timid Brits wouldn't be keen on playing up to the cameras as much. But the tasks and challenges asked of the Australian contestants are brilliant! I know this is pedantic, but even the colour scheme of the set is more exciting and inviting. Masterchef HQ UK looks almost clinical! The Australians have some kind of kitchen arena going on, with a mezzanine for onlookers and a designated grocery store room full to the brim with ingredients.


(Judges from left to right: Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, Matt Preston)

The contestants are thrown right in at the deep end. They are awoken at the crack of dawn, in what seems to be a large barn/barracks set up, by one of the judges banging a copper pot in their faces. They quickly make themselves presentable and then run like headless chickens to partake in the first challenge. I mean, hello! The greatest spectacle we get from the British Masterchef is watching the timid contestants cook a shepherds pie for a couple 100 public servants. A ballsed up bread and butter pudding is about as crazy as it gets for us.  Big freakin whoop!

So the contestants are competing in some kind of preliminary boot camp. They're split into boys and girls and are faced with the task of having to tag team butcher an entire lamb. One of the ladies, however, was more intent on butchering her arm than she was the lamb carcass. The losing side (of course it was the ladies, one of which is now missing a limb) then had a cook off with the cuts of meat they had previously butchered; cue the frantic, nail scratching, brawl for ingredients. It's a high octane, intense, emotional roller-coaster. So much so that one contestant was balling her eyes out over her fresh pappardelle pasta lamb ragu (it was of sentimental value...). Sunday night's instalment involved another tag team task of shucking oysters, peeling prawns and filleting fish. The team that completed the challenge the quickest were safe from the impending elimination! Dramatic!

I really do think our version of Masterchef needs to take a look at the Australians. I mean we invented it and they're doing it so much better! No two episodes are the same. If you haven't tuned in before then you'll probably have to series link it because you get a whopping 6 hours served up a week (ain't nobody got time for that! Well, me being the exception... because I have no life).

Masterchef Australia is on at 7pm Monday to Friday and Sundays on WatchHD (Sky: Channel 107)