Next Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, the Food Network will premier Chopped, its new chef-competition series with host Ted Allen. On the Food Network's site, you can check out the contestants of the show, many of them coming from the NYC restaurant scene. On Allen's blog, he defends the need for another "cook-off show" by explaining that, unlike existing shows, on Chopped, there are four new chefs that compete on each episode. The one that wins that episode receives $10,000; the one with the worst food is "chopped." Since each episode features new contestants, there is none of the drama and sleep deprivation present on shows like, 'Project Runway'.
Alright, so Chopped is not entirely based on shows like Top Chef. Nevertheless, after watching its video promo I couldn't help but to view it more like an Saturday Night Live satire of Top Chef and Project Runway, than as a serious TV show. Clips of contestants panicking and asking "what am I going to do?" and saying "my worst nightmare" seems slightly ridiculous if host Allen is going to state that the show is so different than previous chef-competition series. "This January, a new kind of competition." Really? At the end of the clip, Allen, in Heidi Klum style, states "you have been chopped." While the show seems to borrow several elements from other reality based competition shows, we'll have to wait until next Tuesday night to judge whether this a fresh concept or more of the same.
1-07-2009 @10:49AM Tina said... The grandfather of cooking competitions was the original (Japanese) Iron Chef and that for me is why I started watching the Food Network. However, in recent years the quality of shows produced on FN has gone down and the popularity of Bravo's Top Chef has really help pique the interest in food competitions again. I think FN is trying to ride the coattails of Bravo by introducing Chopped but I have a feeling it won't see the success that Top Chef has.
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1-07-2009 @2:09PM tim said... If this is a Top Chef ripoff does that make top chef a Cooking Under Fire ripoff?
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1-07-2009 @4:40PM Gary said... Whether its a ripoff or not remains to be seen, I just can't believe that let that tool Ted Allen host another show!
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3-08-2009 @10:52PM Adam said... Nice try Chopped. Is has all the ingredients, but Ted Allen is the only one that needs to be chopped. The judges pretend negativity pretty well, but the whole things is such a copy of a copy.
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