MasterChef Australia

I was actually thinking the same thing about Big Brother. That show was well in decline by it’s last couple of seasons yet Masterchef is still doing really great numbers (and improved year on year the last couple years). So it’s pretty impressive to think it could be pushing 2million viewers tonight after all these years.

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Elena and Matt are very worthy finalists. Matt was the one to catch from the get go. Elena, like Billie last year, flew under the radar for the first few weeks but has really shone the last few weeks. She has been by far the most innovative and tried some very ambitious dishes. Matt, by his own admission, has focused on perfecting simpler dishes. Elena’s time management skills could really bring her unstuck and the danger for Matt is his cockiness and failure to realise when he has actually screwed up. Last night was a perfect example, when he didn’t realise his error with the curd until Shannon told him to make it again, which was questionable. If the contestants are on their own and don’t receive a helping hand, things could be interesting.

A good cook, but up there with the most annoying contestants in eight years of this show. He’s the teacher’s pet and will win, but will be my least favourite winner ever.

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OMG

What a finale…

And we haven’t even reached Round 3 (Heston) yet :open_mouth:

No heart attack yet?

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It’s like Georgia from Last Year holding the Lead after Round 2 but lost it in the End & Billie won.

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What a load of utter bullshit.

The wrong person won.

He was beyond annoying and I it was actually enjoyable to see him trip over his own ego in the final challenge.

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What are you serious? The dish that won the final round deserved the win.

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Based on the final round, yes I agree, but overall I felt that the runner-up should have won.

FELT LIKE I HAD 100 :fearful:

What a massive Grand Final!

Congrats to Elena, an amazing talent & came back to ace Round 2 & do great in the INSANE ‘Dessert Egg’ challenge (from Heston of course) :slight_smile:

Guttered for Matt though… He had done so well.

A very emotional end & bitter sweet.

Families flew from all over the place too.

It was a brilliant season & I hope it stays that way.

See ya’ll in 2017 for MC.

This year’s MasterChef grand final was intense and exciting but wow, I didn’t expect such a big twist near the end of the third round of cooking.
The scores at the end of first round were a fair reflection of Elena and Matt’s cooking. Elena repeated the same mistake from the service challenge by making too many ingredients, thus the dashi dressing did not have time to cook, thus letting her marron dish down. Matt confitted so many ducks during the service challenge, so it was no problem for him confiting quail legs this time.
In round 2 Matt decided to make a prawn head and pancetta broth to go with crisp-skinned barramundi. What the heck! Does prawn and pancetta match in taste? Anyway, both Elena and Matt put up excellent dishes in this round but I could not believe both got perfect scores of 30 from the judges! Were the judges trying to rig the result? Based on the critiques I think Matt just edged out Elena, a more realistic score would have been Matt 30, Elena 28.
Heston Blumenthal returned to the MC kitchen with his lieutenant Ashley Palmer-Watts bringing their creation Verjus in Egg which had 91 steps. It was just as complex as last year’s botrytis dessert, the difference was that the grand finalists did not have to blow the sugar balls. Both Elena and Matt made mistakes in this round, but it was Matt’s pannacotta failing to set which changed the game. He was forced to make another batch, which meant he lost crucial time towards the end tempering chocolate then sealing the egg (but good on Elena helping Matt pouring liquid nitrogen on the egg in the final minute). It was horrifying to see Matt’s egg splitting open, and his raw emotions, after the clock stopped. The split meant Matt losing marks at tasting. Even with producers filming two outcomes, I didn’t think the split egg would help Matt maintaining his lead and winning the title. Elena with her perfectly cracked egg was a clear winner of this round.
Elena’s victory breaks the pattern since the show began: females won in odd numbered years and males won in even numbered years.
There were only 21 contestants at the start of the grand final: Matt, Elena, and 19 eliminated contestants. I could understand Brett’s absence as he returned to his old job as airline pilot after he went out of competition, but what about the other two? Also I noticed at the winner announcement, only two past winners were there: Julie Goodwin and Emma Dean.
For his efforts, Matt received $40,000 from ANZ through its Rewards Travel Adventures Card. But the finale was taped in early May while the card was launched in late June! Were the judges told in advance?
So another great season of MasterChef is over. Congratulations Elena. Bring on season 9!

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Hard to know how they would have played things if Matt’s egg didn’t split open. I still think they would have found some bullshit reason for Elena to win in any case, after putting Matt in the lead going into that final round.

Elena is boring but a ‘professional’ looking, and speaking, winner. Considering she won, it is pathetic that the editors went out of their way to not even show her - and I’m not talking confessionals or meal tastings, but even just showing her in team challenge vision - for so many weeks at the start.

Do they think we’re stupid and that Elena actually improved, and grew, and went on a journey, simply because we got to know her better after those first weeks of nothing? Silly.

I knew she was going to win after that crazy song and dance they made about her Spanish rice dish. It tasted like rice. It was just to put her in our minds as a potential winner, and leave evidence of ‘memorable’ dishes made.

I could write this script in my sleep.

Worst season in a while - awful contestants. Thank god I don’t have to see it again until next May.

Clearly hate, and clearly pay close attention to. The winner was such a Master Chef this year we didn’t even see her until Week 4. Doesn’t scream that people were ‘standing out’ to me. Very poor selection of contestants this season.

Matt was the most consistent cook of the season and excelled above anyone else. There’s no doubt about that. However Elena won that final challenge fair and square. I’m reading posts on the Masterchef facebook page from so many people who are saying Matt was robbed etc. No he wasn’t. As sad and disappointing as it was he didn’t complete his egg. It’s like the Olympics… you can be the best in the world for a period leading up to it but it doesn’t guarantee that you will win Gold on the day.

Having said that though - I still feel like Elena is one of the more forgettable winners we’ve ever had on the show. She seemed to slip through the competition almost unnoticeable until Top 10. There was definitely a lot more buzz and excitement from the audience over Billie’s win lat year.

I really liked the cast this season and like most of the top 6, except I just never warmed to Elena. I still feel like I barely know her. I can only think that by the time finals week was filming (pretty much when the show started airing) they must have already edited the first few weeks of episodes and Elena genuinely was a “middle of the pack cook”. I’m sure had they known she would win it they would have tried to slot her in a bit more earlier on. Even if it was just commentary in the team challenges or showing her cook in a couple more invention tests. Still I feel underwhelmed as for me she only really started to produce good dishes the last few weeks of the season. However she did perform strongly in these last couple of weeks.

I actually don’t think Matt was robbed… he was a great cook and was very consistent throughout the whole competition but equally I think Elena was consistent as well.

The big difference between the two I think is that Elena took more risks and presented more complex dishes throughout the competition where Matt excelled in keeping his dishes simple.

Either way both performed admirably throughout the competition and they both shone last night… Elena pipped Matt at the post based on the fact her Heston recreation was better.

Overall I think this season was a little bland, I didn’t really relate to the contestants until quite late in the season and some of the challenges just felt like they’ve all been done before. I also was getting over how long each episode was, these reality shows really tire you out, I think all reality shows need to start considering the less is more approach but we know networks won’t change as it fills hours in the schedule.

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A MasterChef Grand Final can never be 100% perfect

(i.e.) Getting all the past contestants, winners, having thrilling scroes until the last minute, etc.

Reading twitter last night (which #MasterChefAU trended #1 all night until after Midnight), most were saying how the loved the Grand Final (especially up until the Winner Annoincement).

In the final few minutes, after Matt for straight 7s…

You knew Elena had done it. Massive finish, it was so close but she was able to pull off that monster Round 3 dish.

Still feeling for Matt :cry:

I agree with others when suggesting it was a weak cast. Elena definitely wasn’t the most vibrant character - and I doubt we will remember her name in 12 months time. But she did deserve to win last night.

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According to the press release on tenplay, this season was a hit across online and social media, with more video views, and more followers on Twitter and Facebook than last year. The higher number of video viewings suggest fans catching on tenplay after seeing shows like The Voice and House Rules (both of which were up against MC since May) so they would not miss out on the conversation.

Runner-up Matt will open his new South East Asian food stall Ten Piece Cutlery (the name refers to your ten fingers) at Brisbane’s Eat Street Markets later this year, while Elena plans to travel around Australia and overseas to gain work experience before looking for her own property, potentially in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, to grow and cook her own seasonal produce for her farm cafe.

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I think that people are definitely more likely to remember Matt, Elise and Harry over Elena IMO. They are the sorts of people I expect we will see more of somewhere down the line. They also had clear direction in what they wanted to do. I still don’t understand what Elena’s “food dream” was. They seem to harp on about that a lot and I know what it was for every Top 7 contestant except Elena.

Well there you go. I don’t think any dream of hers like that was ever mentioned on the show. It seems like she didn’t really have one. Could explain the lack of airtime as she had no real strong storyline behind her to back why she was there.

That’s interesting. Ratings were pretty much on par with last season, although some nights had peaks higher than any normal episodes last season. So this season was definitely one of the biggest hits with viewers of the last few years despite being in it’s 8th season.