Two Top Chef Trends-Makes you want to go hmmmm

[Phaedrus]

Crowd favorite gets canned just before the finals:

Season 1: Lee Anne
Season 2: Sam or Cliff, take your pick.
Season 3: Tre.

Two Villains get built up

Season 1: Steven and Tiffany
Season 2: Marcel and Ilan
Season 3: Hung and Howie

I also think that the producers have figured some things out, like if things get too cozy or someone starts to put some distance between themselves and the pack, whang, hit them with the restaurant challenge.

I am not saying that the producers are picking the winners each challenge, what I am saying is that they have a script in mind and they will edit to suit their needs and also that they know how to game the competition because they know what each chef's weaknesses are and they can game the challenge to bloody the favorite if not to kick them off then to bring them down a notch.

Just a conjecture.

Discuss.......

[momjamin]

Haven't the restaurant wars come when there are 8 competitors left, to make 2 teams of 4? I don't think that has anything to do with people getting too cozy -- it's just the numbers.

[heathermb]

Agreed. I'm certain that the challenges are planned long before taping even begins. There's too much logistical decision-making and planning required to doing things any other way.

[pgokey]

Ilan as a villian? Didn't see that at all. I agree Hung is less a villain and more simply obnoxious at times...maybe aloof. But at least Hung is irritating - I never found Ilan to be that way at all, really.

Stephan and Stephanie were clear villains. Marcel too, and Howie to a lesser extent.

[LindaWhit]

I definitely saw Ilan as the underhanded villain. He was the instigator for shaving Marcel's head and encouraged Cliff. He was the instigator to have Elia give the actual accusation of Marcel of cheating in the Finale Part 1. Definitely turned into a slimy villain.

[foodseek]

I agree IIan was behind the scenes sneaky and seemed to be happy to stir up problems while keeping his hands clean so to speak. When Cliff got asked to leave after the head shaving incident, I honestly thought from the footage, all three of them(Sam,Ilan, and Cliff) deserved the same punishment whatever it was. It really was sad to see just Cliff get kicked off.

[queencru]

Not to mention Ilan always had these immature personal jabs with regards to Marcel's virginity. It was almost as if he had some sort of obsession with Marcel and wanted to do everything possible to make Marcel miserable.

[kenito799]

I think we need more data...there are just as many parallels that you can't draw.

For example: First elimination winner wins the final (Harold and Ilan both won their first episodes but so did Tre).

[moymoy]

I never saw Hung as a villain. Yes, he is cocky and too smart for his own good but CJ is more of a "villain" now than ever.

[arjaydj]

I'd have to agree with you. If you look at the "villains" of the past two seasons, Hung is definitely not as bad as them, at least judging from what the editors show us. He's also been quite a good team player, I think. I personally find Howie much more harder to take (again, just judging from what the editors choose to show us).

[momjamin]

I've also never seen Hung as a villian. But maybe this seasons chefs aren't as excitable as previous seasons. Season 1 all got fed up with Tiffani by the end, and her sous-chefs finished the coup by getting too drunk to help. Season 2 all hated Marcel -- however much was Marcel's inherent ability to annoy, and however much was gang mentality.

The producers have shown us clips of Hung saying he makes a good villian, and they've shown the other chefs get annoyed when Hung leaves a crayfish on the floor or runs around with a knife. But to generalize, the other chefs have been more likely to roll their eyes and pick other people to work with, rather than get in his face and spew obscenities. Hung will tell us in the interviews, away from his competitors, that the guest judge's palate is "off" when his dish is in the bottom, but we don't see his interactions with the others being as flammable as the previous villians.

[Herm]

Ok, here's a third hand story, forgive me if it's vague, I will try to find out the exact title of the book I've heard tell of. Here goes: The title escapes me, but it was someting like 'A Day In The Park, A Chef's Day Off'. In the book it details a softball game in which the players are all chefs in NYC. Tom Colicchio is on a team, and a team members is a line cook named.......Harold. Yes the winner of Top Chef 1 just happened to play on a softball team with Chef Tom. Mario Batali was also present, and guess what?...Yes, last years winner worked at a Batali owned restaurant! I really have to find out the actual name of the book, I definately dig the conspiracy theories!

[Pylon]

I couldn't find that title on Amazon, but if you figure it out, I'd love to read it!

[LindaWhit]

But these were filmed back in April, so how can the producers know who's going to be a crowd favorite? The villians, however, are probably easy to spot! LOL

[sku]

Excellent point Linda. I think the original poster has it backwards. Remember, the show is made by taking hundreds of hours of video and editing it to create a compelling narrative. Tre and Sam were not eliminated because they were crowd favorites. Rather, the editors chose footage which would put them in a favorable light thereby building up for a dramatic decision when they were dismissed. Similarly, it's not that villains were built up by the judges, it's that the editors built them up as villains, again, to increase drama.

Imagine if you were videotaped for 24 hours a day for three weeks (or however long the competition is) and then that footage was edited down to 8 hours. Based on your behavior over that period of time, a creative editor could probably make you seem villainous, heroic, kind, insensitive, etc. In reality TV of this variety, it's really all about the editing.

[Chew on That]

Hmmm...I wouldn't say it's "right before the finals" yet, which is why axing Tre was so shocking. It's only halfway through! Also, I wouldn't say Hung and Howie are rivals at all...that was more like Howie and Joey, back in the day, or maybe and Tre and Hung were more direct competitors. Just my thoughts...

In terms of producer editing though, you can always tell who is being kicked off by how much time they seem to focus on a person. Tre was sort of behind the scenes a lot until this last episode, and now they showed him working out, and more of his interviews...why? Because thats the last hurrah of his footage! So obvious, but tear....

Thanks for posting another Top Chef thread, can never have too many! Haha.

[ajs228]

It's not just how much screen time they get, but if they suddenly have a close friend among the group that we never knew about before. As soon as Casey said she and Tre were getting to be good friends, I knew one of them was getting whacked.