Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Culinary Class Wars on Netflix might be the most fun, if unfair, cooking show I've seen in a long time, and the most nefariously commercial.
Brief synopsis: 20 well known chefs ("white spoons") compete against 80 lesser known chefs ("black spoons") for a USD220K prize. The black spoons are no slouches, largely being restauranteurs themselves with their own successful businesses, but the white spoons are multiyear winners of michelin stars or international awards. The cooking challenges get weird, and something in the Korean editing gets the slow and fast moments right, with surprisingly competent emotional hits. One round in particular, the Infinite Tofu Hell, is honestly the absolute best cooking challenge I've ever seen, in concept and in execution.
The show optimizes for visual flair, dramatic setpiece reveals and novel challenges. Its not mechanically fair, and certain challenges seem introduced to maintain dramatic tension.
In particular, there is a survival challenge, where after an elimination round the losers do a cooking challenge to get advanced regardless. In this round, the contestants must make a dish out of convenience store food. One dish in particular stood out to a ridiculous degree, and makes this Netflix cooking show go from 'fun distraction' to 'mr burns money'.
See, it is inevitable that competent chefs get good bookings at their restaurants following a cooking show blowup. Half these contestants definitely are there just to boost social media, with the USD220K prize pool secondary to yearlong full covers. There are already secondary markets for reservations at the restaurants for the higher profile chefs, with scalpers for their restaurants.
But the real genius is in the convenience store round, moreso than Netflix. Netflix made a deal with a convenience store chain featured to sell dishes created by chefs featured on the show. That's already a good enough gimmick, and certainly will be profitable given the positive reception of the show, and the overall quality of Korean (and Asian in general) convenience store products.
The nefarious genius comes from the manufacturer of the convenience challenge winner ingredients. The convenience store in the show is genericized, but the products used are not. Because the key ingredients used by the winner were in-house products manufactured from the a different conglomerate, the conglomerate made a collaboration with that chef specifically to sell that winning dish as a product in their own convenience stores.
Sales of the ingredients used for that dish alone spiked more than 30% in the week the chef made that dish, and preorders for his creation sold out in 20 minutes.
It is a fun enough show, but this is the one example of a media hype cycle translating into likely significant financial benefits to the contestants, and even Netflix itself. I strongly suspect other producers will eye this show and its subsequent impact closely.
They have a challenge called "Squid Game," right?
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Is the editing standard Korean style TV editing, with every "ooooohhhhh" reaction repeated five times over? There's some entertaining stuff coming out of Korean "unscripted" media but I utterly despise their presentation style. Even similar shows from other East Asian countries never seem to do it as obnoxiously.
Yeah, that is present. It is extremely irritating, and you can tell when it is going to lead to an irritating cliffhanger.
However, nothing is as irritating as either Chinese style bullet comments where social media comments fly across the screen as the most irritating chyrons ever, or the canned laughters/splashes that infest East Asian variety shows from 1980 to 2080. Shifting away from that is a hallmark of producers who worked in the west, and that alone makes up for the cultural destruction the west imposed on the world with the simon wellfication of snarky bitches being hosts for 2 decades,
Oddly enough, the visual clutter from bullet comments and splashes has never quite bothered me. I find the repeated "oooohhh"s a unique kind of grating to the point I'll actively avoid any unscripted Korean media. I do agree though that shifting away from these sorts of editing styles as a whole would be a net positive for me, even if at the cost of some of the core content.
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It is a good show. Also I can't believe my man Napoli Matifa (sp) deadass made tiramisu from convenience store items. That was true genius. Haven't been able to watch the final episode yet, but I'm really looking forward to it.
My one major complaint was the restaurant challenge. That was complete bullshit. It was ostensibly supposed to test their business acumen, but they didn't give the contestants any sort of market research info (like an actual business would have), and they judged them purely on gross revenue, not profit. On top of that it was totally unfair that they made the fourth team like they did. They should've had some advantage to compensate for the fact that they started several hours late, and had fewer people, but they didn't get anything! Give them a couple sous chefs or something for goodness' sake, to even out the playing field. I really hated that challenge.
Korean shows arent optimized for fairness. Physical 100 is fucking insanely unfair, but its just really fun. Similarly I think the restaurant challenge was also poorly designed but showcased different thinkings among the chefs. I think there was an element of 'too many chefs will end up fighting' but cultural deference to leadership stopped egos getting in the way. I cannot help but contrast this with US reality TV where insane bickering is the norm.
I think the restaurant challenge ended up being much closer than it had any right to be, and the diners were more the star of that episode than the chefs. I loved the sight of a giant black man just steadily wolfing down plate after plate of food while the korean diners all gave their commentary and insight on the food. Man knew what he was here for, and he just gave it his all.
I feel like that also had to do with everyone seeing what a disaster it was in the class team challenge, when the one white spoon team wasted a ton of time because egos got in the way.
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