Season 2 of the U.S. version just concluded its run on the Lifestyle Network. While it's okay, I didn't really care much for the annoyingly loud and grating
American Idol-style preliminary rounds, which took about 3 episodes and seems to have been set in the same dingy warehouse that the Ark of the Covenant is stored in
Raiders of the Lost Ark, LOL.
To his credit, Gordon Ramsay seems to be less of an ass here than in his other shows; he actually seems nice here, and I had to double check to make sure it's the same person, heh. And Joe Bastianich appears to have none of the caring and warmth of his famous mom, but he does make a good and scary judge though.
The lighting and studio set of this show bothers me--it looks garish and the colors are too saturated, plus everyone seems to have a permanent spotlight on them. The main difference between
MasterChef and other cooking competition shows are the contestants, who are mostly home cooks with no professional training, and it shows--most of them can't take criticism and rejection well, resulting in tears and even pleading to the judges not to eliminate them. But as always whenever colorful personalities and big egos clash, there's always drama, and
MasterChef has plenty of contestants trash-talking and screaming at each other, LOL.
MasterChef also has a Junior version (in Australia and also here), which I think is unnecessary, concept-wise, as kids generally don't know anything about food except to load it with tons of sugar. Kids who claim to know and cook good food probably has some scheming parent behind them dictating everything they do, but that's just me.
Everyone is so nice and goody-goody to avoid hurting the kids' feelings that it makes the entire idea of competing pointless, and turns the show into a cooking class/praisefest.