Ohkay so, over all it was a very enjoyable episode to watch. I liked the challenge & I think these team challenge episodes are becoming my favorite because you get to see the high energy of all the contestants & the judges as well.
This time the off-site challenge was set in a school where the contestants had to serve 50 students. The captains were picked randomly but then it came down to the captains to pick their team members. Azam was the Red captain & he chose Saad, Rayyan, Amna, Iqra & Zain as his team members. Maryam being the Blue captain chose Khurram, Ammarah, Sidrah, Gulnaz & Madiha as her team.
This time around the judges left it on the contestants to decide the menu themselves but did give them a bit of a briefing as to how the food should be healthy & how they should make it attractive to appeal to the kids. Maryam left it out on her team members to give out the suggestions & by the end she will make a decision of which dish to work on. Madiha suggested Pizza Sandwich & the blue team decided to go for it. Even tough Madiha’s idea was great & I liked it for being different, I feel the rest of the menu of both the teams was pretty basic. There are a lot of things that can be served to the kids so I kind of missed out on the variety because none of it spelled ‘MasterChef’ food to me though in terms of idea & then selection.
The challenge began & both the teams had only 2 hours to prepare & plate up their dishes to serve the kids. It was interesting to see the whole set-up that was done in the school to indulge the kids into some activities & it shaped up more like a party for the students but I must say I was really happy to see the confidence of all the kids that the judges spoke to because they knew their food & gave out the details pretty well. No doubt when it came to critique, the kids were too keen & didn’t miss out the details. I loved how the students explained what they liked & what they preferred.
It was good to see the preps as well but like always the preps were no doubt shown in detail but a bit too haphazardly. Like they showed everything in general & most of the times the captains were explaining who was assigned with what duty but the actual contestants weren’t speaking much for themselves. Maryam came out as a great captain where she took things in her hands & helped her contestants whereas Azam was a bit too firm & supervised his team & their errands mostly without cooking much for his team. I feel this time around all the teams worked really well together without any hiccups as they listened to their captains.
Khurram brings in a great energy, Rayyan works like a machine (Masha Allah), Madiha is always brilliant in her ideas, Iqra obviously has an upper-hand when it comes to desserts, Ammarah is focused, Saad is definitely good at marketing, Amna knows what she’s doing & for this, these contestants are definitely standing out the most. I am glad all the contestants got to convey their feelings & they were covered properly.
Red team came up with ‘Mini Beef Burgers w/ French Fries & Chicken Pops’ along with ‘Chocolate Cup Cakes’. Chef Khurram liked the chicken pops saying they were succulent & tender. He also liked the muffins saying they were rich in flavor. Chef Mehboob felt that this team paid attention to the briefing & actually understood what was required & just because they kept their target eaters in mind, they had an edge at winning the competition.
Blue team presented ‘Pizza Sandwich w/ Chicken Crispies & French Fries’ along with ‘Chocolate Trifle’. Chef Khurram found the taste quite flat but he liked the dessert. Chef Zakir felt that in comparison to red team’s cupcakes, blue’s chocolate trifle was better because it had a balance of flavors & sweetness.
It came down to the voting & I loved how the students got to vote for their favorite team. They had to pick either red or blue balloon to cast their vote & clearly the blue team won, sending the red team off to the elimination round. The judges themselves voted for the red team but unfortunately their votes didn’t matter much because blue team won with a huge margin.
I enjoyed watching the judges communicating with the students this time but when the episode began; I couldn’t help forwarding some of their screen-time because their spoon-feeding & repetition was a bit too long. It’s like when they were dealing with the contestants, they took them as kindergarten kids where they had to make sure each & every command was conveyed to them thrice so that they can understand. ‘Aik aik kar k aprons nikalain’, ‘khana banatay waqt dehan rakhna hai’, ‘bachay zalim hote hain’, ‘kaisay banana hai dehan rakhain’, ‘appki planning matter karegi’, ‘aj app bachon k liye bana rahay hain’, ‘soch samajh k banana’ & then how can we forget the ~*Ultimate MasterChef Question*~ ‘aj kya bana rahay hain app’. I think the intro of every episode should be cut down & the judges should wrap up their briefing as quickly as possible but other than that I liked their spirit & their attitude a lot, looks like they themselves have started to enjoy this MasterChef experience & therefore we can see them getting candid enough. Once again I’d say that it would be better to see the contestants talking through while cooking a bit more. This episode certainly had some & I hope they do more of it in the upcoming episodes.
It’s coming across pretty evidently that the contestants are showing zero tolerance towards each other. Rayyan’s general comment on the cupcakes was made to keep the atmosphere lighthearted & the spirits high regarding the competition but Sidrah didn’t take it too well & later Maryam & Saad’s spat was covered once again, where Gulnaz, out of nowhere, actually passed a derogatory comment regarding the whole scenario. I am not too sure but even in the last episode when Gulnaz was on a tear-spree, Amna did comment in order to clarify her position but Saad didn’t utter a single word on the camera, similarly, this time around too he didn’t say much so I think he is keeping things from being sensationalized but the ladies (being themselves) are finding it hard to keep it to themselves. Whatever happens shouldn’t be shared in the first place & if the contestants do speak about it, the editing team should edit it to keep the competition fair & healthy. I hope this unhealthy politics & those taunts are kept out of the way because I have never ever seen it happening in any other MasterChef show. People do get involved in politics & it’s a human nature but to actually give words to some harsh feelings isn’t appeasing to see & they should be shown as one team with no such politics working in their own orbits to win the title.
Share what you felt about this episode & how much did you enjoy it?
Keep Supporting,
Cheers,
Zahra Mirza.
