“MasterChef Australia” is back for round 14.
The show, like all of its competition and reality format counterparts, will no longer pull millions of overnight viewers as it faces a vastly different ratings and content landscape than when it launched in 2009.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the show has done its dash, according to Endemol Shine Australia’s director of content, Marty Benson.
Instead, he believes that the decision to bring back old contestants – such as Season 1 winner Julie Goodwin – and mix them in with fans of the format, will refresh the show, giving its producers new creative challenges and offering audiences something different.
“Our motto in the creative space at “MasterChef” is that we can always do it better,” he told Variety Australia ahead of its launch on Monday. “So we never think that we’ve reached the point where MasterChef can’t get better and we’re always striving to make it better every single year.
“I think that’s why the audience haven’t tired of it.”
In line with this philosophy, Benson said this year’s cast is the best the show has ever compiled. The producers have also added a ‘team’ element, pitting the ‘Favourites’ (those who have appeared on the show before) against the ‘Fans’ (newbies who are having their first run at the competition).
This, he said, gives the show even more storytelling options and opportunities.
“When I hire people on my team to be story producers, I make sure that they really, really understand [the individual formats within the show]… The stories every night of the week are very different, and so it’s a mega format with lots of mini formats within it, and I think that’s what makes it so interesting.
“I do believe that the viewers sometimes watch and they just see people cooking, judges tasting, and then we give a verdict. But actually what they’re getting is very different storytelling every single night in a very subtle way.”
“MasterChef” is not alone in relying on nostalgia and familiar faces to lure eyeballs back to free-to-air television.
This year’s “Big Brother” on Channel 7 will see familiar faces such as 2013 winner Tim Dormer and star-crossed lovers Tully Smyth and Anthony Drew from the same season return.
Channel 7 has alo revived “Farmer Wants A Wife” and promised the return of early 2000s smash “Australian Idol”.
MasterChef’s broadcaster Channel 10 is also not above the nostalgia wave. Recent iterations of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” have seen past contestants returning, and “MasterChef” itself already ran a “Back to Win” series in 2020.
Benson said the motivation for this is simple: People love familiarity, especially in 2022.
“MasterChef” judge Melissa Leong agreed that “we’re having a real nostalgic moment”, and the show is the sugar we all need right now to help the medicine go down.
“I think it’s just our craving as humans to hold onto something that feels good and makes us think of better times,” she told Variety Australia.
“I think in our current climate of uncertainty while the world disintegrates into madness, it’s nice to be able to be reminded of comfort and good food and of that very simple pleasure of being provided for and sitting around a table with someone as warm and genuine as Julie [Goodwin] is.”
So this year, she said, there will be more of what makes “MasterChef” great.
“It always makes me feel so honoured to be part of the telling of people’s stories, and culturally that’s what is important to me about the show, is being able to share stories of culture, stories of family and heritage through food, and this year is no different. [There’s] more uplifting things. More emotion. More fun. More silliness.”
Part of the reason consumers are obsessed with the past and are looking for something familiar is, of course, the disruption and devastation wrought by the pandemic in recent years.
And those in the “MasterChef” kitchen were not immune in 2022.
In January, 13 of the 22 contestants had COVID, forcing a production shut down for two weeks. The challenge, Benson said, was that airing dates don’t shift, forcing the team to find ways to catch up.
Now, if any of the contestants on set get COVID, the production continues. The infected contestant takes their seven days in isolation, and upon return is automatically placed in the Elimination Challenge.
Benson said the brutal move is tough but fair and the best way the show can honour the contestants, the audience and the production schedule.
Leong said this is where Endemol Shine Australia really shone.
“It’s just a constant moving target, and it really is testament to Endemol Shine as a production company and in particular the “MasterChef” production that they are able to duck and weave and move with whatever the new normal happens to be at the time and continually produce something that just feels flawless and you never feel that COVID has been a restriction at all,” she said.
And even if COVID passes in the near future, allowing productions to return to ‘normal’, Leong believes the appetite for “MasterChef” will still be there.
“Will we ever tire of food? I certainly won’t,” she said.
“I think it’s like music. You could never possibly know every single amazing song and composition that has ever existed and you could never know every single incredible dish that you never knew you loved.
“Because with a show like this, because each human has something to offer the world, every single season there is something fresh and something new, and there’s something inherently humbling about listening and learning from somebody about what is important to them.”