Sort of a surprise ending, with the judges deciding to keep all three contestants for the final showdown, but with Aaron spitting the bit, it would have been hard for them to justify sending Lisa home.
- What the heck was Aaron thinking? Is his sense of humor just broken? That started bad and got worse as he went on. I’m not even sure what the underlying joke was.
- I was impressed by Lisa’s singing – bit of a Joss Stone impression? – but unless she’s going to do a cabaret cooking show, I’m not seeing the relevance to the competition.
- If I was the cameraman following Lisa around the grocery store, I would have stopped the tape and told her she dropped the package of fish. As much as I dislike her on-air persona, there’s no way she should have been penalized just because something fell out of her cart. The fact that the cameraman saw it and zoomed in on the lost package disgusted me.
- It was surprising to hear Bob Tuschmann, who strikes me as painfully nice to the point where he hates to deliver any serious criticism, raise the question of whether viewers will like Lisa enough to watch 30 minutes of her. He’s right, of course, but I didn’t think he’d be the one to bring it up – and he did seem uncomfortable as he made the point.
- Why do they all pronounce Guy Fieri’s surname like it has two t’s in it? If you can’t roll your r’s, then replacing an r with a soft “t” sounds ridiculous. Just say Fee-air-ee. It’s not that big of a deal.
Klaw –
Who out of the three finalists would have the best show? Aaron seems to be the best cook, Adam seems to have the best personality. Lisa … well I don’t know.
But it’s telling when the judges acknowledge there’s something they like about each contestant; if only they could create a hybrid contestant from the three.
I guess I’d like to see Aaron win. He’s been the most consistent.
I don’t find Aaron to be very enjoyable to watch, I find him awkward and uncomfortable
Lisa is even worse to watch, not that she is awkward or uncomfortable .. she’s just immensely unlikable
I would like to see Adam win. Clearly, he isn’t a great chef, but he’s the most entertaining and likable. As has been said before, I’m sure he could very competently host a show where he’s not doing most of the cooking
I didn’t really think it was a surprise — since they sort of spoiled it from last week. The previews had Bob saying that they were doing something that “has never been done before in ‘Next Food Network Star’ history.” It just seemed pretty obvious they were going to pull the old reality cliche of not sending someone home. I think the decision was borderline infantile — clearly they didn’t want to send home Lisa or Adam after doing so well in the competition, but keeping Aaron wouldn’t have been a crime. They’ve liked Aaron from the beginning; one bad week doesn’t mean he should go home.
I continue to be amused by the dislike of Lisa. I must be blinded by her bob haircut and squinty eyes, because I don’t see why people find her so vile.
I guess Aaron can cook — the judges seem to like his food — but he’s horrible in front of a camera. And while that little performance in front of the Vegas people doesn’t show whether or not he can host a cooking show, it doesn’t speak well for his improv skills.
Keith, I think the whole idea of the introductions to the Vegas people was to do something “big and Vegas-y” (as they say on this show). They were supposed to “perform” for those people and put on a little show. Lisa was the only one who succeeded. Aaron tried, but bombed. And Adam didn’t do much of anything.
Slightly off-topic: anyone catch the new version of “Dinner: Impossible” with Chef Symon? I thought it was light-years better than the Irvine version.
Again, what seems to be the predominant theme here is that no one is that impressive, but they each have a little something that seems to work. All in all, I think Adam seems to be the fan favorite, but that’s based on Lisa being annoying and Aaron just being awkward in general. It’s a win by default.
Regarding Guy Fieri and the pronunciation of his name..That’s kind of a joke. It seems like they try to make this exaggerated pronunciation to add some sort of credibility to his cooking or judging. Like he’s some great European chef or something. This guy does diners and drive ins. He dyes his hair blonde and tells everyone that it’s the best food he’s had every single time. I’m not a big fan at all, and I’m sure he’s 10 million times more talented than me at what he does, but he just seems like a d-bag that is put on air to appeal to some Joe who really doesn’t know much about food or anything culinary for that matter.
Finally, the new dinner impossible is much better. The “fake knight” always tried to add some drama to the whole event that just never seemed necessary in my opinion. Regarding Symon and his task, I thought the chocolate covered bacon with almonds seemed intriguing.
Here’s what gets me — Food Network ran an episode showing the early cooking shows as well as some of the current stars early tapings. In short, THEY WERE AMETEURISH! (Batali in particular; & some of Flay’s early performances would have led you to believe that he was part robot). Not to mention the fact that the stars never had to earn their stripes via a filmed, multi-challenge competition format.
It makes for interesting TV, but I would have liked to have seem the same competition years ago featuring flay, batali, ray, etc
I HATE when reality shows end by keeping all of the contestants around (and not sending one home).
Not that I watch many reality shows – and, in fact, NFS may be the only one – but this is my ultimate television pet peeve. What was the point of even watching the episode?
Can I have my hour back, please?
That being said, no way they could’ve sent Lisa home last week, but I’m still incredibly uninterested in her theme, and Aaron just bores me. He’s far too dry on camera, though coaching and clever editing would probably help him there. Because don’t forget, they create these contestants’ personalities with the editing they already do.
I still find Adam to be the most entertaining, and while he probably wouldn’t make it as a cooking show host, the Network features (or has featured in the past) many other shows that involve little to no actual cooking.
Guess we’ll just have to wait until this Sunday to see how it all ends…
you know, Steve, there used to be a show on Food Network 8-10 years ago where they would bring in NYC chefs and just have them create a dish.
It was a 30-minute show in a very sparse setting and it was all about the cooking. That’s how I first saw Tyler Florence. I remember because he annoyed me so much with his repeated use of “mmmkay?”
If Food Network REALLY, TRULY wanted to get the next star, they would bring that type of program back. Maybe even have a mobile studio so they could get chefs from other big (or not-so-big) cities to do the same. Have each chef do five dishes on tape and you have a week of programming. Get 26 chefs and you have a year’s worth with only one repeat each. The ones that are good you invite back to do more and, if they do well, you give them their own show.
But if you just want to get a show to drag in viewers and pretend to give people an actual shot at stardom, you do what Food Network is actually doing.
I thought the dumbest part of the show was the individual promos. To have people act and remember lines for a promo they were just given was stupid. I guarantee you that none of the talent on FN memorize their lines for their on camera promos. BTW, is it bad that i look forward to your NFNS reviews as much as your weekly chats?
As each episode progresses and I become more accustomed to the manipulative, canned comments of the selection committee, I find my interest waning. It’s become clear that the committee lacks the creativity, understanding, and fortitude to offer genuine constructive criticism, and have been eliminating contestants who they fear will not fit their demographic, rather than basing their decisions on the results of the actual competition. This makes the contest less compelling, not more.
Ugh.
I don’t think it was only me who had guessed that there would be no eliminated contestants: the preview from the week before the last one gave too much of clue.
However, I guessed that they would go through one more round to eliminated one to the final of two.. so that was only
difference between my guess and what actually happened.
The reason for me is that they didn’t want to eliminated Aaron: he was the worst among three, in both cooking and entertaining. Three pastas were to much and none of them looked appetizing. Even worse, his presentation was horrible and I had to flip the channel. I think that they wanted to get rid of Adam as much as they did to save Aaron; had he done slightly worse than he did last week, he would already be eliminated. However, I think their judgement was impaired: Tuschman guy said ‘with one bad week among seven, we cannot eliminated him’, but had they already eliminated guys mostly based on each episode’s performance, more than anything? It was too generous, while they pointed out Adam’s ongoing
inconsistency. I don’t think that’s fair. I think he did great job, especially in cooking and they seemed to be still hesitant to give him a credit in that department.
To me, he looked most relaxed and food looked great. Cannot see any problem for him to cook.
Lisa… I have to admit that her singing was great, but singing itself cannot make me like her. There were critical failure in cooking, in addition to poor performance in
filming promo. Overall, she was slightly better than Aaron as nobody was able to detect her lack of quantity in monkfish.
They are heading to the final… I have no idea who will win, but if that is not solely based on performance, I bet Aaron will win and he will be gone after one season
of awkward show. My favorite to win now is Adam, as I have been impressed by his
overall performance, but hard to imagine they let him win all the way, even harder for Lisa.
One last thing: by the preview, it seems that they will decide the
winner by jury, not by
open vote. Is it only me who thinks fishy?