Top Chef 2/15 Show Discussion **Spoilers**

[lilymax]

I'm not going to win any popularity contests for saying this, but I was so glad Bev didn't get to the final. I watched the episode early this morning kind of by accident because when she got back in via LCK, I vowed not to watch anymore. So much for that. Curiosity got me.

I am not a mean person, and I don't normally like mean reality competition contestants, but to me Bev with her whiny voice was way more irritating than even Sara was being mean. And I probably shouldn't admit it, but I kind of like Lindsay (sp?). I don't really know why. My favorites were Dakota and Nyesha and when they left I just sort of lost interest.

I also don't really like the premise of a beaten contestant coming back in via LCK. Why should somebody who has already been beaten by the others come back in like that and then have to be beaten again by some of the same people to win? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sure it isn't going anywhere as it seems to be popular, but I don't like it.

I don't know if I will even watch the finals. I like the guy that's left (sorry can't remember his name right now) but I would like to see a woman win. This is shameful, but I did a fist pump when Bev got beat again. Lol.

[maude~flanders]

Wow! MF, thanks, that is good to know. Although I agree that the money shouldn't give them the right to decide on the content, doesn't advertising money usually involve having some say in how the product is represented? It doesn't mean they should have say in how the show is presented, but maybe how the product (the city) is presented (ie. which parts of Houston are presented for the optimal exposure for tourism). I'm glad Houston didn't play ball.

[MFWalkoff]

I would guess the control thing runs both ways -- a city doesn't want Top Chef to present it in an unflattering light, but at the same time Top Chef has a reputation of its own to uphold, and it can't get caught up in misrepresentations -- for example, being forced to recommend a fleabag resort because the mayor's brother-in-law runs it.

Some people have a problem with Top Chef asking for money at all, and I would too if they were squeezing small towns with no built-in tourism or film/TV commission budgets. But so far they have filmed in major cities that likely have big budgets in place to attract shows like Top Chef. (Meaning, it's not as if Tom Colicchio is taking school lunches out of poor kids' mouths).

I don't know if Texas really got its money's worth this season, since filming was kind of scattered around the state, but I'd bet other places are glad the show was there.

[ness]

All my hopes are now pinned on Paul.

[marauder]

okay, I live in Houston and it really ticks me off that they are having the finale in a different state...

Other people addressed why they didn't come to Houston, but the reason the finale wasn't in Texas because they NEVER have the finale in "host" state. They always have it at some exotic location. This is the only time that I can think of they took it to a cold climate, usually they take it to a warm location (i.e. Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc.). Probably this time they wanted to have the extremes, extremely warm in Texas, extremely cold where they were in Canada. Also the fact that the finale is usually filmed months after the rest of the series also comes into play.

[jsciv]

Personally, I liked the gondola challenge: though the environment was strange it seemed to have a fairly good pantry in there and it really was just "cook under stress" more than anything else. I also didn't mind the skiing one as it appeared that they got a full hour to cook after they got back to the kitchen with Bev only having a 5-minute lead. But yeah, the ice-chipping one was kind of gimmicky (though in the end Paul helping but still winning was an appropriate "good karma" ending).