Chopped

I have watched Chopped for a long time, and I still really enjoyed the show. Sometimes it's obvious that the wrong person wins, but again I didn't have a chance to taste the food. Sometimes it does seem as if the person with the worst sob story is the winner, maybe out of pity.

Unlike some, I do think that leaving out a basket ingredient should be a reason to be automatically Chopped. Although they do you eliminate those who have blood the food because they can't eat the dish, sometimes they give the contestant rave reviews about the appearance of the food when really the person shouldn't even be up there for judging.

Overall it's a fun show and feel most of the judging is fair.

It's excruciating this season. It has no connection to the video. It crashes to a climax at stupid times, changes style without reason and sorta sounds like my little brother's 8th grade band. When did a cooking contest become so ridiculously dramatic?! I wish I could eliminate the music track completely.

A classic cooking show. They come up with some pretty creative basket ingredients, and I love theme days. If you like cooking competitions, this is a must watch!

ONE ICE CREAM FREEZER!!!!!

Totally unfair. I watched this today at 5:00. Jen absolutely should have won. Alex dropped her ice cream burnt her cookies and Jen didn't set out to do Panna Cotta.... she was doing ice cream, bit you only have one machine?????? Don't get me wrong. I am a huge fan of Alex. You can tell on The Kitchen that the other chefs have almost a reverence for her. But in this case, especially, she got to the ice cream freezer first, but what did she do with that advantage? Absolutely nothing. If you had two ice cream freezers like you should, then you have a level playing field.

Shame on you!

I think the whole premise of this show is fantastic with the 4 crazy ingredients having to be whipped into a dish in a limited amount of time and the winner must survive 3 rounds where 1 person is "Chopped" after each course

But, the judging appears to be disingenuous and biased. They seem to favor personalities, stories and potential over the actual dishes served. They let their favorites through even when given uncooked dishes or those missing a basket ingredient. This is the only show of this type of the ones I watch (the others are Guy's Grocery Games and Forged in Fire) where I can't consistently guess the winner based on the judges' comments. Is this because the judges let through who they like best without regards to the established criteria/parameters or is it just a case of poor editing? Anyway, if you ignore that aspect, it is very entertaining to watch just to see what the chefs come up with in each round.