text: [[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bdcb92c8214e38d750e869e551e1e831.jpg]]->''Cooking doesn't get tougher than this!''A cooking-themed reality show that has different formats in different countries. In Britain (1990--2001, 2005--), three to six people compete per episode and one of them goes through to the next round at the end. In Australia, New Zealand, United States of America, Canada, South Africa, Peru, Chile, Spain and Argentina (and many other countries), the format is a standard RealityTelevision show, with people leaving each episode and the contestants being whittled down to one over time. The series also have spawned multiple spin-offs, including ''[=MasterChef=] Junior'', ''[=MasterChef=]: The Professionals'', and so on.'''Note:''' the Australian version of the show has [[Series/MasterChefAustralia its own page]].----!!This show contains examples of:* HundredPercentAdorationRating: ** Brazilian [=MasterChef=] season 3 had Gleice, an {{Adorkable}} and sweet 20 year old student with a DarkAndTroubledPast. She was loved by the audience, judges and contestants alike, even though she never really stood out during the competition. Her elimination was one of the most emotional moments of the show's run, bringing even the judges to tears. [[spoiler: When she came back, the other participants were chanting her name.]] ** American's Season 4 had Luca- the happy go lucky Italian restaurant manager with an underdog story of failing to get an apron in Season 3 and finally winning Season 4.** America's Season 8 had the three finalists, [[spoiler: Dino, Jason, and Ebony]] the three of them seemed pretty universally loved among the viewers, with many proclaiming it was the first time they liked every finalist and wanted any of them to win.%%** America's Season 7 brought us Nathan Barnhouse, a young {{Keet}} with a propensity to wear suits (bowties included). His personality was warmly received by the judges, his fellow contestants, and the audience, and his elimination, like Gleice above, was incredibly emotional for everyone involved. **Note: Not really. Nathan was more of a Base Breaker between both the contestants and the viewers.* TheAce: In Season 7, the final seven are asked who they thought was the biggest competition, to which each and everyone answered Shaun. Gordon then said to him "No pressure." [[spoiler:He ended up winning the entire season.]]* AdorablyPrecociousChild: Some of the ''Master Chef Junior'' contestants can be this.** Sarah Lane, the most grounded and tough-minded of the youngest season 1 contestants.** 8-year-old Abby and 9-year-old Oona from Season 2 most definitely count as well.** Don't forget Riley, the youngest contestant so far (8). Once, he said Gordon was his favorite cook, and Gordon said right back that Riley was his favorite.* {{Adorkable}}:** US season 4's Bri and season 5's Jaimee, with their simpler style of clothing, glasses and amiable attitudes.** Also from Season 4 was the quirky and energetic Luca** Gordon Ramsay, during the season 3 auditions, upon learning that a lady named Pauline is from Glasgow, his own hometown.** Jorge, the Molecular Biology Doctor from the Spanish version S2. His courgette chaperonines will always be remembered.** Season 5 has [[InSeriesNickname Scottish]] [[CloudCuckooLander Francis]].** Canada Season 3 has Mary, with her huge green glasses, bright red lipstick and {{Squee}} upon meeting astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield.* AlliterativeName: Season 8's Brien O'Brien.* AlphaBitch: ** Natasha is set up this way at first in US season four, but while she continues to be haughty and occasionally mean to her competitors, the general tendency of many of that season's contestants towards JerkAss behavior leads to her never really achieving this status and she is overshadowed in the "villain" role by her initial rival Krissi.** Courtney in season five. Astrid and Ahran were initially being set up this way, but the former crashed and burned early on, while the latter's repeated apologies and acceptance of her mistakes got her out of it.* AmericansHateTingle: An in-universe example with regard to Molecular Gastronomy, which is a part of the show in nearly every version -- except for the US version, where Gordon Ramsay and Joe Bastianich have made no secret of their disdain for the technique, saying that they don't consider it "real" cooking and that it encourages chefs to show off rather than focusing on making something that tastes good.** Finally averted in the finale of Season 8, in which both Gordon and Joe (who came back as a guest) were intrigued by Dino using molecular gastronomy to create a pseudo-caviar out of espresso.* ArousedByTheirVoice: Everyone with a pulse after hearing the youngest judge of the Spanish version, Jordi Cruz, talking for the first time. His amazing baritone voice only helps to enhance his other appealing physical attributes, so much that nowadays he is the not-so-unofficial MrFanservice of the programme -- ShirtlessScene included.* AscendedExtra: Aarón Sanchez, who was a guest judge for U.S. Season 7, fills in as a permanent judge for Season 8, according to [[https://parade.com/548433/alison-ashton/chef-aaron-sanchez-joins-the-masterchef-judges-panel/ this report]].* AsHimself: Joe Bastianich, who's also one of the judges in MasterChef Italy, dubs himself alongside professional voice actors for the Italian airing of the US version.* AwesomeMcCoolname: ** Season 3's Monti Carlo names her son "Danger".--->'''Monti:''' "He's gonna love me for that when he's in college."** Season 5 has Joshua "Cutter" Brewer.* AwesomenessByAnalysis: In the first episode of ''Master Chef Junior'', ten-year-old Gavin explained to the judges how he learned to make tortellini from scratch -- he had it at a cafe and decided he could make it just as well at home. So he did.* BackForTheFinale: Joe Bastianich left as a judge for the U.S. ''[=MasterChef=]'' at the end of Season 5, but returned as a guest judge for the finale of Season 8.* BaitAndSwitchComment: ** "I have one big complaint about your dish... I can't stop eating it!" shows up a few times.** Or a comment along this line: "I'm sorry, but ({{beat}}) you won't be going home for a while. Come up here and get your apron!'** Conversely, the first episode of the third US season had this little exchange:-->'''Gordon:''' Congratulations...\\'''Contestant:''' [[NoIndoorVoice THANK YOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--]]\\'''Gordon:''' ...on the worst dish in this competition so far.** In season three to Felix when she's one of the bottom two: "It's time to say good-bye... to Scott."** Also in season 3, Josh was the captain of a team of seven that lost the earlier challenge. The judges decided that three people performed well enough in the challenge to be deemed safe and would not need to cook in the elimination challenge. After choosing two, Gordon Ramsay turned to Josh, and said, "The person I'm saving... Josh... it's not you." Josh's reaction was just priceless.** In season 4, Gordon was choosing one person of three to save from a pressure test. He says "Lynn..." and as Lynn starts moving forward to go upstairs, Gordon proceeds to reprimand him for sweating on plates (and even wiping the plates with the same towel he used to soak up the sweat from his forehead) during the team challenge, tells him to get back in line, and says who he's actually saving.** Season 4 also had an elimination challenge involving cooked chicken breasts. Gordon says "And the person who will be leaving Master Chef tonight is... Bri", and then he continues with "It's not you, head upstairs."** Also in Season 4, an elimination challenge has come down to Jessi and Bri. Gordon tells Jessi, "Take off your apron, and say goodbye." Jessi, on the verge of tears, takes her apron off, and then Gordon says, "Because you won't be seeing Bri again."** US season 5 has Gordon use the exact same line he used on Season 3's Josh for declaring the safe team in the surf-and-turf challenge. "The team that is safe from that dreaded pressure test is... Christian and Francis B... it's not you."** US Season 7 has also had at least once, possibly more than once, "The person leaving ''[=MasterChef=]'', X... it's not you. Head up to the balcony."* BatmanGambit: ** In Season 4, Eddie used his Mystery Box advantage to ''deliberately'' give [[TheAce Jordan]] the high-quality fresh wild mushrooms, rightly expecting him to get cocky and overwork them. Gordon even referred to it as a "precision strike", and Jordan only stayed that episode because Bethy added way too much sesame oil to her mushrooms and got eliminated.*** Krissi would attempt a Batman Gambit against Jordan again later in the season, having won elimination, and tasked with assigning her competitors a specific bird to cook. Krissi set Jordan up with quail for the exact same reason that Eddie gave Jordan the fresh mushrooms, and it ultimately led to his elimination.** Later that season, Jessie wanted to set up an all-female final with Natasha and picked Kobe beef as her ingredient, hoping that Natasha would pick Grana Padano cheese, leaving Luca with crab, which he wasn't too hot at cooking. However, this backfired when Luca pulled his ''own'' Batman Gambit and said that even as an Italian he wouldn't want to work with the cheese (which, of course, he actually did). Natasha then decided that rather than sitting around and being played by the other two, she'd just pick the ingredient she personally wanted -- the crab. Jessie subsequently got eliminated that episode, though not for reasons directly related to her failed gambit, oddly enough.* BewareTheNiceOnes:** In US Season 4, Bri was one of the nicer contestants overall, until loud, confrontational Krissi finally got on Bri's last nerve and the mousy, bespectacled vegetarian shows her inner badass when she delivers an epic verbal smackdown to Krissi.** The judges in the Spain version are this in general. They are amicable, supportive, and can be prone to kid around and have a good time. That being said, they tend to be very strict about things and won't accept any bad behavior from contestants (as season 2's Gonzalo found out when judge Jordi ripped him a new one). They will also never hesitate to punish contestants who perform exceptionally poorly in team challenges and send them into elimination even if their team won (and by contrast, save a contestant from the losing team who performed admirably). *** Not even the children in the ''Junior'' version are exempt from this, as season 2's Victor, age 12, found out after a team challenge, when during cleaning the work tables, he commented that "girls clean better than boys because it's in their genes". Immediately the judges punish him by making him clean the whole kitchen all by himself. As he's carrying out his punishment, he says he didn't mean any harm, that it was just his opinion that girls clean better than boys, and this repeat offense caused the judges to take off a point from his overall amount (the Junior version works in that the contestants receive points by how well they perform in challenges and the ones with the least points are eliminated after a set number of challenges).** While the nicest judge on the panel in the American version (which is really saying something, considering Graham Elliot is on the same panel) Christina Tosi isn't afraid to lambaste people. She ripped into Christopher twice for his arrogance, and expressed anger at Darah when she tried to point out the positives of her team's performance, despite them being dominated by the opposing team. * BerserkButton: ** Serving the judges raw food is pretty much a one-way ticket to elimination. Justified considering that the worst case scenario for this happening in the real world is someone getting severely ill and/or dying.** We have seen in the US version that contestants who are safe from pressure tests will try to help others in them by offering suggestions, reminding them when they have something cooking for certain periods of time or if they forgot an ingredient, but the judges in ''Master Chef Argentina'' really, really don't like it when safe contestants try to help out those participating in pressure tests.** Do NOT insult the palates of the three judge's mothers. When Giuseppe, the Red Team captain in a Season 2 episode, implied that they lost because of different "tastes" (as the judges were Gordon, Graham and Joe's mothers), Gordon exploded at him. No one insults his mother like that. It was probably only the fact that Giuseppe spoke English as a second language and possibly chose his words poorly that prevented him from being tossed off the show there and then.** This is a small one and it rarely happens, but the judges hate it when contestants leave their station in a mess as it shows a lack of professionalism.* BodySushi: In Season 2 of the US version, a contestant attempts to impress the judges by serving the ''nyotaimori'' variety of this in the auditions. It doesn't work.* BrutalHonesty: Gordon and Joe will verbally tear a contestant apart when their dish is horrible or raw. Joe takes it a step further by [[KickTheDog throwing really horrible tasting dishes in the trash, right in front of their cooks.]]* CamelCase: The way the title is displayed in the logo.* {{Camp}}: Dino, from Season 8: He's a quirky, theatrical, wise-cracking {{Keet}} who enjoys playfully bantering with the other contestants and the judges, and makes equally quirky dishes that don't sound good based on their individual parts, but, when prepared, end up being phenomenal enough [[spoiler:to win him the entire season.]] * CatchPhrase: ** In the US version:*** Almost every episode has one of the judges saying someone will have to face "the dreaded pressure test."*** If a dish is served with an exceptionally good presentation, Gordon will very likely say "Visually, it's got that wow factor". If the dish was a disappointment from an otherwise excellent cook, he'll frequently end his remarks by saying "Pity." or "What a shame."*** Also, if Gordon is especially disappointed about a dish turning out worse than he expected, he'll mutter "Damn!" under his breath.*** Joe Bastianich: Whenever confronted with a moderate-to-bad mistake, he usually tells the contestant "That's a very severe technical error". When a contestant ''really'' screws up, he tells them "Thanks for nothing," usually on the back of a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.*** Graham Elliot: "I wish I could think of something positive to say about this."*** Aarón Sanchez: "Textbook Example" and "This ___ is dynamite!" whenever he had a really good dish.** In the UK: "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this!", "Whoever wins this, it's gonna [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Change. Their. Lives!]]" and "They're/You're fighting for their/your ''Master Chef'' lives!". All since dropped, but MemeticMutation had already done its work.* CharacterDevelopment: In the U.S.A. version during Season 5, Ahran and Leslie spent several episodes in a rather immature feud with each other. But after being [[TeethClenchedTeamwork forced to work together]] (thanks to Courtney) in episode 7, they both worked incredibly well as a team. They listened to each other's ideas, didn't bicker even once, and even hugged each other after their dish was praised by the judges. Ahran later admitted she'd love to work with Leslie again. [[spoiler: Come the next Team Challenge, where Ahran was a captain due to her performance in the previous challenge, she made good on her words.]]* CharacterTic: ** Many times, when US judge Graham Elliot takes a bite of something, he'll shift his eyes upwards to the left when he starts chewing. A contestant from the third Junior season lampshades it when she also looks up to try to see just what he's staring at.** Joe Bastianich ''always'' scrapes his teeth on forks when he takes a bite.** A not often seen tic from Gordon Ramsay is he will unexpectedly chuckle whenever he tastes a dish that he expects to be a mess and yet it ends up being delicious, such as season 3's Monti's scotch eggs breaded with canned crab meat, season 5's Francis Legge's donuts with prosciutto, stout, and maple syrup, and season 6's Veronica's messy looking apple pie.* ChekhovsSkill: In Season 7, during the "Pop-Up Restaurant", David's team won once he adapted to the ticket orders and numbers, since he is a professional Poker player for a living.** In Canada 2, David was able to ice his cake with precision and cleanly since as a concrete worker, he can pave concrete in a smooth way.** In season 4, during his audition, Jordan brings up the fact that he often rolls dough with a wine bottle instead of a rolling pin because oftentimes fancier tools aren't available where he cooks. This comes in handy by allowing them to actually make pasta in the wilderness challenge using this method.* CookingDuel: Happens in the British and Australian versions.** In the US Season 6 and onwards, the casting has been replaced by Cooking Duels, with the Top 40 against each other in diverse themes, pairing the contestants according to common backgrounds or specialties.* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: There are different types of aprons. First the White Aprons, those are given to the ones who pass to the Top 40/20. Then the Team Challenge Aprons, red, blue and yellow (this one is less frequent). And then the Black Aprons, which only the contestants in the Pressure Test wear.* CordonBleughChef: ''Generally'' averted for the main contestants on the show (although usually they will unintentionally cook something worthy of this title, which also usually gets them eliminated), but there will always be a handful during auditions for the sake of comedy. Note that making it to the Auditions means that the cooks do have the ability to make normal food, but some choose the weirdest things as their "signature" dishes. The beer-cheese soup comes to mind. Some of them do work out, however, like Season 4's Johnny B's lobster crackerjacks.%%* CoolTeacher: Rodrigo from the Chilean version.* CoolOldLady: Sister Flor, from the Mexican version, a nun and TeamMom who was loved by everybody in the season.* CrazyEnoughToWork: This seemed to be Dino's preferred method in the U.S. Season 8. His cooking was often wildly inventive and often went in directions that had never been done before and theoretically just should not have worked. When he failed, it could be spectacular, but his success was enough [[spoiler:to carry him to the finale and win in the end.]]* CripplingOverspecialization: Played with with Bri, the vegetarian from US season 4. She cooks amazing vegetarian dishes, but she doesn't taste the meat she cooks and she usually has trouble cooking meat, so it's no wonder some of her worst dishes were meat dishes.** Hindu contestant Hetal from US Season 6 cooked expert vegetarian dishes, but would not taste meat or milk when she had to use them as ingredients in a dish.* CurbStompBattle: ** In US Season 7, the blue team trashed the red team in the farming team challenge 81 to 20.** In the first season of the Canadian Version, one team won a overwhelming ''107 votes'' out of 15. * CuteClumsyGirl: Monti in US season 3. Her firetruck-red lipstick and {{meganekko}} look do not hurt at ''all.''%%* DeadpanSnarker: Fortune in the SA version. Elizabeth from season 5 of the American version, ''brilliantly'' so.* DeafComposer:** Or rather, '''blind chef''' Christine in the American version.** Most seasons in the US have at least one Vegetarian, meaning they cannot taste their dish when a meat-centric one comes up and the show never makes exceptions for dietary concerns unless it's a health-related one. This means that the chefs are basically cooking blind, since they can't taste their dish after the non-meat ingredients touch the protein. The quality of the dishes have zigzagged, with some successfully "guessing" at the correct flavours while others failing because they have no way of telling what their dish tastes like. ** Muslim contestants when asked to cook pork. Australian season 5's Samira El Khafir was eliminated over a pork brioche bun.[[note]]She won a second chance challenge the following week and returned to the competition, finishing in third place.[[/note]]* DeathByIrony: Not a literal death, of course, but [[spoiler: upon Josh's first elimination, he declared that Christine would go on to win the whole competition. Afterwards, he earned his way back into the competition, making it to the finals ... where, indeed, he lost to Christine]]. * DeathGlare: Season 4's Natasha's default expression. Almost every time she was seen onscreen, she looked like she was plotting a horrible demise for somebody. Krissi herself had a lot of these, too.** Judges Gordon and Joe can also be very good at this when contestants infuriate them in any way, be it with horrible food, disregard for cleanliness while cooking or serving, or having a bad attitude when the judges are sampling dishes. ** Season 5's Cutter was shooting these at Dan after the fiasco that was their team (see EpicFail below), along with Courtney who put the team together.* {{Determinator}}: ** Khaya from the SA version is pregnant but continues to outclass all of her fellow contestants.** US season 3's Christine, who is unable to see how things are cooking and how her plating looks, unless she asks her aide, Cindy, how things look. She nevertheless constantly puts up tasty dishes, many with nice presentations, and has even put up good dishes baked from an oven, in which she can't taste her dish while it bakes.** In the Chilean version, most contestants are still working at their regular jobs. Ignacio works nights as a garbage collector, so he almost doesn't sleep when he is cooking for the show. He also took the trope UpToEleven when he went in a wheelchair with a broken leg. And he is the most probable winner and the only one who already has an offer to cook in one of the judge's restaurants. ** US Junior season 2's Abby, during a challenge where they had to cook a restaurant-worthy dish, and she can only use two ingredients to do it. She never lets that deter her and she pushes on, managing to have one of the two best dishes of the night.** Canada season 2's Jennifer, who after forgetting a key, must-have ingredient for a difficult dish and having a bit of a meltdown, pushes on and decides to, on the fly, make up a substitute for the ingredient she lacked. She works non-stop and the most focused she has so far and manages to produce a great dish, stunning the judges. Other contestants lampshade how much she falls into this trope during that challenge.* DisabilitySuperpower:** The Judges noted that Christine has an amazing palate due to her blindness; culinary school students would often be blindfolded during a taste-testing assignment to better allow them to understand the flavours of various foods and spices. Christine, being actually blind, has all of this heightened, allowing her to make minute adjustments to the taste of her dish on the fly because of this sensitivity. As expected, during the course of the season Christine did not fail to deliver.** Christine, again, in the offal challenge. Knowing how offal ''looks'', being blind is certainly an advantage.* DisappointedInYou: In the American version of ''Junior'', the judges say this when the semifinalists fail to produce a perfectly soft-boiled egg. * DistractedByTheSexy: The main reason Vicky, from the Spanish version S2, will be remembered. Because [[EatingTheEyeCandy "I can't cook with a hot guy in front of me"]]. Because ''"Is he hot?"'' is probably her catchphrase. But mostly because of her hilarious teenager-like reactions to [[LustObject one of the judges]] ([[PuppyDogEyes doe-eyes]], giggling, [[CrushBlush blushing]], [[GibberishOfLove babbling]], almost burning food to a crisp,...). Obviously, [[EveryoneCanSeeIt everyone and their cat can see (and laugh about) it]]... even the [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage jury himself]]. Yeah, watching ''Master Chef Spain'' is almost like watching a [[LoveDodecahedron flipping soap-opera]].* DrillSergeantNasty: ** Judge Andrew Ratkinson in the SA version.** And judge Alvin Leung from the Canada version. He is loud, strict, demanding and will get in contestants' faces if they produce crap food. That being said, he is very supportive towards contestants who do well and will never fail to give high praise to a good dish.* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first U.S. Season has a ton:** First off, it features a Top 14 (the lowest in the U.S. version)** The setup of the MasterChef Kitchen was different, with the judge's station at the far left side of the kitchen.** There was no immunity given to the winner of the Mystery Box Challenge (well there was one instance, but it was optional).** The first two Pressure Tests were palate tests and the person with fewest correct guess would be eliminated. By the third Pressure Test, it would go into the format a lot of viewers know.** The way they decided to make the final 2 had the final four compete tournament style (two pairs would compete one at a time, and the winner of that pair will move on to the finale).* EndangeredSouffle: ** In the semi-finals of one version, the contestants had to make a chocolate soufflé. Whitney, the eventual winner, had a case of both CarryingACake and Endangered Soufflé as she had to hurry and present the soufflé to the judges while the soufflé slowly sank.** In the US version, one pressure test was to make a soufflé. In a subversion, [[spoiler: all the soufflés were deemed so good that nobody was eliminated that episode]].** Taken UpToEleven in the Season 3 of the US show. All ''three'' of the soufflés were properly risen on each side, even though the judges thought the task may have been too difficult to do in an hour. * EnemyMine: Tag Team cooking challenges, as they will often be rigged to deliberately put two contestants who do not get along together.** In Season Five, Leslie and Ahran do not get along, but a tag team challenge actually improves their relationship somewhat.* EpicFail: ** From U.S. Season 1, Slim in one elimination challenge sent up a terrible passion fruit fondue with lamb that didn't have the fat cut off entirely. It was so terrible that Joe refused to eat it, and trashed it once Ramsay finished his judging.** From U.S. Season 2, one team challenge had the home cooks make hors d'oeuvres for a private party. One of the blue team's dishes supposed to be Chocolate Profiteroles, but Esther had a lot of problems trying to make the puff batter work out. When she did make a good batch, it was only confounded when Ramsay revealed that their mousse filling was broken. With very little time, the blue team could only scrape up a dainty dessert of chopped berries with cream. A very embarrassed Ramsay not only called it the worst dish of Masterchef so far, but the worst dish to ever leave his own kitchen (they used his West Hollywood kitchen for the challenge).** Also U.S. Season 2, Jennifer presented a pork and sauerkraut dish to the judges in an elimination challenge, a dish with which she had been raised as a kid. The judges are immediately astounded and Gordon derided its poor presentation before he had even tasted it, during which he spat it out. Joe then dumped the dish into the trash right in front of everybody, leaving a tearful Jen to reflect on her blunder as she returned to her station. The fact that Christian was grinning through the whole thing didn't help matters. ** From U.S. Season 3:*** In the second pressure test, the goal was to make a molten lava cake. With time running out, Tali had presented a cake that looked okay, but was apparently a little bland and undercooked, while Anna and Josh had both presented excellent cakes. The one remaining contestant, Ryan, brought up his plate literally as time ran out... and served up a disintegrated pile of mush that Graham described as "diarrhea on a plate." Turning this into a full-blown HumiliationConga, rather than just announcing that Ryan was eliminated, the judges made him ''admit'' he had the worst cake and hand over his apron of his own accord.*** In episode 6, the elimination challenge involved using either canned crab or fresh crab, with who gets what being decided by Ryan (as he had won the mystery box challenge). He gave everyone he wanted to stay a fresh crab, gave everyone he disliked canned, and made an exception for Christine as he was hoping a live animal would "trip her up". Not only did his plan backfire spectacularly (Christine and Monti, the two he was specifically aiming for, both delivered impressive dishes, with Christine winning and Monti surprising Gordon with the taste) but among the four singled out for elimination, three of them got ''fresh crab''. The judges all voiced their disappointment and specifically singled out Tali, as Ryan had given him the fresh crab to ensure he stayed in the competition, and he somehow managed to bungle it up so bad that even [[NiceGuy Graham]] was making jokes at his expense.** From U.S. Season 4:*** In Episode 4, Howard presented Gordon with a sliced citrus salad topped with langoustine, with the dish only occupying about half the plate it was presented on. Gordon cursed the dish the second he saw it, and deemed it so lazy that he refused to taste it. Joe was even more unforgiving, saying he had spoken highly of Howard's ability in the kitchen and took the dish as a personal insult. *** Until Episode 13, Lynn was considered one of the strongest chefs of the season. And then he finished his run on the season with his infamous baked meringue dish, consisting of sliced bananas, banana puree, strawberries, and an unidentifiable gray matter. It was quickly dubbed one of the worst dishes of the series, and Lynn was soon after eliminated. *** In Episode 19, Krissy won the Mystery Box Challenge and she got to pair each contender with a bird. She used the advantage to aim directly at Jordan (quail), Luca (turkey) and Natasha (pheasant), leaving Jessie the chicken by default. Turns out that Jessie was on the ''bottom two'' with the easiest bird to cook. Krissy lampshades this in the confessional "I gave you ''chicken''. If you fail at this, then it's your fault".** From U.S. Season 5:*** In the first episode, Chandis and Corey failed massively on potato dishes: Chandis gave the judges a plate of completely raw Rosti (Swiss potato pancakes) which Joe Bastianich called as "one of the worst offenses in the Master Chef kitchen", and Corey made a rock-hard potato souffle (after Gordon tried to remove the souffle from the ramekin, the plate broke into pieces!). Both were immediately eliminated.*** In Episode 3, the pressure test for the losing team was to make Blueberry Pie to Elise's rejoice, since she kept proclaiming that she was a baker and pies were her specialty (her first challenges placed her in the bottom by making subpar chicken potpies). She landed on the bottom 2 for a raw and grainy crust. *** In episode 7, fourteen of the fifteen contestants were paired up in teams of two to make a surf-and-turf dish. One of the teams was composed of Cutter and Dan, and to say that they fit this trope would be an understatement. From the very beginning, they couldn't agree on a plate, with Dan insisting on using ingredients that would shine in individual plates and Cutter arguing about it, trying to convince Dan that both proteins and the other components of the plate needed to fully combine into one cohesive dish. This led to them wasting their five minutes in the pantry and barely grabbing any ingredients at all. It all went further downhill from there, both of them working separately and with palpable animosity with their meager ingredients and producing a terrible dish that, had it been an elimination challenge, would have easily sent either or both home. *** Later in that season, Daniel somehow managed to produce a poached egg with ''no yolk'' in the first segment of a multi-part pressure test.** From Season 7*** The Blue team during the wedding challenge had a miserable time getting their appetizers out in part of Nathan and Shaun arguing over who had more control over the team (Nathan was the captain, but Shaun was concern that his method of leadership was hindering their performance), and in part of Barbara cooking the scallops ''way'' before the service began and making a huge mistake on the vinaigrette. As a result, they failed to serve all their appetizers before the speeches happened, and it led to their defeat despite a better performance on the entree section.*** Nathan and Shaun's performance in the tag team challenge resulted in a basket with raw burgers, raw lobster roll, and no scotched eggs.** From U.S. Season 8*** There was the Cannoli pressure test, where the contestants had to make six cannolies, three of one flavour and three of another. Brien O'Brien only presented four, and Jeff just barely did better by presenting five. When Gordon desperately asked the last contestant Newton to tell him some good news, Newton replied that he knew how to count to six. He got a round of applause for that.*** A similar situation happened later on in the Truffle's pressure test where Yachecia had little to no white chocolate truffles with her only one being a half piece that Ramsay asked if she bit into it.** In episode 10 of ''Master Chef Argentina'', two teams must cook for one hundred little children. The challenge required them to cook a vegetable soup as an appetizer and serve it while other members of each team would continue cooking a pasta dish as an entree. The blue team left behind three members who worked through the pasta smoothly, whereas the red team left behind just two members, Laura and Mohamed, who completely tore everything down. Mohamed was too indecisive, while Laura kept insisting that they had to wait to cook the pasta, all while she tried making vegetarian meatballs in a size too big, which would take too long to cook portions for 100 children. By the time the other members returned, things were too far behind to salvage, and when teams had to serve the entrees, the blue team was on the right track, but the red team had nothing ready, and the judges promptly disqualified them on the spot, assuring they'd all go directly to the pressure test.** From Season 3 of MasterChef Italy, one of the contestants, Rachida, had to accomplish the simple task of turning a delicate dish called the Venus' Coffer in the upright position after extracting it from the bowl. To do so, she positioned a second plate upside-down on the dish, pressed the two plates together and turned the dish upright. The problem is, [[DidntThinkThisThrough the size of the dish was bigger than the two plates combined.]] It resulted in Rachida unwillingly turned the Venus' coffer into a crumbled pie. ** From Season 2 of MasterChef Canada, one contestant accidentally left the ''parchment paper'' in their dish. Fortunately, it was lessened when one of the judges said he made the same mistake earlier in his career, and it was an Mystery Box Challenge with no elimination warning.*** A similar situation happened in Season 4 when one of the judges found a piece of aluminum foil in her dessert. Unfortunately for her, this was in a Pressure Test, and was eliminated.* EverybodyLives: In the [[OnceAnEpisode seasonally recurring]] [[EndangeredSouffle souffle pressure test]], the judges will not eliminate anyone who makes a flawless/restaurant quality souffle. Twice, the 14th episode of season 2 and the 17th episode of season 8, all three contestants produced souffles of sufficient quality and the judges declined to eliminate anyone, citing that in light of their accomplishments doing so would be unfair. ** In a similar vein, during the 22nd episode of season 4, all three contestants in the dish replication pressure test successfully replicated the dish and were all spared from elimination. * FatBastard: Averted by Graham Elliot in the US version; despite probably weighing as much as Gordon Ramsay and Joe Bastianich combined during the first four seasons, he's easily the nicest of the three judges. As of Season 5, he's no longer fat either.* {{Fingore}}: Season four's Jessie cut off the tip of her finger with one in an ''excruciating'' sequence featuring spurting blood, and Gordon retrieving said tip -- stuck in the blade of the mandoline -- with a knife. It's pretty much the worst thing you'll ever see.* {{Flanderization}}: The first season of ''Master Chef Junior'' featured a challenge in which bowls of more-or-less whipped cream were inverted over the judges' heads.[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_H1-UhPm2A]] This was a legitimate -- if messy -- test of the kids' ability to whip the cream to stiff peaks. But since then, ''every'' season has had the judges getting dumped on, after skill tests only loosely related to the goop being dumped.* FoodPorn: Kinda goes without saying, really.* ForeignQueasine: ** In the second US season, Christian won the first Mystery Box challenge and got to set the theme for the next challenge, which was based around one of three European cuisines. Joe Bastianich revealed the first choice of Spanish cuisine, Graham Elliot revealed the second choice of French cuisine, and then Gordon Ramsay revealed the third and final choice of... British cuisine. Despite his attempts to talk it up, Christian and the other two judges couldn't stop laughing. A little later, after discovering that he didn't actually have to take part in the challenge himself, Christian said that he wished he had chosen British cuisine, just to witness the epic clusterfuck that would have resulted among the other contestants.** Similarly, in the Season 3 the chefs were assigned one of three desserts -- American Strawberry Shortcake, Italian Tiramisu, or British Trifle -- for an elimination challenge. The chefs with Strawberry Shortcake and Tiramisu all appeared fairly confident, while the reaction of the chefs who got the trifle could basically be summed up as "What the fuck is this shit?" -- though in the end, Stacey's trifle actually ended up being the best dessert, and Monti's was also praised.** Season 4 created an entire Mystery Box based on this: the Box contained a variety of bizarre ingredients from around the world, all with labels in their own languages which none of the contestants could read. Some contestants found things they recognized (Bime), some found familiar-looking foods and cooked simple "safe" foods with that (most contestants used the purple yam and/or the flank steak), some experimented to varying degrees of success (Jordan), and some were, understandably, hopelessly lost.--->'''Krissi:''' *spitting* I think I just ate some nasty Chinese pubic hair! (dried seaweed)** A Scottish lady named Pauline auditioned in the Season 2, with a dish containing haggis. While Gordon and Graham enjoyed her dish, Joe hated it.** Fiona, the Scottish participant in the Australian version, also made a haggis for her audition dish in Season 7. Even though judge Matt Preston was initially disgusted by the idea of eating haggis, he liked Fiona's dish enough that he gave her the Master Chef apron.* {{Fratbro}}: Season 7's Dan. He said so every other time he was on the ConfessionCam. Despite this, he was an incredibly good competitor who consistently did well on topics he knew of, was very much a NiceGuy and improvised extremely well on topics he wasn't familiar with.* FriendlyRivalry: Stephen and Derrick in Season 6, who keep ribbing and challenging each other but still having deep-seated respect for each other's abilities and being able to laugh things off. When Stephen is defeated before the finale by Claudia, Derrick even says that he can't believe he's saying that he'll be missing Stephen.* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: The US version of ''Junior'' already has a few examples in its first episode.** One episode of US Season Four had the Judges bring their children in as guest-stars. Gordon's son immediately began trying to hit on the female contestants.* FullNameBasis: A RunningGag on the US version is that, if a chef introduces themselves by their full name when they first meet the three judges, they will continue to be referred to by their full name for the duration of their time on the show.* GenerationXerox: Played for laughs in one episode when the Judges' kids show up to help them with a challenge, and they're all dressed as miniature versions of their fathers. The resemblance is quite striking.* GenreBlind:** In the RealityTelevision US version of the show, many contestants fail to realize that many of the usual genre tropes are not applicable. The standard "[[ImNotHereToMakeFriends I am not here to make friends]]" behavior is just going to make you look bad in front of the judges. Not that some haven't done it anyway. And that's to say nothing of the fact that the winner of every Mystery Box challenge is given the opportunity to screw over anyone who's pissed them off.** Nobody ever seems to prepare for the Food Science/Molecular Gastronomy challenge despite it being in almost every single version of the show.** Pretty much every single contestant that goes into the show without bothering to practice making desserts.** Every Mystery Box winner in the US version will try to screw over their rivals using their advantage, but 9 times out of 10 it just ends up making them look better because of the odds. Conversely, they usually screw over whoever they tried to help, as giving them too many advantages or high-end ingredients cause them to overthink their dishes, ending up with something overly complicated and not very appealing. * GentleGiant: ** Matt Preston from the Australian version towers the other two judges, standing at a 6'3'' height.** Antonino Cannavacciuolo, the fourth judge of Masterchef Italy from Season 5 onwards, has a quite intimidating body shape; however, he rarely ever gets angry, instead delivering very spicy remarks when confronting the contestants.* GoshDarnItToHeck: Gordon Ramsay, who is often a ClusterFBomb waiting to happen, has to come up with creative alternatives for ''[[SpinoffBabies Master Chef Junior]]''. He does let one slip when the kids are challenged to whip cream into stiff peaks and hold it over the judges' heads[[note]]the idea being that if they did it correctly it would stay in the bowl[[/note]] and he gets covered in half-whipped cream as a result.* GratuitousItalian: Seen occasionally in Season 4 when Italian contestant Luca talks to Joe. It may or may not be subtitled. * GuestStarPartyMember: ** In the U.S. Season 7, they had some guest judges come in to fill in the third spot next to Ramsay and Tosi. These included;*** Wolfgang Puck - (Episode 3, 18-19)*** Aarón Sanchez - (Episodes 5-7)*** Edward Lee - (Episodes 8-11)*** Kevin Sbraga - (Episodes 12-15)*** Richard Blais - (Episode 16-17)*** Daniel Boulud - (Episodes 18-19)** Joe himself returns for the finale of Season 8, joining the main three judges.* HairDecorations: Dara's ''Franchise/HelloKitty'' bow headband was so noticeable that [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Gordon tried it on]].* HandicappedBadass:** Christine, the blind chef in season 3, still manages to make delicious and beautiful looking (to the point Ramsay once asked if she was really blind) food quite a few times. Other contestants have stated that she has an amazing palate and that makes her a strong contender, and when finding themselves eliminated, four contestants declared she would be the winner -- which she eventually was.** In a different way, Jaimee from season 5. For perspective, Christine started having eyesight problems in her late teens, and lost her vision altogether around 4-5 years before appearing on the show. Jaimee started having major issues with her speech and movement ''days'' before the season started, and didn't even get a diagnosis on her condition until months after filming ended. Just competing on the show at all in the face of her disorder qualifies her as this, and the fact that she got through to the final six cements it.* HeroicSacrifice: Rodrigo, who was one of the most probable to win the Chilean version, resigned from the show to save Daniela who was eliminated. He also claimed that he wanted to focus on his career as a teacher.* HistoryRepeats: ** US Season 3: In the episode down to the final six, eight previously banished contestants come back, and one of those comes back to join the final seven. The end result was Josh against Ryan in a dessert challenge. Josh previously beat Ryan in a dessert challenge, resulting in Ryan being kicked out. [[spoiler: He does it again with a fruit tart, as the final six were blind taste judges and Josh won in a landslide.]]** US Season 4: Natasha and Bri go head-to-head as captains for the Top 8 team challenge, which eventually results in the latter's team's loss and later elimination in the pressure challenge afterward. Bri is eventually brought back with the "redemption" challenge. Two episodes later, in the Top 6 team challenge, Natasha and Bri are once again competing captains, and once again, Bri's team loses and Bri gets eliminated by the pressure challenge.* HonorBeforeReason:** Frank from season 3 of the U.S version passed the chance of being excluded from cooking in a pressure test and gave the chance to his teammate Felix, who refused and passed the chance to Scott, who also refused. Stacy ended up taking the chance, but she was in tears and admitted that she feels bad for taking the pass.** In the 8th episode of U.S. season 5, Willie was the blue team captain in a challenge where the contestants had to work the line at a popular diner in L.A., and his team (narrowly) lost. He was then given a choice for the pressure test: either he could save himself, and let all six of his teammates compete, or he could elect to compete, and save three of his teammates. He chose the latter option (ultimately saving Daniel, Francis L, and Victoria), saying that he was a man of integrity and he felt responsible for the team's loss. Considering how Willie had [[NiceGuy presented himself]] up to that point in the competition, it wasn't surprising that he made this decision.*** In the very next episode, Willie created a very disappointing dish using ingredients selected by Joe (tomato soup with an egg and flatbread), that Ramsay stated was a one out of ten. However, Cutter brought up a small, terrible "artisan" pizza, while Elise served a tiny, bland ravioli that she openly admitted was terrible, and after tasting everyone's dishes, the judges, rather than select the bottom three dishes, told the contestants who made the two worst dishes to raise their hand. It was obvious they were implying Cutter and Elise, and they both raised their hands...as did Willie. Gordon repeated the worst ''two'', and Willie kept his hand raised, while Cutter ''put his down''. The judges eventually had to tell Willie that he was safe.** In the 6th episode of ''Master Chef Argentina'', contestants were divided into two teams to cater for a wedding. An unexpected change of schedule put them far behind when it came to the main dish, to the point that two of the judges had to jump in and create dishes of their own so the guests would get to eat without too big a delay. Based on early dishes and teamwork in general, the red team won. Juan, the captain of the blue team, was given the choice to save himself or a member of his team from the pressure test, and he chose teammate Pablo. And then the judges pull off the twist, noting that teams needed the judges' help in completing the challenge, so they tell the captain of the winning team, Natalie, that she had to put a member of her team into the pressure test. Natalie said her team performed admirably, and then promptly put herself into the pressure test, which one of the judges mentioned was what a true Master Chef would do. ** In Season 2 of the US edition, Jennifer won the mystery box challenge and got to select the item everyone got to cook with. When revealed that each of them gets 500 dollars worth of Black Truffle to work with, Jennifer was presented with her second "advantage"; to save herself from elimination in exchange for not being able to participate in cooking. In the context of the contest there was absolutely nothing to gain from staying. However Jennifer chose to stay as no true chef would turn down the chance to work with actual Truffle. ** In season 3, Monti ended up as team captain in a challenge to cook for 101 cowboys and cowgirls, with her team consisting of herself, Josh, Felix and Becky (not her choices, as the judges decided to switch the teams that the captains picked). Her team ended up losing the challenge, and before the pressure test, the judges ask the four team members to decide between themselves which one of them would be saved and not have to take part in the pressure test. Josh, Felix and Becky all used their vote to save themselves, but Monti felt that, as team captain, she was responsible for the team's loss and she would take on the pressure test, so since only her vote would count, she chose to save Felix.** In season 6 of the US version, the first team challenge ended in a loss for Darah's team. After several questionable picks for team members to be safe (according to Katrina, she put friendships ahead of performance), Darah's last choice for immunity was to Hetal. Hetal promptly said that she was not comfortable accepting the immunity, since she felt she didn't perform up to the standard needed to accept immunity, and passed her immunity on to Derrick, one of the stronger performers in that challenge. She then proceeded to excel in the pressure test, putting up the best cinnamon buns out of the 5 people in the challenge.*** Darah herself arguably qualifies, as she declined the opportunity to save herself, admitting their loss was largely her fault due to her poor leadership. This backfired for her, as she was ultimately sent home.** In Season 8 of the US version, Yachecia was given the choice to either save herself from the pressure test or save at least six of her teammates from the pressure test. She picked the latter. Also during the Pressure test, after Jennifer kept boasting about how she's ready to beat her, Yachecia still let her borrow a lemon for her fish instead of just ignoring her.* HotBlooded:** Stephen from Season 6. This actually was part of his appeal, as even Gordon got used to his intensity.** David from Season 7, which is ironic for a professional Poker player.** Jeff from Season 8 tended to butt heads, his fellow competitors were aware that he was hard to order in a Team Challenge and had a rage fit in the middle of a pressure test.* {{Hypocrite}}:** Season 4's Krissi; after the first team challenge, Jordan, captain of the losing team, was told to save three people, and he could choose to save himself, which he did, and teammate Krissi openly called it "a bitch move". After the third team challenge, the losing team being led by Krissi and including Jordan, Krissi was told she could pick and choose which teammates would compete in the pressure test. She chose Jordan as one of the competitors, and ''saved herself''. Jordan IMMEDIATELY called her out on it.** Later in the competition, Krissi talks trash about Bri when Bri gives a name to one of her dishes (a dish which got her the win in that particular challenge). Move on to another challenge, and Krissi gives one of her dishes a name too.** Surprisingly, Season 3's Frank ended up doing this. The first time he was up for a pressure test and could save any member of his team, he chose not to save himself. Come the second time, where he was under the impression that he didn't actually have the choice (the judges simply asked him who he ''thinks'' should be spared) he chose someone else. When informed that he did in fact have the choice of saving himself, he folded and left the others to their fate. This ended up being taken badly by everyone involved, as the first time it happened there was a considerable number of people, so it was much less likely for Frank to screw himself over. This time, he would fight against only one other person, so it was very likely he would be kicked out. Unlike other examples, Frank was clearly unhappy with his choice and knew it was a bad move. ** Leslie of Season 5 criticized Daniel for complaining about his leadership while Leslie previously gave Daniel the exact same treatment when it was the other way around.* InformedAbility: While season 4's Lynn was by all means a great cook and had some of the best plating skills in the competition, the way his competition constantly raved about how big of a threat he was and how he was probably going to win it all left some viewers feeling he was overrated, as while he had some moments where he truly shone, he generally performed as a middle-of-the-pack to slightly-above-average competitor in individual challenges. Thus, the informed part is not his ability to cook, but how better he was than the rest of the cast.* InSeriesNickname: Alexander "Big Al" Weiss in ''Master Chef Junior''. "Cowboy Mike" in Season 3, "Big Willie" for Willie and "Scottish Francis" for Francis L. in Season 5.* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: ** Christine from the third US season was almost totally blind, yet still managed to finish at or near the top in virtually every challenge, and eventually won the competition. Gordon Ramsay has said that, as of the show's Season 5, he still considers her to be that version's best-ever contestant by quite some distance.** Subverted by Jaimee from the fifth US season. From the earliest weeks it was obvious that she had some kind of disorder, as her movements tend to be jerky and erratic, and she often has trouble speaking. However, as her specific condition hadn't actually been diagnosed at the time of filming, it wasn't mentioned on the show. While the season was broadcasting, she confirmed that she had been diagnosed with dystonia.* JerkAss: Many in the US version.** David could be this in season 1 or JerkWithAHeartOfGold. Sharone could be this at times too.** Max in season 2 and also Christian who do not treat his competitors or the judges with any respect. Suzy as well was quite the mean one herself, and at times so was Christine.** Season 3's Tali and Ryan are both smug and have an irrational hatred towards some contestants (David and Monti), but Ryan takes the jerkass flavored cake with inappropriate comments that he does not feel sorry for saying. Becky, meanwhile, takes more of a BitchInSheepsClothing approach, acting sweet towards the judges while being smugly condescending the other chefs. Josh was also prone to trash-talking, having quite the bad attitude pretty much every time he fell to the bottom and had to compete in a pressure test.** Season 4's Natasha wastes no time in coming out as a mean-spirited trash talker right from the start. She immediately shows disdain for Kathy and especially Krissi and makes rude remarks about their efforts, and later verbally attacks Beth to the point of making her cry. Krissi herself can dish the trash talk and foul language towards other contestants pretty good herself, while Jordan is more like season 3's Becky, being a nice guy in front of others while talking crap about them behind their backs. James also tended to take the same approach as Jordan of being nice to people and trash talk behind their backs, and was genuinely annoyed at Luca for clapping when Bime was brought back for a chance to get back in the competition.*** It should be noted that Natasha only started showing disdain for Kathy after Kathy tried calling her out during a challenge when she should have been focusing on her cooking. Additionally, Beth was already starting to cry before Natasha verbally attacked her, and Natasha only did it because Beth insulted her cooking. In Natasha's own words, that's something you should ''never'' do to anyone in the competition, and something she wouldn't have ever said to Beth before that point.*** However, during that challenge, Beth tried to point out flaws in Natasha's cauliflower puree, and Natasha shut Beth out and constantly refused to listen to her. It turned out that the puree was indeed a big failure and nobody liked it, something even Joe Bastianich mentioned. It is when the team is discussing what caused them to lose that Beth points out the puree being disgusting, and Natasha goes berserk.** Krissi of Season 4 eventually cements herself as, easily, the biggest Jerkass in the show's history. She loudly and proudly argues with everyone and proclaims how she hates some of them, and after Kathy's elimination (Kathy and Sasha being her only friends), she admits that she pretty much hates them all and wastes no chance to talk smack on everyone she can. It eventually shows the most with her irrational hatred of Bime and her utter glee at his mistake during the citrus meringue pie pressure test that gets him eliminated. She spends the whole thing cackling, gloating at the camera about how her "plan" to get Bime eliminated worked, and even when Natasha comments how hard the whole thing is to watch, Krissi comments that it isn't hard to watch for her. What makes it even worse was he actually helped her team out for the team challenge more than everyone else. Further along, she continues to ignore her faults, becoming increasingly confrontational and louder, and it's gotten to the point where the other contestants are becoming more open on how much they dislike her. *** Eventually she had gotten so bad that she did things such as fling sauce with a spoon at other contestants who were arguing with her during a pressure test, and she walked out on Jessie during a team challenge after they argued, returning only when there was barely any time left to do anything.** Season 5's Leslie, who is arrogant, loud, argumentative, has shown to be incredibly petty (such as his choices of three people who would take a pressure test, which he chose due to dislikes and grudges) and comes across as rather immature despite being the oldest contestant at age 56. It seems telling that several contestants have openly shown a dislike for him during the competition, very much like with the previously mentioned Krissi -- and while Krissi's ex-competitors have said that a lot of her drama was exaggerated for the show, Leslie has shown the exact same behaviour on Twitter (re-tweeting comments from people hating on the other contestants) as in the show, and his co-competitors have said that he comes across as a self-obsessed jerk in real life. In episode two, when Elizabeth was asked who would mess up and pointed out Leslie (saying he talked too much and was too abrasive), he started snarling at her that he'd worked hard to get where he was. Viewers promptly pointed out that he'd married a rich woman and was a stay-at-home dad who was interviewed while sunning himself on their yacht. Whoops.*** A prime example of this is in episode 5, when, after his team lost (due to him abandoning his post as captain), he started whining that "I'm sorry I wasn't the leader you guys wanted!" and tried to blame the other contestants, even though Gordon himself said Leslie was the worst leader he'd ever seen on the show. He was also incredibly condescending to Ahran (to the point when Christine had to physically pull him away from screaming in her face and tell him to leave her alone), and his nominations for the pressure test were Christian for deciding on the menu (which Leslie should have as captain), Daniel for suggesting Francis B take charge and also because Leslie didn't like that Daniel didn't save him last time, and Ahran for daring to speak against him. After the episode aired, he began retweeting nasty comments about Ahran on Twitter until someone told him to act his age and stop. Ahran, on the other hand, posted an apology regarding the matter, but ended up receiving so much hate (including death threats and threats of sexual violence) from Leslie's fans that she was forced to temporarily close all her social media accounts. In a later episode (diner challenge), he managed to [[EpicFail completely destroy his toast and eggs]], then proceeded to blame Daniel for "not offering to help" and got into fights with both him and Cutter (who told Leslie he needed to "shut up and cook", and to accept his mistakes). To top it off, he ''again'' started re-tweeting people insulting the other chefs and calling them names. ** A lot of season 5 viewers also seem to dislike "aerial entertainer" Courtney, likely due to her ever-present Louboutins stripper heels (extremely expensive yet she continuously laments how poor she is), alarmingly obvious narcissism, and endless supply of overweening cockiness. The most notable example was episode 12, when her team lost the challenge and faced the pressure test, and she was given the choice to save anyone on her team, including herself. She did outright say in a past episode (when Willie was in a similar situation) that she would save herself, but she managed to basically give the finger to her teammates by saying "the reason we did so well was because [[SmallNameBigEgo we had such good leadership]]", and saved herself because she was so proud of herself.** Season 5's Ahran started off as one due to having a bad temper combined with a very short fuse, but ended up averting it after a couple of episodes after she buried the hatchet with Leslie and mellowed out.** Season 8 had a short-lived example with Mark, who looked like he didn't care about the competition and even suggested to another competitor to "ignore" whatever advice the judges had. He was the first eliminated.** A non-US example, we have Gonzalo, from the Season 2 of the Spain version. He spent all his time on the show insulting his fellow competitors and picking fights with them and sometimes even with the judges (mainly with Jordi). He constantly whined and complained, and at one point he refused to take part in a task for a team challenge (this after having won the mystery box challenge) and promptly decided to quit the competition, to the astonishment of the judges and viewers, but noticeably, to the delight of the other contestants.* JerkassHasAPoint:** After being criticized for trying to turn the ravioli dish that all the cooks were expected to prepare into an Italian-Mexican fusion dish, US Season 4 contestant Howard openly asked what the point of the challenge was if all the contestants were expected to cook the same thing. This caused Joe to launch into a ''hell'' of a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech in which he basically accused Howard of being a talentless idiot who was wasting his time trying to make it in the culinary world, and that he should go back to his day job. While the smarmy, petulant way in which Howard phrased his question left him wide open to that attack, many fans pointed out that the judges ''do'' tend to chew contestants out for producing dishes that don't fit their very specific criteria.** Leslie in U.S. season 5, episode 8. Before everyone was called in to see the results of the pressure test, Leslie stated that he was trying not to say anything to piss anybody off, to which Daniel replied "When are you gonna apply that to the rest of your life?" Later, after Willie chose to save Daniel from the pressure test, the judges asked Daniel why he thinks he keeps being spared from pressure tests, and he says that he hasn't made any enemies. Leslie starts laughing, since Daniel has never missed an opportunity to insult or criticize him, and Daniel starts railing on Leslie for being so immature. Leslie may have been better off with an eyeroll, but it's unsurprising that he'd find the comment unfair. Later on, Leslie fit this trope to a T when the judges were reviewing his red velvet cake and deemed it delicious, to which Cutter interrupted that Leslie was a one-trick pony. Later, after Cutter got mediocre reviews on his cake, he stated that he thought Leslie should go home, primarily because he doesn't like him. When the judges were deliberating, the two got into an argument, with Cutter saying Leslie needs to be more mature, to which Leslie replies "Yeah, because ''you've'' done such a great job so far".** Matias and Alejo from Masterchef Argentina often got under the judges and contestants' skin due to their prepotent behavior, seemingly believing they were better than the others. They actually were very good cooks, making amazing dishes, and their behavior got better as time goes and after many scoldings from the judges.* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: As US season 5 moves along, Leslie seems to be gravitating more and more towards this trope. He certainly came off as a giant douche in the beginning, but he started to win people over around the time he and former [[TheRival rival]] Ahran were paired together and they actually worked well together, burying the hatchet and even appearing to become friends. Since then, he has had occasionally obnoxious moments, but he always at least tries to work well with others. Then, in episode 12, he and Ahran faced elimination together, and he teared up talking about how much he had come to respect not only her, but all of his fellow contestants. Ahran ended up going home, and he looked utterly devastated.* KickTheDog: ** Season 4's Kathy endures an especially long one, having to cook through ''four'' challenges, only to get eliminated in the end despite largely not being at fault. First, the team she's on loses due to poor leadership and too many cooks in the kitchen. Krissi and Natasha specifically were the crux of it, the former being mouthy and consistently antagonistic, while the latter refused advice that resulted in her cauliflower puree being bland. To make matters worse, Kathy's original suggestion to put a rub and season on the steak to test it before serving was ignored. In the subsequent pressure test, Kathy had arguably the third best dish, but the nature of the challenge meant only two contestants would be saved. Bri and Krissi produced near perfect eggs Benedict, whereas Kathy's egg broke. Paired with Luca against Natasha and Beth, she recommends a simple burger, but Luca ultimately pushes for a more complicated recipe they both have difficulty with, losing as a result. Finally, in a sudden death challenge against Luca, she cooks a perfect lobster, while Luca's is just slightly overdone. Unfortunately, Kathy's lack of presentation and overly acidic salad compared to Luca's is what sends her home.** Bime gets put through a similar string of events shortly thereafter, courtesy of Krissi. One week he is a team captain and winds up with Krissi on his team, who spends the whole time complaining that he is a terrible leader and generally being unpleasant. When they lose, she blames it all on him and shows nothing but disdain when he is saved from the pressure test not through his own choice but that of the judges. The next week, Krissi is a captain and Bime is assigned to her team, leading to her saying he's an "idiot" and deciding to have him make fried chicken because she figures "even he couldn't screw it up". She then continues to blame him when some of the chicken comes out raw, and once again blames him for the team's loss. When it turns out his chicken won their team the majority of their votes and it was the fish that lost them the challenge, she still makes Bime compete in the pressure test while saving herself. Bime winds up accidentally putting cream of tartar in his pie instead of cornstarch and is eliminated, while Krissi watches and gloats the whole time. Made even harsher when, after that episode, an interview revealed that the reason some of the chicken was raw was because Krissi ordered Bime to have the chicken in a salt water brine for a very long time rather than cooking it earlier, and not only that but Bime had noticed that some chicken was raw and Krissi decided to serve it anyway. Taking that into account and adding the fact that Krissi either did not notice or did not care about Jordan's flawed salmon, it's obvious that the loss of the challenge fell squarely on Krissi's shoulders due to her terrible leadership, which she refused to accept responsibility for and leads to this trope for Bime.** Gordon has a rather cruel moment towards Lynn in the episode where he was eliminated. Gordon had seen Lynn seriously struggling with the baking challenge and knew that his dish was utter crap, but when he calls him up for judging he refers to him as "the plating expert" and "Mister Finesse", making Lynn extremely uncomfortable because both he and Gordon knew that his dish looked awful. Gordon then goes out of his way to make a big show of having the other judges see how terrible the dish looks and calls it the "worst dish he's ever tasted in four years of ''Master Chef''". * LargeAndInCharge: Paola Carosella, one of the judges of the Brazilian Masterchef. After two season, it's still to appear anyone, contestant or otherwise, who is taller than her.* LargeHam: US Season 6 gives us the uber-intense Stephen and the flashy, flamboyant Tommy.* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The judges seem to get hit with this during a Mystery Box challenge in the ''Junior'' season, when they comment on how amazed they are that Dara was bravely attempting to make a blue cheese soufflé, saying that nobody in the show's history had ever attempted to do a soufflé in a challenge unless the judges had specifically asked for a soufflé to be made. However, anyone who has seen the adult seasons will remember Season 3's Monti making a corn and lavender soufflé (which Gordon gave high praise to) on a challenge in which they had to make any dessert they wanted using corn as the main ingredient.* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: In Season 6 of the US version, it became customary to have contestants compete for a spot in the top 20 as part of the first few episodes, whereas in prior seasons, the top 20 competitors had already been determined by the season premiere. In Season 8, rather than having everyone make a dish during the second round of each episode, the bottom-placing contestants from the first round are subjected to a pressure test.* LighterAndSofter: ** The judges justifiably rein in the criticism a bit for ''Junior''.** Compared to Gordon Ramsay's other franchise, ''Series/HellsKitchen'', the American version of ''Master Chef'' is this.*** Contestants are not professionals who can be berated for their failures and are also chosen for their skill instead of their ability to cause drama.*** The contestants support each other to a much higher degree than on the more cutthroat ''Series/HellsKitchen'', on which sabotage and backstabbing are par for the course. On ''Master Chef,'' it's almost expected that the contestants assist other contestants who forget crucial ingredients or who suffer from equipment failure.** The British version is far more restrained and strait-laced compared to the American versions.* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: In the Spanish version S1, Pepe and Maribel. He criticized her artichokes to make her mad. [[MrsRobinson She flirted with the other judge to make him jealous]]. They argued, and seconds later, they were laughing. [[PlayedForLaughs It was awesome]].* TheLoad:** In spite of the fact that she had frequently shown herself to be a strong home cook capable of cooking and baking, as season four progressed Krissi became this, because nobody else in the competition wanted to contend with her attitude and often nasty behavior towards her fellow competitors.** Nathan proves to the this the U.S. Season 7 in team challenges. He proves to be strong enough in pressure tests and challenges to keep surviving throughout most of the competition, but ''nobody'' wants him around in team challenges due to his seeming inability to listen to advice or directions and odd failures at seemingly basic tasks.* ManlyTears: Shaun from Season 7 was normally very well-composed and level-headed, but would break down every time he mentioned his late father. * MeanBrit: ** Surprisingly for a show involving Gordon Ramsay, this isn't really used or invoked that much. Gordon can be harsh at times, but generally tends to play the "strict but fair" judge role in between "nice judge" Graham and "mean judge" Joe, and can also be quite pleasant, especially when he sees contestants do really well, or when a contestant surprises him with something unexpectedly tasty.** Also averted with Francis L. in US season 5, being one of the nicest and most likeable contestants of his season.* MeanCharacterNiceActor:** Joe Bastianich is bad with people for [[ShrinkingViolet an entirely different reason]] in real life.** Ben Starr's blog, when he was writing an exposé on ''Master Chef'', says he's been in contact with the contestants from other seasons and he specifically points out that a lot of Krissi's {{Jerkass}} behavior in Season 4 was exaggerated for the show.* {{Melodrama}}: "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this!" said repeatedly in the series.** The US version takes this UpToEleven by never missing a chance to hype up how difficult the next challenge is. The show will also always go to commercial right before the judges announce a decision.** The South African version seems to have followed in the US versions footsteps, with Khaya seeming always managing to screw up at least one aspect of her dish and finishing at the last minute. Despite this, she's only been in one Pressure Test and is always winning challenges.** After getting eliminated, Ben Starr began blogging about how large portions of the US show's drama are played up or even faked to make a good show instead of an accurate portrayal of the contest. [[RageQuit He eventually quit blogging about the show altogether]].* MotorMouth: Spain season 3 has contestants Antonio and Andrea, who if left unchecked, can go on long rambles of non-stop talking, especially Andrea.* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: ** The Season 3 was the first to have a "redemption" challenge[[note]]where a previously eliminated contestant gets to rejoin the top six[[/note]]. All of the other returnees were cheered by the final six... that is until [[JerkAss Ryan]] came, leading to a collective silence from all the participants.** Again in US Season 4, but this time the ostracized party was Bime, for no clear reason. Except from Luca, but [[NiceGuy he likes everybody]].* MyGreatestSecondChance:** Luca originally auditioned in Season 3 and didn't get past the audition. He finally got selected in Season 4 [[spoiler:and ended up winning the season]].** Season 8 had during the Selection Duels Taylor and Cate, both lost their respective duels for Season 7. From them, Cate won the apron. [[spoiler:She made it up to the top four before being eliminated]].* NervousWreck:** Nathan from Season 7 went frenetic in Team Challenges, most notably when he fainted in the middle of an Elimination Challenge when he was paired with Shaun for a tag-team challenge.** Jennifer from Season 8 couldn't handle pressure at all, with Gordon describing her performance in one challenge as "Going through a turbulence in the middle of a storm". This reason alone was also why Yachecia was reluctant to take her in a team challenge and later chose to go against her knowing that the pressure would affect her performance and defeat her.* NiceGuy: ** Graham Elliot fits this to a tee; always gentle in delivering comments to the worst dishes and tries to give as much constructive criticism to the contestants who cooked them.** Luca in Season 4 was portrayed this way. He almost never had anything bad to say about other contestants, and he would willingly share his ingredients with his competition if they were short and he had enough to spare. Plus, Grade A {{Adorkable}}.** New US judge Christina Tosi is even nicer and friendlier than Graham, expressing disappointment rather than offense whenever she tastes a subpar dish (which makes it more ironic that it was ''Joe'' she replaced). By Season 8, Aarón Sanchez seems to be even nicer and affable than her after she upped the BrutalHonesty by that time.** Darah from season 6 is arguably a {{Deconstruction}}: she didn't have a single negative word to say about any of her teammates after they lost their first team challenge, which visibly annoyed Graham and Christina (the former even called her out on it). Her approach to leading her team in said challenge was to walk around smiling and patting everyone on the back, and even letting them choose their own stations. Their loss was unsurprising and her choices to spare from the pressure test were not based on hard-work, but "smiling attitude" instead, which made even Graham question it briefly.** Terry from Season 7. A large, huggable teddybear of a chef who never got heated, never insulted anyone, never got stressed or yelled at anyone during the team challenges, and [[spoiler: took his loss better than anyone else in the entire season]].*** Dan of the same season is also this. He may appear as a goofy fratbro, but he has a good heart and took his elimination well.*** Brandi of the same season also never had an ill will or word towards anyone in the competition.*** Shaun, a DJ from Las Vegas, was also always very down to earth, never picked on inferior competitors when he won challenges, citing that he explicitly wanted the best out of his competitors so he himself could improve by cooking against them, [[spoiler: which ends up working out as he ran with the championship]]. ** Almost all the children in the first ''Junior'' season, with special mention going to Dara and Kaylen, who were always the most supportive towards the other contestants.** The children in the Season 2 of ''Junior'' as well, especially during the first episode where every one of them gathered around to cheer up a girl who had gotten upset from making a mistake.* NiceHat: ** Ben Starr from US Season 2 was known to sport a collection of oddly patterned chef's hats. ** Mike from season 1 and Bime from season 4 were always seen sporting a fedora.** Another Mike, this one from season 3, always sported a cowboy hat.** Season 6 Nick also wore hats in every episode.** Season 8 has Newton (whose first name is also Mike), who almost always is wearing a cowboy hat.** Shawn from Canada season 3 was rarely seen without his backwards baseball cap.* NiceMeanAndInbetween:** In the first five seasons of the US version, Graham, Joe, and Gordon were this, respectively.*** By Season 8, Graham and Joe are not in the panel and Christina Tossi and Aarón Sanchez took their places. Aarón is "The Nice" (his comments are mostly constructive and serious without any sign of annoyance), Gordon is "The Mean" (he is the most blunt of the three), and Christina is "In Between" (she can be both sweet and stern when she needs to be). In fact, Gordon takes on "The Mean" role up to the level that in the season 8 finale, Joe, who came back as a guest judge, is now more of the "In Between"!* NobodyOver50IsGay: Averted with Season 6 Fashion Designer Tommy, who was 53 at the time.* NonGameplayElimination** In the Season 4 of the US version, there was supposed to be a Top 20, but only 19 contestants start off, ten women and nine men. An unknown male contestant was seen being chosen alongside the other nineteen to make it into the ''Master Chef'' kitchen, but whether he dropped out or was disqualified before the Top 20 began competing was never revealed.** In Season 5 of the US version, the contestant Gordon was forced to withdraw from the competition due to illness after making it to the top 19.*** Also there is Tyler, who accidentally served Jaimee's panna cotta instead of his own. He was eliminated not for anything regarding his dish, but for breaking a core ''MasterChef'' rule: he served someone else's food.** In Season 6 of the US version, it was announced at the top of episode 6 that contestant Dan Collado had withdrawn from the show for personal reasons. These reasons have not been made public as of yet. ** Also in Season 7, Andrea was eliminated for not getting her food to the front in time. Despite having the best sausage according to Gordon and several other contestants, she was eliminated for being three seconds too slow.** Season 3 of the Italian version had Beatrice, who was disqualified for using someone else's sponge cake to make her own dish after her sponge cake didn't cook properly. She was later readmitted after winning a challenge where eliminated contestants could return...only to lose the next Pressure Test.* OneSteveLimit:** In Season 5, There were Francis B. and Francis L. (who was mostly referred as "Scottish Francis")** In Season 8, there were two Caitlyns. Redhead went by "Caitlyn" and Blond went by "Cate" to avoid confusion.** In Canada season 3 there was Sean and Shawn, with different spellings but the same pronunciation. The latter was often referred to as "Doctor Shawn" because he was also a practicing MD. Even though Sean was eliminated three weeks in and Shawn lasted considerably longer, the full title stuck until the end.* OnlySaneMan: Francis L. and Christine from season 5. Neither gets involved with the drama of the others (although Christine did step in once to defend Ahran against Leslie, who was screaming in her face), and they're both talented and born leaders. This has done much to endear them to the viewers, who are getting sick of the drama being favored over the actual cooking. Sadly, Christine and Francis were cut at 12th and 11th place respectively, as they both delivered their first dishes that landed them even ''near'' the bottom (Christine made bitter-tasting chocolate truffles, while Francis L. made a caramelle drenched in juice from uncooked beets).* OhCrap: Adriano Zumbo walking into the ''Master Chef'' kitchen with a covered dish is enough to scare any contestant. Particularly the [[http://adrianozumbo.com/shop/the-v8-cake/ V8 cake]].** In season 3, David wins a challenge to determine what kind of dessert the contestants will make during elimination. He chooses corn, and spends a good deal of time building up the audience to how well he knows how to make corn rice pudding. After the home cooks gather their ingredients from the pantry however, he realizes that he forgot to grab any rice, a key ingredient to his much vaunted corn rice pudding. For added effect, after his grim realization, the camera cuts right back to the MasterChef pantry's door slowly closing.** US season 4's Bime has this when he realizes he accidentally mixed up two ingredients during a citrus meringue pie and it was too late for him to start again.** Season 5's Tyler has an OhCrap of epic proportions when he realizes that he has accidentally served Jaimee's dish, resulting in his immediate disqualification.** Nathan experiences one during season 7, when during a challenge to make bibimbap, he realizes that he doesn't know how to cook rice.* OlderThanTheyLook: Season 6 Tommy was 53 at the time and he looked a decade younger.* PassThePopcorn: In the U.S Season 6, after Nick pairs up chefs that don't like each other for an elimination challenge, as he heads up to the lobby, he comments "Give me some popcorn and a six-pack; I can't wait to watch this."* PetTheDog: As seen above in the KickTheDog trope, Kathy went through a quite harsh process to end up eliminated despite not being the worst performer. However, after all this, Gordon Ramsay, having been impressed with her tenacity and how hard she fought to stay, offers her a job in his New York restaurant. This echoes back with when she was chosen last for a team challenge for a second time, where she told Ramsay that maybe he saw something in her that others didn't... and unfortunately, it's painfully averted after the show, when Kathy tweeted how she attended the first day (with a chef's jacket and all) to learn work at the restaurant just as Gordon promised, but when she arrived the second day, they dismissed her, telling her they'd "Call her when they needed her" and never giving her any actual explanation for why she was dismissed.** Also seen with Natasha in the episode where contestants' families came to visit them. Krissi's son was unable to make it due to tests and could only send a pre-recorded video to her. Natasha expresses sympathy for Krissi despite the two of them hating each other.* ProductPlacement: In the US series, this seems to be one of Graham Elliott's main duties. Not quite OnceAnEpisode, he'll approach a contestant and they'll do a mini-commercial for the brand of knife or cookware being used. Ramsay and Bastianich don't seem to be on the hook for it, though.** The SA version would like to remind you that it's sponsored by ''"Robertsons -- The Spice People"'' at least ten times an episode.** There was an entire episode in the SA version dedicated to being a ProductPromotionParade for Nederburg wines.** The fact that every celebrity chef's restaurant is featured when they're introduced said something in itself.** S3 of the US version would like you to know that all of the steaks in this episode can be purchased at Walmart. On the bright side of things, Graham seems to have been left off the hook for the mini-commercials.** S4 gets even more blatant with shilling for Walmart, with it being mentioned multiple times in every single episode, often along with how little the given ingredients would cost if bought at Walmart (for example, an elimination test that was based on two baskets of food: one that could be purchased for under $5 and the other for under $25 at Walmart, with both the store and the prices repeatedly mentioned).** ''Master Chef Canada'' follows the tradition by shilling for Alexander Keith beer.** A very interesting example in the Spain version, where the show does product placement for itself, several times per 2 hour episode. This is because in Spain, Master Chef has been so successful that they have a magazine, online cooking classes with professional chefs, and even a summer camp for children and teenagers where they can learn how to cook.* TheQuietOne: In SA, Brandon was shaping up to be one until he entered the top 18, then he started [[ReferenceOverdosed referencing classic western animation and soccer in literally every one of his sentences.]]** In season 4 on the US series, Lynn Chyi is seen as one.* QuirkyCurls: Season 7's Brandi had [[http://i.imgur.com/kF1pr7J.jpgvery very big, very curly, and very blonde hair]] with an adorable Kentucky accent. Andrea from the same season very much a SpicyLatina with her own curly brown hair. * RageQuit: David tries this briefly in the U.S. Season 7 in the top five during a pressure test after a basket-swap gives him a poor set of ingredients he doesn't want to work with. It doesn't last long because Ramsay heads after him after he stalks out of the kitchen and talks him out of it.* RealityTelevision: The examples not from Britain are examples of this. The British show is a lot older, so follows a more standard cookery contest format.* RedBaron: Alvin Leung, the "head" judge of Master Chef Canada. You'd think [[CanadaEh he'd have some nice title about politeness or moose]], right? Nope. "Demon Chef".* ReversePsychology: In Season 6, Stephen was given the choice of choosing his teammates first or his protein first. Instead of going directly for the lobster he wanted, he made it look tough so Shelly would give it to him and he still got everything in the end.* RunningGag: Krissi, from US season 4, who was on the losing team of every single team challenge, at least those that are teams of three or more people. She did perform well in the one single tag-team challenge they've had so far, but putting her with more than two people seemed to be a guaranteed loss for any team who had her.* SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining: An interesting variant pops up in ''Master Chef Junior''. The young participants, aged eight to thirteen, are capable of genuinely amazing culinary feats from sushi to beef wellington, but a significant number of them struggle with the task of baking and icing a cake -- one of the few tasks one might normally expect someone that age to have some experience with.* SassyBlackWoman:** US season 4's Sasha Foxx. Even Joe Bastianich's meanest stares did not faze her one bit. [[spoiler: That didn't prevent her from being eliminated in the first Elimination Test.]]** US season 8's Eboni has this side, but unlike Sasha, she can bring back up her talk with her cooking.* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem:** In the 2010 season of the UK version, the judges were faced with a heat where two of the three contestants performed brilliantly. Forced to choose which one went through to the quarter-final...they opted to let both of them through. It's happened a few times since.** Happened twice in the 2012 UK Professionals version. Not only did two chefs dodge an elimination in a heat as described above, but the same pair of chefs ended up winning the season together as well because the judges couldn't decide between them.** And occasionally reversed, including the spring 2013 UK series, when the judges decide to kick an extra contestant out if several don't perform well enough to earn a place.* SharpDressedMan: ** Luca from Season 4 wore suits to both his Season 3 and Season 4 auditions and continues to wear them throughout the competition. He hardly ever wears anything more casual than a nice button-down, occasionally with a vest over it.** Similarly, season 5's Leslie has always worn colorful vests and ties; the only times he hasn't looked dressed-up is during team challenges.** Fashion designer Tommy from Season 6, who frequently wore colorful and extravagant outfits, rarely wearing a casual t-shirt. (During one team challenge he even sported a leopard-print sweatband.) ** Tuxedo salesman Nathan always wore a different, you guessed it, tuxedo for every single episode, in a variety of colors.* SmallNameBigEgo: ** Ryan and Tali from US season three, who would argue with the judges or insist that, even though all three judges had panned their food, they simply didn't understand the "genius" behind it. They maintained this haughty attitude towards the other contestants, insisting that they had superior talent even when they were clearly outperformed. Tali was more guilty of this, though, because Ryan at least admitted his molten lava chocolate cake was the worse of the two of them after the judges asked the person with the worst dish to step forward and remove their apron. ** Krissi from US season four also keeps up the trend of arguing with the judges, as she continually defended a catfish dish that the judges had said was terrible and claimed the only reason they were criticizing her was because Joe didn't like her, never mind the fact that the guest judge, season 3 winner Christine Ha (who is known to have an excellent palate) also said that her dish was not good. She was saved from elimination that challenge, but not before Gordon told her point blank that she didn't have the talent to back up her attitude. This has not stopped her from continuing with this attitude, especially on team challenges. Once she was on the losing team of a team challenge, and the winning team got to choose who was safe from the pressure test. They chose Krissi because they all think that they could beat her later on, but she thinks it's because they want to invoke TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou on "the best cook".** Cody from Canada Season 2 was this sometimes. Especially the time he forfeited his immunity to cook with black truffles to show how ''great'' he was. He ended with one of the [[EpicFail worst dishes that night and was nearly eliminated.]]* {{Spinoff}}: Oh boy. You won't believe how many international spin-offs this show has. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MasterChef This wiki article will explain how many there are.]]* SpinoffBabies: The ''Junior'' spin-off, with kids ranging from 8 to 13 years old. * SpringtimeForHitler:** In the second US season, Adrien won a mystery box challenge, and got to select which chefs would work with which cuts of pork in the following challenge. He therefore took a relatively easy cut for himself, and assigned Christian and Ben (the other two of the top three in the mystery box challenge) the hardest two cuts. When the chefs were done cooking, Christian and Ben's dishes really impressed the judges (Joe even told Adrian that his plan to get Christian eliminated had backfired), while Adrien's dish was felt to be unspectacular. On top of all that, Alejandra, who had gotten the pork loin and whom everyone expected to ace the challenge, served up raw pork and duly got kicked out of the competition.** Happened again in Season 3. Ryan won a mystery box challenge, and got to choose which chefs cooked with fresh crab, and which ones cooked with canned. He chose Christine to cook with fresh crab, believing her to be a threat, and therefore giving her something she was unfamiliar with, and gave Monti canned crab, because he wanted her to get eliminated due to a personal dislike of her. On the other hand, he gave Tali, his best friend in the house, fresh crab, believing he would knock it out of the park. Monti was complimented for her crazy idea (Scotch egg with canned crab) actually working, and Christine not only survived, but made the best dish out of all of the chefs. Tali? Bottom two for the second elimination test (out of two), and barely surviving thanks to his incredibly poor use of the crab.** Once more in Season 3, and again with seafood. Felix had to assign nine different fish species to the contestants -- she gave Christine, David, and Tali easy ones (salmon, yellowfin tuna, and arctic char respectively; in the third case, she reckoned, correctly, that he would screw it up), while Frank, Becky and Monti, her greatest competition, received hard ones that they had never seen before (catfish, rockfish, and John Dory). The latter were all acclaimed (Frank took first while Monti received second), while the former ended up all in the bottom three with Tali going home.** All of the first three Masterchef Junior semifinals happened in the same pattern: the winner of the "advantage" (Troy, Adaiah, Jimmy) gave the easiest choice to the weakest competitor (Jack, Abby, Jenna) and took the second best for themselves, hoping to go up against them in the finale. Instead, the biggest threat who got the "hardest" assignment (Alexander, Logan, Nathan) ended up doing the best in the semifinal and actually winning the overall competition against the second hardest assignment (Dara, Samuel, Andrew).** It would probably be easier to count the times the Mystery Box winners ''don't'' shoot themselves in the foot with their "advantage."* StockYuck: A Mystery Box challenge for ''Junior''. The judges took food from every category listed on the trope page, put them in boxes, and told the contestants to make something awesome with them. * StupidStatementDanceMix: Greg Wallace likes the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfeyUGZt8nk buttery biscuit base]].** Incidentally, that song actually made the UK Top 40.* SuckinessIsPainful: In the Spanish version, judge Pepe Rodríguez punished a contestant who had cooked a really bad meal by forcing him to eat it.* SupremeChef: All the judges are considered some of the best chefs in the world. Also, the goal of the entire competition is to be the best cook of the 24.* TakeThat: The children from the US version of ''Master Chef Junior'' will occasionally take a verbal jab at the judges, sometimes out of simple innocence, and sometimes because it's obvious they can get away with it. The producers themselves do it to the judges by having a specific challenge early on where the children pour stuff over the judges, with season 1 having heavy cream and season 2 having maple syrup.* TemptingFate: Season 8 had Necco, who by that point was considered one of the strongest competition, brush off Gordon's advices for cooking Hanger Steak with a "How hard can it be?". Gordon promptly left him by calling him "Mr. Humble" and surely enough, he got eliminated (his steak was rare instead of medium rare and his plating looked bizarre).* TheEeyore: Eric from ''Master Chef Canada''. He shows happiness whenever he does well, but the rest of the time, the look on his face is that of a sad, scolded puppy.* ThePollyanna: Eight year old Abby, the youngest contestant from the second US season of ''Master Chef Junior'', who is always chipper, happy, supportive and positive. Nowhere is this clearer than in episode 4, where she goes into the elimination challenge being able to pick only two ingredients to make a high-end dish, the least amount out of everyone. Abby remains completely unfazed and remains happy and positive through the entirety of the challenge, and ends up putting forth one of the best dishes anyway.* TinyTyrannicalGirl: Several of the girls in ''Master Chef Junior'', but Sarah, at only 9, probably fits best, especially when she yells at Gavin to "Whip it like a man!" during the whipped cream challenge.* TooCleverByHalf: The contestants in a Canadian pressure test had to make a box of doughnuts, in at least three varieties. The others predicted that Eric would make four. In fact, he made ''eight''. But some were failures, and Alvin Leung reamed him out for going overboard. * TooDumbToLive: Season 8's Mark, who openly said to "ignore" whatever advice the judges had. He didn't last long.* TookALevelInBadass: ** Luca from US season 4. After failing to enter the competition in season 3, he also began to struggle during the top 13, constantly hanging out in the middle of the pack or lower... until the final 8, where he launched into a nearly perfect streak of being in the top 3 for any given episode, wasn't put up for elimination again until the final 3, [[spoiler: and ended up winning it all]].** A meta example in the Australian season 7. The judges were impressed at how high the contestants' standards were, and, by the end of the first audition, told the remaining contenders for the Top 24 that, had they been in the previous seasons, they would have won an apron already. When 2014 Master Chef Brent Owens were brought back to observe the first round, he, too, was amazed to see how much more organized, and professional, the contestants were compared to his own experience.* TookALevelInKindness: Judge Alvin Leung was DrillSergeantNasty in the first season of the Canadian version, to the point of many viewers considering him worse than Ramsay at times. Come Season 2 he's still tough, but has softened up considerably and is more willing to joke with and encourage the contestants.* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Every trailer of an episode in which a team challenge happens will show you the ensuing Pressure Test as well... and from the people you see cooking in that, you can tell which team lost the challenge.* UnderestimatingBadassery: ** Kaila from the Canada version is the epitome of this trope. She was thought of by others as the weakest contestant and she was constantly underestimated and sometimes even insulted. She went on to prove herself as one of the fiercest, strongest contestants and made it to the final 3, where she was eliminated by the narrowest of margins.** This was both played straight and averted with US season 3's Christine. Played straight during team challenges, where the captains chose her last in all but two of the challenges (and in one of those two, Christine herself was a captain) because they didn't know what else she could help with other than prepping and serving, and judge Joe Bastianich tended to underestimate her in team challenges too, mostly on the one challenge she wasn't picked last. But then it was averted with individual challenges, where nobody thought of her as easy to beat, seen in parts such as Ryan giving her fresh crab instead of canned crab to work with (figuring she would have difficulty handling a live creature that could pinch her) because he thought of her as a big threat, and when three eliminated contestants said she would win the whole competition, [[spoiler:one of those three being the very person she faced and defeated in the finals to claim the title.]]* ViewersAreGoldfish: Repeats almost exactly what happened in the previous 20 seconds after every commercial break, leading to an episode that counted down the seconds remaining for the Pressure Test twice. The British version does this, at points where commercials would be.* WarmupBoss: The preliminaries of the US and Australian versions of ''Junior'' seem to act as this, as the kids are grouped by the food category they do best in.** By Season 6 of the US Masterchef, this becomes the process to earn a white apron either in pairs or a group of four battling out on a certain group (be it either a certain dish or main protein).* WeHardlyKnewYe: ** Samantha, from US season 3. Out of any contestant of the first three seasons (and now including the Season 4), she was the one seen the least out of them all. We never saw her audition, we never saw her moving along, and the first time we got to hear her actually talk was during the very first Mystery Box challenge, where she was eliminated.** ''Master Chef Junior'' featured double eliminations in every episode except the finale which meant that some of the children barely got any screen time outside of the first episode.** The premiere of Season 2 sends four children home, with contestants Nasir and Berry barely getting to say anything at all before they were eliminated.* WeddingDay: Some team challenges take place at a wedding. The most notable is in Season 7, which takes place in Season 6 former contestant Nick Nappi's.* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: From Season 2 of US version onwards, the winning contestant of the previous season returns as the guest star for an elimination test. The exception is Season 3 wherein S2 winner Jennifer did not return.* WhatTheHellPlayer: The judges did this to Sharone and Whitney in the penultimate episode of the first US season, after the former served up a dish made up of ''[[CordonBleughChef fish livers]]'', while the latter used mostly canned ingredients for her dish, figuring the food critics they were serving to wouldn't know the difference. Gordon openly said that he considered the two to be the best cooks in the competition, and couldn't believe that one of them was now going to be eliminated before the final.** One chef on the UK edition (''Master Chef: Professionals'') bringing forward a dish that consisted of quail and chocolate cake. Facepalms all around.** In the Australian version Season 3, Sun made toffee using the "completely wrong way", at least according to the judges, putting the sugar on foil and using a blow torch[[note]]From a technical standpoint, this isn't toffee at all, it's molten-and-re-crystalized sugar.[[/note]]. But it worked, and she was saved from elimination.** In one UK season, a contestant made sausage, beans on toast followed by potato dumplings with plum for dessert. This trope ensued, ''hard''.** US season 5, episode 9: Both Cutter and Willie got this, Willie because after he was given a huge basket of Italian food... made tomato soup with a fried egg on top, and Cutter because he made an absolutely ridiculous looking mini pizza, and then attempted to call it an "artisan pizza". Gordon said that Cutter's looked like it had been thrown together in ten minutes, and was a disappointment to both him and the ''Master Chef'' kitchen, while Joe asked him if he even knew what the ingredients in the basket ''were'' (Cutter said he didn't).** Paolo from the fourth Italian season tried to fry his sea bream ''without flour'', and when he borrowed some from his neighboring contestant, judge Barbieri forced him to throw it away, because he was violating the rules. This huge misstep caused him to make the worst dish and be eliminated. Also, for reasons even he or the judges couldn't explain, he took ''a sausage'' from the pantry to put on his plate.* WritersCannotDoMath: Daniel in season 5 of the US version gets some fun poked at him when he's asked to produce 12 donuts and instead makes 16, and explains that he went to art school.** Both Jeff and Brien failed to make 6 cannoli's in Season 8, instead of making 5 and 4 respectively.*** A similar problem would occur later on when Yachecia failed to make three white chocolate truffles, and could only put in a half part of the white truffles.* WrongGenreSavvy: When the winner of a previous contest is given an advantage, they are encouraged, by the judges no less, to attempt to set up stronger opponents for elimination. For the team challenges this typically works well as the advantaged team captain can sabotage the opposing team (which is bound to include some skilled rivals) and force them into a pressure test. However winners of Mystery Box challenges will often sabotage ''all'' of their opponents equally, instead of disadvantaging the more skilled opponents and advantaging the less skilled ones. Equal disadvantage turns out to be no disadvantage at all since only the single worst performer is eliminated. * YouGottaHaveBlueHair: ''Master Chef Canada'' judge Alvin colo(u)rs his hair blue.* YoureDrinkingBreastMilk: One of the HopelessAuditionees in season 4 revealed this as the secret ingredient of her macaroni and cheese, causing Ramsay to do a SpitTake.----