With no new episode this week I thought it a good time to give my overall impressions of the show thus far and where I think this competition is going. A lot of viewers have complained that this season when compared to the last is a bit lacking in drama and character interest. While I agree for the most part, I still think this season has its redeeming qualities and shouldn’t be written off so easily.

Sure Marcel is no Steven. Steven was catty, surly and at times a bit of an antagonistic megalomaniac. We loved him for these traits. Marcel on the other hand is just pretentious from time to time with only the slightest trace of Steven’s antagonism. The best example of this would be his taunting of Betty during her prep time at the Firehouse. But at the same time we need to look back, even to the first episode where the group collectively decided they didn’t like Marcel for his arrogance and overconfidence in his skills as a chef. As early as the first Elimination Challenge they were ganging up on him, trying to give the judges the impression that he wasn’t at all the chef he talked himself up to be.

Problem is that he actually is and that’s not only what sets him apart from Steven from last season but it also makes it very hard to dislike him. The boy’s cocky but talented and I think Betty and the rest are just a wee bit jealous and intimidated. I hope this starts to dissipate in the second half of the season, Marcel deserves to go far in this thing.

Betty, on the other hand, needs to go and now. Unlike her predecessor Cynthia there’s no sweet center under her sugary sweet shell. Instead we find a bitter, sardonic witch with marginal cooking skills and a deceptive, creepy smile. At first I liked her and Solarbluseth here even thought she would win the competition but her catty and selfish actions of late have turned me off of her quicker than Taco Bell’s return the next morning. Put succinct, Betty gotta go.

Mike is my favorite to win, for lots of reasons. The biggest and best, however, are his skills in the kitchen while excelling at staying under the radar. He knows what he’s doing and the smooth, “I don’t care” attitude of his keeps everyone from suspecting how strong he really is. The one thing to remember about Michael is that if he really was a talentless, lazy boar of a chef then how is he still around after almost half of the other chefs have gotten the boot? He’s a smart, fat man. Smart fat man.

The rest are a mixed dish. none of them really impress me. Cliff, Frank and Ilan are talented but aren’t making any power moves anytime soon. Maybe toward the end but not now. Sam is another dark horse, reminding me most of Harold from last season but lacking the consistent winning and obvious flair for cooking. Mia is hanging on by a thread, just one breakdown away from getting tossed and Elia is far too unreliable and inconsistent to be a contender, plus her undying devotion to Marcel simply means he’ll find a way of getting her tossed near the end after her usefulness has been outlived.

The show overall has definitely been a letdown compared to last year but that’s the way the reality cookie crumbles.

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