By Mark HadleyTuesday 19 Oct 2010TV and StreamingReading Time: 4 minutes
Junior MasterChef Australia
CHANNEL: Network TEN
TIME-SLOT: Weeknights, 7.30 pm
RATING: PG
Back from the break, the test will be on for Junior Masterchef to see whether or not it can help arrest Network TEN’s ratings slide after disappointing results from their Commonwealth Games coverage.
Despite Australia’s staggering medal tally, TV viewers have not responded well to TEN’s combined coverage on its home channel, and its digital sporting station, One.
During an average day of coverage last week OZTAM reports that TEN only garnered a depressing 655,000 viewers for its primetime coverage with Ten’s early evening coverage dropping to an average of only 476,000 viewers. To put that in perspective, a repeat episode of Mythbusters on SBS gained 473,000.
A lot of programmers will surely be looking to Junior Masterchef to restore TEN’s fortunes, with the first three weeks it aired prior to the games showing signs of success similar to its parent series.
The launch episode attracted 2.2 million viewers, the next week 1.7 million and the third week 1.5 million. It’s not surprising given the combination of a successful format with the youthful enthusiasm of competitors aged 9-12.
I’d observed the way the original series had improbably engaged my own young sons, and when the new series launched, plastic food started appearing in our lounge room. My six-year-old asked me if I’d like my eggs ‘frumbooshled’?…For the record, I said yes. If he knew how to cook it, who was I to say no? Inside a fortnight our household had become a Junior MasterChef home.
Now that 5000 entrants have been whittled down to 12 contenders, the series will move into the usual round of skills and invention tests under the watchful eyes of chefs Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris, and food critic Matt Preston – with the addition of the more motherly Anna Gare – until only one child remains. We’ll also see the participation of national and international culinary greats, though the way in which they will interact with the junior chefs takes the show closer to game-style children’s formats like Planet Cook.
As a parent, I’m somewhat conflicted by the involvement of such young children in such a pressure-cooker of a program. Maybe that explains the slow slide in ratings. The first week back and things are looking cooler with 1.43 million Australian tuning in. The judges are doing everything they possibly can to encourage the children, and so naturally the show lacks the razor edge of previous series. And for the parents watching, it’s a joy to watch young faces beam over incredible dishes – but alongside this may be the dawning realization that these junior chefs are working with a faulty recipe.
Eleven-year-old Sam tells the camera, “I’m hoping to prove that I can become one of the world’s best chef’s!” Sophie equally longs for a position in the top twelve: “It means a lot to me, and I want this more than the world.” But what does an eleven-year-old really know about the value of everything else in ‘the world’?
Parents understand that a child’s quest for their identity is a journey that takes years and is likely to change five times from ten onwards. Yet how can a primary school child distinguish between their desires and the glitz and glamour of a television dream? Will it set their identity for them, at least in the eyes of everyone who knows they competed? Will they be able to give it away if they fall in love with medicine or mechanics, without thinking they have somehow wasted an opportunity?
Junior MasterChef may foster a love of cooking in a new generation, but it is also very possible it will scar those involved, even the winners. By all accounts the producers of Junior MasterChef have done a great deal to ensure that the pressure on their contestants is carefully managed. However someone seems to have failed to ask the question, should they be here at all? Can the show really deliver to a child the dreams it has promised adult contestants? Fundamentally Junior MasterChef lacks love. Love’s primary concern is not ‘What will make my child happiest?’ The love God models is costly and calls his children to a life that may lead them away from their current tastes, but promises to arrive at a destination that will ultimately be healthier for them. It’s hard to see how Junior MasterChef will be able to provide anything more than a ‘fast-food’ solution: initially satisfying but ultimately unhealthy.