How Food Network Fans Really Feel About Chopped: Chef's Best Friend

With a lifespan continuing past a decade and over 600 episodes shown, "Chopped" is increasingly reliant upon gimmicks to keep the show going. At least, that was the reaction one fan brought to Reddit. "It's official," they wrote, "chopped has run out of ideas and we're all worse off because of it. I just want my original cooking competitions back." The synopsis they deplored was that this episode — "Chopped: Chef's Best Friend" — brought on a dog as a guest judge with dog-lovers as competitors.

However, most seemed to like the dog, if not the idea. "I thought the idea was stupid," another agreed, "but the dog was charming." Others went further with the point that the dog was an improvement over Alton Brown, the guest judge for the previous "Chopped" gimmick. The most negative reaction to the presence of James the golden retriever consisted of worries that he would eat too much. More interesting is that none disagreed with the desire for the show to return to the cooking competition format.

The reaction to "Chopped: Chef's Best Friend" has been the most positive in a slew of poorly received ideas. Fans took to Reddit when "Chopped: Martha's Rules," the competition hosted by Martha Stewart, aired. They complained that forcing the competitors to switch dishes goes too far in sabotaging the competitors. "How is a chef supposed to showcase their abilities when they are pulled from their dish and have to work on someone else's?" one asked.

Another complaint hurled at "Martha's Rules" and "Alton's Maniacal Baskets" is that the judges shout too much. Cheat Sheet reported on the trend of fans pointing out how the format of the entire show has changed to become more like reality television. Judges constantly tell competitors to hurry up, only to tell them off if they finish early and do not use the entire time available to work on their dish. It seems that fans would like to have judges that sit back quietly, eat the food given to them, and express an opinion about what they ate.

In other words, fans would probably be happy if the judges acted more like James the golden retriever than not.