Last Chef Standing has its winner, and a useless concept – reality blurred

At the start of 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing—Food Network’s reality competition that made its own title irrelevant in the first episode but went on to offer a handful of inventive challenges—just four chefs and four hours remained.

Those chefs: Chris Oh and Mika Leon, who’ve both appeared on many Food Network competitions, and are on the ascent as next-generation stars; Marcel Vigneron, who’s still searching for a win 17 years after being the runner-up on Top Chef season two; and Carlos Anthony, who Food Network is desperately trying to turn into the next Brian Malarkey (woo!), even though the reality TV barely needs one Malarkey.

The first chef the judges eliminated was Mika, leaving all men for the rest of the finale. One season of a show is not enough to form a pattern, but it’s fascinating that 24 in 24—judged face-to-face—eliminated all its female chefs, most of them well before the finale.

Meanwhile, Tournament of Champions—judged by people who don’t even know who’s in the competition—has had five female winners in a row, and never once had a male chef in the final match.

But the judging, while disappointing in how non-objective it often came across, was not the problem with this new competition. Nor were the challenges, some of which were new ideas.

The problem with 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing is that its 24-style ticking clock, and its 24 hours of filming, added precisely nothing.

Yes, everyone’s tired, and yes, they keep saying they’re tired. The chefs laid down sometimes. Okay. And? No one has cut off a finger or fallen asleep in a pan. They didn’t stop cooking well, or give up and just microwave a potato.

Perhaps that’s why everyone, including the show, tried way too hard to make it seem like it mattered. The “wildest, most ambitious culinary experiment of all time,” as co-host Michael Symon describes it, was not even close, and more adjectives does not change that.

Michael Voltaggio tried, though! He made me laugh and laugh during when he guest judged and insisted 24 in 24 is the hardest, most toughest, most difficult thing ever created, ever! Guy Fieri and his Tournament of Champions rhetoric would like to have a chat, Michael.

At another point, Michael Symon said, “That’s why rice is so hard to cook in a competition, and you never really see anybody make a risotto.” Never? What? We see risotto—and rice—all the freakin’ time, including on Food Network competitions.

I’m not suggesting that the challenges were easy for the chefs, nor that staying awake was simple, either. I’d be curled up in the fetal position after being awake for 12 hours, so I’m impressed by their stamina.

But that just doesn’t translate to television. It doesn’t help that the chefs likely filmed their interview segments a day or three later, when they were no longer tired. So they seem much perkier every time the editors cut away for them to talk about how tired they are, which is a lot.

I have no behind-the-scenes knowledge here, but the show strikes me as one that was sold based on how cheap it is to produce: Eight episodes in one day, on the TOC set, done!

Hollywood is increasingly price conscious. Companies are looking to spend less and make more, hence Netflix once telling us all to share passwords and now making us pay more just to make their stockholders happy about “growth.”

Just look at Survivor: An iconic 39-day game now lasts just 26, a pandemic-era requirement that stuck around because it’s so much cheaper to film 26 days than 39. CBS can now pay for 13 fewer days of production—that’s 13 days of crew salaries, meals, laundry, resort rental, et cetera—and still get the same number of episodes.

So I can see the appeal of filming eight episodes in a day instead of a week, even if two crews were required. And the business part worked: 24 in 24 was renewed for a second season ahead of its finale, with Food Network saying that it “reached more than 10 million total viewers (across Food Network/Max/Discovery+)” and also was “a Top 3 non-news/sports cable program on Sunday nights among both [people and men ages] 25-54.”

I’ve spent almost a full day shitting on 24 in 24 now, but the did throw out some great ideas along the way.

My favorite challenge came in the penultimate episode, where the chefs were given a score for their first dish, and for the next two challenges, could gamble on points to be added or subtracted.

That basically turned a cooking competition into a version of Final Jeopardy, with chefs betting on how well they could do a task, and I’d love to see this show or other shows play with that even more.

What if 24 in 24’s chefs accumulated points for the whole competition, and were able to keep betting with them?

(Alas, the producers also did the clunky thing of having the contestants reveal how much they’d bet before judge Maneet Chauhan revealed the outcome of the challenge.)

I also thought thought it was fascinating to have a dish judged solely on presentation, which came during the “Artistry” episode. Presentation gets attention on other competitions, of course, but it’s usually the least-important thing.

For its finale, though, 24 in 24 appeared to have run out of challenges and judges: the first challenge was the same as the premiere’s first challenge, the mise en place race. Judges Jet Tila, Stephanie Izard, and Scott Conant returned to judge the finale.

After prepping their onions, artichokes, and avocados, they chose a protein and made an amuse-bouche. Even though Carlos served onion to Scott Conant, professional onion-hater, the judges eliminated Mika. The next dish had to use a different protein, and then they sent Chris Oh home.

With 34 minutes left, Marcel and Carlos faced off. The giant, hard-to read clock was being used for an actual challenge.

Carlos made pork and polenta, while Marcel made panang curry with poached flounder. Scott Conant said it was “great cooking” from both of them. Stephanie said it’s “one of the hardest decisions I’ve made as a judge.”

“I feel like this is my competition to win,” Carlos said, and then lost.

Yes, despite Marcel’s fish being slightly overcooked, he won the $50,000 and trip to Hawaii. “I actually did it,” Marcel said through tears. “I finally won one.”