Last Chef Standing was exhausting in its premiere – reality blurred

“I feel like I’m in Squid Games,” chef Mika Leon said during the premiere of Food Network’s newest competition series, 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing, which was about to eliminate half its 24-person cast in the second challenge.

That reference made me think of another South Korean reality TV show, Physical: 100, a test of endurance and strength featuring 100 athletes who compete in quests that challenge various aspects of their physicality.

I kept that in mind as the first two hours of 24 in 24 ticked by in a dull blur, tired of the repetition while wondering what a true endurance cooking competition would look like. This, alas, is not it—at least not yet.

24 in 24—not to be confused with Food Network’s Jeff Mauro series $24 in 24—takes place over an actual 24 hours.

Casting did an excellent job of gathering a mix of new-to-Food Network talent—a lot of people who are experienced but new to me as a competition viewer—and some familiar faces.

Alas, there are some overly familiar—and highly annoying—faces, from Top Chef’s Marcel Vigneron to Matt Jordan, who I first remember from Food Network Star, where he went by Matthew Grunwald.

They’ve been gathered for a contest involving 24 challenges for $50,000. Those are broken up into categories (speed, adaptability, resourcefulness, teamwork, artistry) with three challenges each.

Those initial three challenge are varied in both approach and consequence, and I appreciated that mix: only one eliminated chefs. The challenges vary from an untimed prep challenge to creating an egg dish in just 12 minutes.

Yet the fourth challenge, we’re told, will be a head-to-head battle between challenge three’s losing chefs, so apparently not everyone will participate.

I suspect 24 in 24 will change significantly as the time goes by, and as the chefs grow more and more tired—not just from being awake for 24 hours, but for competing again and again, and standing around for all that the production requires.

Alas, the show kind of lost me in the second challenge. Its twist seemed a little obvious—12 stations, two chefs each, same protein? Yep, we’re going head-to-head, and eliminating half of them.

As much as I like Jet Tila as a chef and competitor, having a single judge eliminate half the competitors in non-blind judging was ridiculous.

Jet made reference to how awkward it was (“I gotta do this 12 times?”) and to the fact that he was judging people he knew (“I know you both very well, but this is going to come down to the bite,” he said to Marcel and Viet Pham. “It’s the bite—okay, guys?”).

I know every show cannot do blind judging like Tournament of Champions does, where the judges don’t even know who’s in the competition, but why not put all the chefs’ dishes on the front table, and have Jet judge them without knowing whose dishes he was cooking?

And why cast 24 people only to dump half of them with such rapid judging that we barely know what’s happened? The title itself lasted just one hour!

As chaotic as it was to track 24 dishes being prepared at the same time, losing half the cast after the second challenge was a bummer.

In its premiere, 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing felt like an idea that is not quite fully formed, starting the clock before it was ready.

The actual ticking clock is a good example; it gives the show a 24 vibe, though there’s not an urgency to the day, as time ticks away disconnected from the competitions.

The first competition is not timed; the second is, with 24 minutes—necessitating a second clock to show us the “challenge countdown.”

That 24-hour time is only to show us that everything is happening in that period, and give us a fun glimpse behind the scenes of how long various things like judging actually take.

The actual clock—a massive collection of monitors hanging overhead—appears to be someone trying to recreate a digital clock face despite having never seen an LED clock face. The lines are way too thin for the size of the numbers, and too close to the numbers next to it, so the clock is barely readable—especially from angles that obscure part of it. On a show with a ticking clock, the clock should look better and matter more.

The space looks like the Tournament of Champions set, repurposed: the same gray walls, and the same silver racks with the same spice jars, the same fridges with their blue glow; the dramatically lit Ikea shelves.

The whole look is surprisingly dull, and dull is how I’d describe a lot of that first two hours, despite a lot of great chefs and interesting challenges. It just fades into the background, even though it should pop off the screen.

Variety can help, yes, but randomness, nope, and there’s a lot of randomness. The third challenge suddenly had an actual prize: $2,400. “Winning always comes with a prize,” co-host Michael Symon says, but there are no prizes for the first two challenges, unless we count getting to choose your station and not getting eliminated.

Co-host Esther Choi has some nice moments of interaction with chefs, but there was not enough time for her to offer a level of insight or banter that Eric Adjepong does when he hosts.

All of this may change in episode two or three, or once we’re a half-day in and fatigue is really affecting the chefs, or the show is down to a number where it is more confident in managing them. I’ll keep watching 24 in 24 to see, as there’s potential here, though disappointed it already squandered half of it and felt like a slog after just one episode.

24 in 24: Last Chef Standing

A variety of challenges and a great collection of chefs struggle against an awkward format. C

What works for me:

• Varied challenges
• A good mix of chefs
• Esther Choi as co-host

What could be better:

• Not eliminating half the cast with one judge
• Making the clock matter more
• The production design and pacing