Season 1 |
Episode Guide
Check Your Ego at the Door
Someone Is Lying
Eight Aprons, Nine Chefs
Traitors
Break up the Alliance
Don’t Take it Personally
Yelp Doesn’t Count
Start Together, End Together
The Pressure Cooker lives up to its name as a reality cooking show aiming to squeeze the juice from its contestants. 11 chefs from different parts of the industry rock up to a show-kitchen house. And straight out of the vacuum fridge, you can see where the egos have landed.
The American series sets up its contestants with a $100,000 prize and before they’re even pitted against each other, they’re already talking about alliances and befriending their highest competitors in order to pinpoint their weaknesses.
As both cooking competitions and ‘psychological’ house shows have been going on for several years, Netflix’s offering does the dirty by pairing the two from timer’s start. As each chef enters, introducing herself or himself, they’re already assessing, knives out. So, you can image the entrant selection criteria. They share a tiny bit of their stories and quickly pit themselves against each other.
The rub is that they will judge and eliminate their colleagues themselves. It’s so much more than skill in this competition – there’s a lot in the mix of personalities and ability to handle the pressure (cooker). After the first stone-cold elimination, they’re then forced to – school-yard style – pick teams.
The house is quirky, the kitchen is well-equipped – one of the chefs gets all excited about the different types of ovens. And as everyone is staying over, we get a view of who’s had a restless night. You quickly find your favorites and the characters you find most relatable. And so do the participants.
But if you’re in this for the love of cooking and cooking shows, it may not be entirely tasteful to you. A friend watches such series with her 8-year-old. Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend this to her, as it’s more competitiveness and back-biting than really getting to see what they’re creating.
In fact, each episode focuses more on the heightened drama and ill feelings than on the food. And selling the cliff-hanger with histrionic music as both starter and dessert.
What did they make again? I’ve already forgotten. Something with a lot of fancy tools, no planning, and not enough time. And therefore, often looking a mess for the combination. I mean, in the very first episode someone serves undercooked chicken. Gag. Meanwhile, these people are already ‘chefs,’ so beware – something isn’t kosher in the kitchen.
With only eight 45-minute episodes, the series goes quickly and that’s just fine! There’s not much ‘pleasant’ happening in a lot of this series. It’s not fun to watch if you’re keen on cooking. Or nice people. However, if you’re in it to see individuals being horrible to each other, you’ve come to the right place. Dig in.
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Verdict - 7/10
7/10
Thank you Christine! Agree – it’s all about the ‘drama’ and not the food. Let’s see if it gets renewed.
Thanks for reading & for commenting!
Yes , this is so on point. It is more of a backbiting show than a cooking show. Honestly ,it was a bad idea to allow them to decide who stays and who goes. I don’t think most of them were fair in their decisions. They were only doing enough politics to survive.