Top Chef Masters: In Which I Say "Uncle."

Dear Top Chef Masters,

I have lost all interest.

I'm sorry.

You had a good thing going. And you screwed it up, frankly, in several different ways. Let's look at them:

1) You changed the format so that instead of being a slight shift from the regular seasons of Top Chef, you became a mere rehash of it.

2) You revamped the judges, getting rid of the two who frequently had the most interesting things to say (Gael Greene's Hat and Jay Raymer), leaving only James Oseland, who has nakedly played favorites in every season. You then replaced the intelligent, articulate judges with a rotating bunch of 20-something sycophants (seriously, the contrast between Gael/Jay and Danyelle/Creepy Allen is like the contrast between a couture gown and a prom dress from Macy's Junior Department), and, periodically, with Ruth Reichl, who is apparently so weighed down by her giant hair that she can only gesticulate. The hair has leeched her brain of all power to do anything beyond making the same two or three vague movements with your hands.

3) The chefs. Seriously, where did you find these people? I realize you may've shot your wad a bit by having so many great chefs in the first two seasons, but really. You couldn't do better than this lot? You couldn't invite Wylie Dufresne and Graham Elliot and all the other people who've been knocked out in the first round in seasons one and two back to give it one more go?

4) Curtis Stone. Seriously. Why? Why did you do this? I realize that K-Choi wasn't the most charismatic or interesting host in reality TV, but did you think that replacing her with this overexposed Aussie surf hunk was a good move? I don't get it.

But the worst thing was

5) You got so. Fucking. Predictable. Your desire to have a female winner was so naked that it made the outcomes of the individual episodes easy to forecast. What did I say last week? Oh, that's right:

I will say that I think this episode was a pretty clear set up for a Floyd/Mary Sue/ Traci finale.

That's right. That's what I said. And what did you do this week? Knock out Naomi and set things up for a Floyd/Mary Sue/Traci finale.

I can't even muster the energy to give a crap about whether Traci or Mary Sue emerges the ultimate winner -- because again, the desire to have a female winner has been so nakedly displayed that anyone who thinks sweet, loveable Floyd and his penis have a chance hasn't been watching the show.

I'm still interested, a bit, in a vague sort of casual way. I'll still probably watch the finale at some point, but I won't be recapping it. I have had it with this crapfest, Bravo. It's not worth my energy, and it's certainly not worth arranging my Wednesday nights around, or finding a spot of time sometime during the weekend to get caught up on.

Sincerely,

Jordan Baker

(To the rest of you: I'm sorry. I just couldn't keep up with it. It was driving me mad with boredom, and plus if you go back and look through how long there has consistently been some iteration of Top Chef and/or Project Runway on the air... I need the break. I'll definitely be back for Project Runway when it starts up later this summer, and I may do something quick and dirty with Rocco's show, because seriously, it's got Liza Minnelli and Caroline Manzo in the commercials. How could I resist? And maybe with less of a locked in schedule, I'll free myself up to actually write about other things more often, and get around to fulfilling those promises I made to the Haiku-Limerick and Limerick-Haiku contest winners back in April)