History YMMV / TheNextFoodNetworkStar

** In Season 8, the contestants are doing a challenge where they have to present food on a runway at a fashion show. When Nikki of Team Bobby presents her pork chops and then leaves, Giada wonders aloud "Is this runway food?" Bobby retorts, "It doesn't matter," and Giada (seeming offended for some reason) insists "Yes it ''does!!!''". Bobby again says it doesn't matter, and Giada again insists that it does. That being said, mere minutes later they were perfectly fine again and the odd moment was never mentioned again.

** Also from Season 6, Italian immigrant Serena is being pressured by the judges to bring her Italianness UpToEleven (much like what they did with Susie and her Mexican heritage the following season), and she's currently feeling desperate about her place in the competition. During that weeks' camera challenge, as soon as the camera starts rolling Serena holds her arms up in a V-shape over her head and loudly belts out "OH SOLE ''MIIIIIIIIIIOOOOO''!!!" while standing over a bowl of pasta she's prepared. It was ''hilarious'', and it ended up being featured heavily in commercials that week purely for the Narm value.

* FridgeLogic: During S7's Iron Chef challenge, Vic uses a dollop of mint jelly to help flavor his lamb. Bobby Flay, tasting it, informs him that "Mint jelly has no place in the Series/IronChef kitchen." Vic quips to the ConfessionCam "Then why was the mint jelly ''in'' the Iron Chef kitchen?" When the clip re-aired at the reunion special, at got lots of applause and laughter from the other contestants, and [[ActuallyPrettyFunny even Bobby laughed]] and nodded.

* {{Tearjerker}}: Some of the eliminations. Unlike ''Chopped'' and ''Cutthroat Kitchen'', the contestants spend weeks together, not hours, and can form bonds. So, when you have two or more contestants who form close friendships, and one of them gets eliminated, it's pretty darn depressing.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Season 8's first eliminated contestant was Cristie Schoen Codd. Tragically in March of 2015 [[HarsherInHindsight she, her husband, and unborn baby were found murdered in their home.]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** There was nothing wrong with Penny's ''food.'' In fact, the judges consistently loved her cooking. The problem was her over-the-top {{Jerkass}}/AlphaBitch personality rendering her unlikable. Her recipes actually looked quite tasty. If only Penny hadn't been such a [[{{TheBully}} bully]], she might have actually won and brought a Middle Eastern point of view to the Food Network.
** On the other hand, Jeffrey Saad from an earlier season could ALSO have brought Middle Eastern flavor to the network. The best part is that--unlike Penny--Jeffrey has an extremely likable and friendly personality. He does have a show on Creator/CookingChannel now and [[http://www.foodnetwork.com/spice-smuggler/video/index.html a webseries on foodnetwork.com]] that ran for a year, but he doesn't get nearly the exposure he would have if he had won.

** Matthew from Season 11. He's egotistical, and quick to point out the flaws in his competitors while being messy himself on a variety of different levels. None of the other contestants liked him, and in the end, his immaturity is what ended up getting him cut. He made quite an impact despite being featured for a mere ''two episodes''.

** Season 12's Ana. Despite being at or near the bottom each week, with repeatedly poor camera presentations, as well as being unable to work as a team in any capacity, she keeps slipping by week after week, solely because of her cooking. This is even pointed out by Jernard and Damiano after the third instance in which, while working as a team, the one stuck with her ends up going home instead of Ana herself.

** Lenny is the EnsembleDarkhorse of season ten, having one of the funnest personalities and providing a lot of laughs (he brought a lasso to the season premiere). He's also a great chef.
** From the same season, it could be argued that Lenny lost his status to Nicole. She has shown considerable improvement over the course of the season. And she ended up in the final three. In fact, Food Network viewers actually voted to have Nicole's pilot go on to Food Network because of her genuine personality that did not overshadow the cooking she brought to the table.

** In one Season 7episode, Penny and Mary Beth are having a verbal catfight in front of the judges, arguing over Penny's behavior. Mary Beth is mid-sentence when out of nowhere Penny literally starts making cat noises, makes her hands into a claw-like shape, and starts pawing at the air in front of Mary Beth's face. Mary Beth and the judges weren't really sure how to respond to that. When Penny competes on ''Series/{{Chopped}} All-Stars'' the following year, she does the cat thing again during her introduction, this time [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou directly facing the camera and clawing at the audience.]]

** In one episode, Penny and Mary Beth are having a verbal catfight in front of the judges, arguing over Penny's behavior. Mary Beth is mid-sentence when out of nowhere Penny literally starts making cat noises, makes her hands into a claw-like shape, and starts pawing at the air in front of Mary Beth's face. Mary Beth and the judges weren't really sure how to respond to that. When Penny competes on ''Series/{{Chopped}} All-Stars'' the following year, she does the cat thing again during her introduction, this time [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou directly facing the camera and clawing at the audience.]]
** Season 6: Dzintra, who already had a reputation as a hot mess and CloudCuckooLander excitedly informed the ConfessionCam that "Dzintra loves to dance! Dzintra loves to twirl!" Even without the ThirdPersonPerson, she still would have come across as a little bit...odd...

* CreatorsPet: Melissa D'Arabian. The network and other personalities seem to love her. However, many viewers don't. Several reasons include 1) having that perpetual bitch face, which leads to 2) coming off as unnecessarily aggressive, which leads to 3) having that aura of being fake and not personable. 4) Having the least creative pilot and show which meant that 5) Jeffrey Saad was passed over and screwed, even though Jeffrey was a lot more personable and authoritative.

** Sarah filled this role in Season 10. She was consistently in the bottom group throughout the second half of the series, yet managed to avoid elimination until Episode 10. Online speculation (corroborated by Alton Brown's commentary on his Twitter account and the Food Network website) has it that the producers, for some reason, really liked Sarah, particularly her ongoing "talking head" commentaries.

** Also from Season 6, Italian immigrant Serena is being pressured by the judges to bring her Italianness UpToEleven (much like what they did with Susie and her Mexican heritage the following season), and she's currently feeling desperate about her place in the competition. During that weeks' camera challenge, as soon as the camera starts rolling Serena holds her arms up in a V-shape over her head and loudly belts out "OH SOLE ''MIIIIIIIIIIOOOOO''!!!" while standing over a bowl of pasta she's prepared. It was ''hilarious'', and it ended up being featured heavily in commercials that week purely for the {{Narm}} value.

** Also from S8, during the Series/{{Chopped}} challenge, Michelle freaks out because she thinks that Giada is constantly staring at her and insinuates that she feels like Giada is somehow fixated on her; the camera then cuts to Giada, who has the most sedate, bored-looking expression ever, and appears to be just casually viewing all the contestants rather than being the creepy stalker that Michelle is making her out to be. Later during the judging round, Michelle quips that Giada was freaking her out and everyone starts laughing, Giada included.

* FridgeLogic: During S7's Series/IronChef challenge, Vic uses a dollop of mint jelly to help flavor his lamb. Bobby Flay, tasting it, informs him that "Mint jelly has no place in the Series/IronChef kitchen." Vic quips to the ConfessionCam "Then why was the mint jelly ''in'' the Iron Chef kitchen?" When the clip re-aired at the reunion special, at got lots of applause and laughter from the other contestants, and even Bobby laughed and nodded.

** Season 6: During the Series/IronChef challenge, Aria--pressed for time--runs through the studio shrieking "''POTATOES, POTATOES, POTATOES!!!''" (Alton Brown was left hiding his face in his hands and groaning). Doubles as a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, and quite possibly as a NeverLiveItDown moment that made Aria look like a basket case who couldn't keep her cool under pressure, which is likely why she was eliminated at the end of the episode, unfortunately.
** Also from Season 6, Italian immigrant Serena is being pressured by the judges to bring her Italianness UpToEleven (much like what they did with Susie and her Mexican heritage the following season), and she's currently feeling desperate about her place in the competition. During that weeks' camera challenge, as soon as the camera starts rolling Serena holds her arms up in a V-shape over her head and loudly belts out [[{{LargeHam}} "OH SOLE ''MIIIIIIIIIIOOOOO!!!"'']] while standing over a bowl of pasta she's prepared. It was ''hilarious'', and it ended up being featured heavily in commercials that week purely for the {{Narm}} value.

*** The intentional sabotage was pretty much confirmed in the reunion show where they showed a never before seen clip of her saying that she just didn't care. One wonders if this will end bringing back the last X eliminated to help out for the Iron Chef Challenge. (Update: As of Season 8, it apparently has, as they didn't do an Series/IronChef challenge at all this year).
*** During the reunion special she also said that she wouldn't change any of her behavior, even with all the grief if caused and the fact that it was a big part of why she was kicked off. Yeeeaah...
*** Penny was featured on an episode of ''Series/{{Chopped}} All-Stars''... and won. One can only imagine that anyone who has to work with or live with her will find her several orders of magnitude more insufferable than before. However, [[spoiler: it becomes Subverted when she lost in the second round of the finals.]] She was just as full of herself as she was on NFNS. [[spoiler: At one point, she actually suggested that Michael Symon and Marcus Samuelsson were intimidated by HER. She also made the ridiculous statement that she was going to conquer Food Network. There isn't much call for 7th place finishers on this show. Eventually, when Michael Symon was eliminated because he'd forgotten to plate some okra chips, Penny was ecstatic and starts crowing "The bragging rights alone! I took down an Series/IronChef!" Uh, ''no'', Penny. You didn't. He just forgot an ingredient, so unless you somehow slipped him a drug that disoriented his memory, then ''no'', you ''didn't'' "take down an Iron Chef."]] In the next round, [[spoiler: however, Penny ends up being a victim of her own arrogance as usual...]] Oh and the best part? [[spoiler: When Penny gets eliminated because she put so much saffron that it tasted bad to the judges, and Judge Amanda Freitag delivers the decision, Penny whines to the ConfessionCam: [[SoreLoser "Who's really the saffron expert? Me, or Amanda?!"]] She then [[WeWillMeetAgain vows that this won't stop her from conquering Food Network......]]]]

*** Sarah could be considered THE Scrappy of the season. Subpar cook, having no clear POV (having no less than ''three''), being more interested in how she looks, having a piss-poor attitude and having a tendency to snigger over other contestants' failures, which created an even bigger hatedom. It started to come to the head in episode 6 when she started making a shit storm over Chris "stealing" all the beef. She was flagged as the person to go home that episode by the viewers but she stayed all the way to the top 4. There was much satisfaction when she finally got cut in Episode 10, though many speculated that the real reason was that the producers, who hitherto had been accused of being partial to her, no longer had a use for her "talking head" commentaries now that the series had run its course.
*** Lenny has his own hatedom for his over-the-top personality AND ego who came off as being very fake at several points of the season. He seems to perform poorly when he doesn't have a direct audience, which is unfortunate considering that the job of a Food Network personality is mostly limited to a studio with no audience feedback. It only got exacerbated in the last two episodes, for the wrong reasons. Dirt uncovered on him shows him doing some very questionable things on the internet, having some vile stuff on Youtube that was since removed, and being so stalker-ish both on the internet and real life that the [[ManipulativeEditing edited]] clips of Lenny having a crush on Giada became very creepy. Through some of those videos, it is good evidence to support that cowboy demeanor was really an act. It is possible that Lenny [=McNab=] could have a ''[[RoleEndingMisdemeanor Career]]'' [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor Ending Misdemeanor]] before his tenure starts because the winner of FNS also gets a headlining event at the New York Food and Wine Festival.