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    General 
  • Broken Base:
    • Thanks to the giant amount of differences between each version of the show, many fans completely disagree on which version is the best. On one side generally you'll find fans of the American version, calling out the British version of the show as seemingly lacking personality, focusing almost entirely on the food aspect. The other side generally calls out the American version for bad editing and a heightened focus on drama and personality above anything else.
    • That said, the Australian version of the show is generally seen as a good solid middle ground between the personality focus of the American series and the food focus of the British series; thanks to that (and a few other miscellaneous reasons), most fans seem to gravitate towards that as being the best. The Canadian version is also well liked due to its kinder judges and contestants and being conducted in almost the exact same manner as the American version except without the unnecessary drama, although there are a few moments that have attracted disdain from viewers (specifically season 1 which was a blatant copy of the American series including multiple rivalries between consestants, angry and rude judges and a lot of swearing).
  • Underdogs Never Lose: In at least two episodes where an odd number of contestants remained in a team challenge, the team with one member less than the other won the challenge.

    US Version 
  • Adorkable:
    • Season 4's Bri and Season 5's Jaimee, with their simpler style of clothing, glasses and amiable attitudes.
    • Also from Season 4 was the quirky and energetic Luca
    • Season 5 has Scottish Francis.
    • Gordon Ramsay, during the Season 2 auditions, upon learning that a lady named Pauline is from Glasgow, his own hometown.
  • Author's Saving Throw: For Season 10, the show opened with some improvements.
    • After many complaints about the mentoring being virtually pointless in Season 9, Season 10 not only scrapped it completely, but also returned to the old audition format, but elevated the stakes by only accepting people with three thumbs-up from the three judges, only giving a second chance to three people handpicked by each judge.
    • After many fans of the show were questioning about Season 2 winner Jennifer Behm never appearing in other seasons, she finally gets a guest spot, along with Season 3's Christine and Season 7's Shaun, as a consultant for the aspiring contestants.
  • Broken Base: Viewers are divided on who is better between Joe Bastianich or Christina Tosi as the third judge. People either prefer Joe's harsh and deadpan style along with his on-point criticism on dishes, while his detractors accuse him of being unnecessarily cruel to the contestants (mostly because of his infamous "Trash Can Toss" moments) and points out he doesn't have notable experience in the kitchen. On the other hand, Christina is supported for being the only female in the panel, while her detractors dismiss her relevance because she's a pastry chef, and many of her reactions in comments are criticized as either very exaggerated for drama, badly acted (even though Joe arguably suffers a similar problem regarding this), or for having a condescending tone which contrasts her other appearances in public.
    • Speaking of Joe, whether or not Joe is a good judge at all has been heavily called into question (although the discussions about it across the internet have pushed Joe to borderline-scrappy territory). While some people have noted that his criticism can be on point, he is on occasion humorous, and that he has begun to soften up in later seasons of MasterChef, many viewers always point to his unnecessary harshness and rudeness, most prominently in earlier seasons ,his lack of knowledge in the kitchen, and his perceived disrespect to non-Western cuisines in some cases.
  • Immunity from elimination/pressure tests, especially as it became much more prominent from Season 3 onwards. Either viewed as a strong motivator for contestants during the non-elimination challenges to up their game and avoid complacency as well as forge constructive relationships with other competitors (instead of the usual I'm In It For Myself attitude), or rather as a Scrappy Mechanic of sorts that creates an imbalance of amount of dishes contestants have to put forth on what's supposed to be first and foremost a culinary competition, and especially when the contestants themselves get to select who's immune if that just creates a lot of Elimination Houdini as the less-skilled chefs were frequently saved (in the belief they could be easily toppled later down the line) in order to overwork the stronger chefs into making a single crucial mistake.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Any time Joe throws whole ceramic plates (with food on them) into the garbage can.
  • Difficulty Spike: Back to Win requires each dish made each week to have three consistently made portions, usually saved for the final couple of episodes.
  • Elimination Houdini:
    • The first season winner Whitney Miller actually got this a lot, mainly cause it seemed every time she wowed the judges with one of her southern-inspired dishes or during the baking challenges the next go-around she was in the bottom three/four, though managed to stave off elimination every time. While there was a feeling that may have had to do with her still somewhat-limited knowledge of more exotic cuisines, there was more cyncism that she was clearly favored as the inspirational underdog story for the season and that the roller-coaster performance throughout was intentional for the drama. Taken her highs throughout the season and especially a really strong performance in the finale, she was still viewed as a deserving winner in a competition that was figuring itself out.
    • Season 3:
      • Tali made only one dish the judges really liked (his strawberry shortcake), whereas the rest of his dishes have ranged from average to downright terrible, and he's been in the bottom two a total of three times. It's all made worse by the fact that he has quite a big ego, thinks his food is amazing and the judges just don't understand him. He finally got eliminated in the Top 9.
      • David Martinez, who got the nickname from others "Nine Lives" as he constantly managed to avoid elimination despite making frequent absent-minded mistakes and mainly just serving as The Load on team competitions. So much so that when eight previously-eliminated contestants were competing to return to the competition, virtually all of them said that he did not deserve to still be in the running.
      • Josh eventually became this after he was brought back, landing constantly in the bottom but still managing to stay. An especially shocking moment was when he and Monti were both up for elimination, and the judges sent Monti home, despite Josh having had every advantage in the challenge (he had been given a basket with all the required ingredients while the others had to decipher for themselves what was needed from a taste test), and also having chosen to add ingredients to Graham's recipe in the belief that he could make it better. Needless to say, many viewers were shocked when Monti was given the boot instead.
    • Krissi from US season 4. Despite her consistently bad attitude towards everyone (even the judges) and cooking performance throughout the season (she never won a team challenge, except the tag-team one), she inexplicably escaped elimination every time. The judges seemed far less critical about her failures than they are to other contestants and actually praise her "bloody good effort" despite flaws on her dishes, and she has also shown an inability to move away from her comfort zone, something other contestants are more willing to do. She was finally eliminated in fourth place, ending her run in a Pressure Test after she single-handedly cost her team a challenge (which she blamed on her partner) largely because she stormed off.
    • US Season 5 had several.
      • Cutter was in the bottom two/three ten times before being eliminated in fourth, while chefs like Francis B. and Kira were eliminated despite Kira having only ever won challenges and Francis B. being widely acknowledged as one of the better chefs in the competition. In episode nine, Ramsay told him that he was a disappointment to the MasterChef kitchen for constantly being so bad, and it was pure luck that Elise was worse than him.
      • Elise would also rank here, despite being generally well-liked because of her sweet and sincere southern charm it became apparent early on she just wasn't cut out for the rigors of the competition. She barely skated by in the first episode, baking pies (which were supposed to be her specialty) that didn't rank highly, and then utterly bombing a couple episodes later when making a different version of the same pastry. She seemed lucky more than anything else though, as she has either been on the winning team or been spared from elimination/pressure tests. She was finally eliminated in episode nine after suffering a borderline mental breakdown, then being unable to make pasta, where her exit felt more like a Creul To Be Kind gesture from the judges and the show itself.
      • Leslie was a decent to excellent chef in individual challenges, but whether through bad luck or inability to work with others properly, was in six pressure tests, surviving all of them. For comparison, the most pressure tests any chef prior to Leslie had managed to survive was the previously mentioned Krissi, who was eliminated on her fifth pressure test.
    • Season 6:
      • Shelly, who was saved from what looked like certain elimination on a number of occasions, with the most notable example being when the judges exempted her from the pressure test despite her abysmal performance as a team captain in the preceding challenge. She still remained very well-liked on a personal level, but as the season wore on some fans started to think the producers were trying too hard to set her up as a potential winner; an impression not helped by the fact that her eventual elimination was the result of a mistake so severe (serving raw chicken) that there was no way the judges could justify keeping her around.
      • Tommy, mainly cause he was a bit of a base-breaker as he was either viewed as a contestant who was kept on mostly for his strong personality more so than his cooking or someone who was one of the more creative and charismatic chefs in the competition if quite erratic performance-wise.
    • Nathan from Season 7. He managed to slip past elimination time and time again before finally being eliminated at seventh place. One prime example is the blue team saving him from a pressure test even though his teammates believed he should be there since he was responsible for their loss.
      • There was also Diamond. In her only pressure test, she served a raw chicken and asiago sausage to Gordon Ramsay, but luckily, she was not even selected as a bottom entry in that challenge only because another cook, Andrea, presented her dish three seconds too late.
    • Season 8:
      • Jeff. Up until the final six where he was eliminated alongside Yachecia, he's the only one that has not won any challenges, losing every team challenge he was part of. Fans have even complained he has been passed over for elimination for other stronger and more deserving chefs.
      • Caitlin is a decent home cook, but she's not that comfortable in basic skills as seen with her failing every skill tests before top 9 where she went home, escaping elimination because she did well in following elimination challenges (Adam goes so far as calling her "Queen of Second Chances" because of this). She also lost three of four team challenges but by virtue of luck, only participated in one pressure test because she was exempted by her team captains in the rest.
      • Despite having a strong beginning, Yachecia's performance starts to decline after reaching top 10, not to mention she was responsible for all Shocking Elimination in Season 8, being saved in all of them with inconsistent justifications as explained down below.
    • Despite showing promise early on, Taylor from Season 9 started to drop in quality as most of her dishes after the Wedding Team Challenge where either decent or poor. She ended up surviving until the final nine.
    • US Season 10:
      • Bri started off as one of the top contenders but entered a downward spiral starting from a terrible performance on a bread-themed Pressure Test that she never fully recovered from, presenting lackluster dishes that often even failed to demonstrate her hyped-up presentation skills. Despite landing in the four out of five of the next Pressure Tests, she was saved each time by other contestants making worse mistakes, which allowed her to coast on by to Top 8 while drawing comparisons to Season 5's Cutter. She would finally be eliminated in 8th place when she plated raw salmon.
      • While Subha is a very strong cook on an individual level, he has proven time and time again to be utterly hopeless in team challenges, to the point where he has been in almost every Pressure Test (twice because he performed badly enough that despite being on the winning team the captain chose to send him to the Pressure Test). Despite this, however, his goofy, likable personality (along with his friendship with Joe Bastianich) made him a rare example of an Elimination Houdini becoming a fan-favorite, and many were sad to see him eliminated alongside Shari.
    • Season 11 (Legends):
      • Alejandro who's been in the bottom three times in the first five episodes, while all the other contestants have been bottom either once or not at all. He was finally eliminated in the Top 4.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Season five's Leslie gained a reputation for being argumentative and confrontational on the show, although he seemed to grow out of it in the end. Shortly after the season ended, he was arrested for brawling in public, although charges were not filed.
  • Informed Wrongness: The team captain of the losing team choosing to save themselves from a Pressure Test is often met with ire from those left to face it, especially if they leave the more talented chefs in. It might be a dick move, but this is still a competition, so most of the time they're going to prioritize themselves first.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • MasterChef Joe Bastianch's infamous "trash can dunk."
    • Leslie and his strong resemblence to Dante from Devil May Cry.
  • Narm
    • Christina's cough after eating Heather's overly peppery scrambled eggs in Season 8 episode 5 looks so fake and over-the-top that it undermines the overall serious tone the producers try to create in the challenge.
    • The season 3 premiere uses a stock audience gasp several times, three of them only minutes after one another. It's notable the first time, and so laughable every time following it completely undermines any tension.
    • One of genius ways the producers do in hyping up Season 10 is by making the judges continuously say what season it is. Not only did it lower the competitive atmosphere the show is trying to build by adding more to the list of Stock Phrases, Joe's comment on how a mediocre dish was "more of a season 5" is so ridiculous that any mention of what season the show currently is in becomes a subject viewers often make fun of.
    • The hyping from Season 10 makes a comeback in Season 11 as "the Season of Legends!"
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Season 5's rivals Ahran and Leslie, who had both managed to irk a large number of fans, won a lot of people over in episode 7, where Courtney paired them together to create a surf-and-turf dish, and they worked together perfectly, creating a well-received dish that resulted in the two of them sharing a hug. After they were declared safe, Ahran said she would gladly work with Leslie again.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • One can forget Eddie Jackson was once a contestant who placed 7th back in Season 4 before becoming a frequent host and occasional judge on multiple Food Network shows.
    • Faruq Jenkins, who competed in Season 1, also became very well-known later on as the ring announcer for the modern revival (2015 onward) of Battlebots, to the point where many fans of that series were legitimately surprised to find he competed here first.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Mentoring in US Season 9 is seen as one to most viewers, even accusing the show of ripping off The Voice, a singing competition with a similar gimmick. Because mentoring was a big selling point for Season 9, many people expected that the final 3 would consist of one chef for each mentor, and they were right. The final 3 chefs were Ashley representing Gordon, Cesar representing Aaron, and Gerron representing Joe. Another problem with the system is that while "Masterclasses" from the judges were in several episodes, there was a noticeable lack of specific group mentoring. Season 10 apparently decided to scrap the mentoring dynamic and went back to the audition format from the first seasons but with higher stakes.
    • In season 10 mid-challenge twists such as making contestants start on a dessert in the middle of a challenge. This results in otherwise great contestants getting screwed over and/or making contestant favoritism and rigging even more obvious.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Ryan easily from season 3, his massive narcissism combined with a crass Frat Bro sense of humor and often being The Bully to other contestants (namely Monti and David) for no good reason. While Tali was viewed as this as he was inseperable with Ryan early on, he stopped being a Jerkass to others after Ryan left and was generally better recieved- even with the Insufferable Genius attitude despite a constiently mediocre performance.
    • Season 4's Krissi, so very much; The Bully, No Indoor Voice, Small Name, Big Ego, and Hair-Trigger Temper all rolled into one. She openly and remorselessly threw contestants under the bus, and had no shred of respect for anyone, including the judges. She was a horrible team player who still regularly found the nerve to complain, about being picked last in team challenges and being on losing teams. What's more, she was never any less toxic in her personal life—she shamelessly admitted as much, in comparing Bri to "the girls I used to beat up in high school". And yet, she made it all the way to the top four, teary-eyed sendoff and all, despite badmouthing Joe Bastianich during a pressure test many episodes prior.
    • Season 5's Courtney originally impressed fans with her backstory of having had to work as an "aerial dancer" to make ends meet in college, but the way she subsequently played up her image by flirting with the judges (including an affected, breathy voice that was vastly different from her Confession Cam tenor) and constantly showing off her expensive heels (which got many close-ups during episodes) make many fans feel like she was a hypocrite for playing off a glamorous job as a sob story. And while she was a strong cook, her mistakes were often overlooked while other contestants were eliminated for much smaller mistakes (the most infamous example being when she added salt instead of sugar to her donut dough, but was kept on over Kira who's only mistake was under-filling her donuts- despite the irony that Leslie was eliminated over her for making a small mistake with using salt over sugar during the cake challenges despite generally outperforming her during that pressure test), leading to both the audience as well as specific contestants (namely Elizabeth and Ahran) seeing her as a blatant Creator's Pet.
      • Her victory was particularly contentious: her dessert was executed worse than Elizabeth's and, of the two, the former had the worse run over the whole show - the latter had never even been in a pressure test (a first for the series)! That Courtney became the only Masterchef winner not to go into the culinary industry afterward is held up by many as a sign that Courtney never held any real passion for cooking.
    • Season 9's Mark, due to his arrogant and know-it-all attitude.
    • Season 10's Renee is seen as this by many viewers, who got tired of her negative attitude during team challenges, claiming that she is an expert on meat often sidelined by her team captains, always in denial about her own mistakes. In their first challenge, she kept producing raw burgers, and blamed Sarah for ignoring her expertise on meat, and during Gerron's wedding challenge, she kept pouting about being sent to handle vegetables, to the point Shari had to constantly try to call her on her defeated attitude. Many commenters were happy during her elimination.
    • Additionally, Evan is disliked due to his cocky and smug attitude, claiming he knew better than everyone and refused to listen to any sort of criticism, even from the judges.
  • Seasonal Rot:
    • Season 4 and 5 was seen as this by a number of fans and considered quite a downfall from the well-liked Season 3, mainly because of so many contestants lacking enough screentime and falling Out of Focus to the point where we barely got to know some of them at all (especially a problem with season 5 as viewers never got to see the auditions in the first place), and the heavy focus and emphasis on drama, infighting, and contestants with bad attitudes (namely Krissi and also Natasha from season 4 and Leslie being a one-man Conflict Ball in season 5) rather than on the cooking itself, although Season 4 is considered to at least have a likable winner in Luca.
    • The following few seasons were less divisive but generally seen as So Okay, It's Average, with even new additions like a rotating panel of judges only moderately livening up what was generally being viewed as an increasingly stale format where the cooking sometimes felt secondary to the more over-the-top personalities on the show.
    • Season 9. See Scrappy Mechanic for more information.
    • Several longtime fans of the U.S. version have noticed that the dish quality has been lacking in creativity over the last few seasons. They feel like savory dishes contestants make recently have the same concept of pan-seared protein with puree (an especially alarming amount of cauliflower puree in season 9, something that some viewers are sick of seeing) and sides. You know it's bad when it's revealed Gordon used the Australian version as a comparison.
    • Despite attempts to fix what made last season not well-liked by fans and seemingly more talented contestants, US Season 10 is hit with this again. The producers didn't fix their one-note characters problem (glaring examples include Wuta who seemingly made being a vegetarian in this show a big deal yet again and Sarah who constantly mentioned her military background), the judges and contestants overhyped the season by making "Season 10" as one of their stock phrase, and the show treated earlier seasons and MasterChef Junior like lesser cooking shows by comparing bad dishes to them as an insult. Doesn't help that beginning with Episode 4, the show aired two episodes per week with one challenge per episode, meaning the elimination would not happen until the next episode (although this thankfully ended beginning with Episode 18 where the challenge and elimination happened in the same episode) It also has one of the show's most controversial finales.
    • Season 11 (Legends) has become this, partially due to adjustments needing to be made to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and health protocols. While no field team challenges are justified, other changes include doing away with the show's usual pair team challenges and pressure test rounds, leading to every contestant being Out of Focus as well.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: In the first 9 seasons in order to get an apron a contestant would have to impress one or two of the three judges depending on the season. In season 10, contestants have to impress all 3 judges (or obtain a battle pass to duel against the other two battle pass picks) to get an apron. Also, the challenges are more difficult as well.
    • Due to Season 12 being a Back to Win season, all of the contestants have graduated from being home cooks to being professional cooks. The standards are far higher than they were in the regular seasons (as each contestant must now present 3 identical portions of each dish they make), and no one is truly safe from elimination.
  • Shocking Elimination:
    • Tracy from Season 2; despite being acknowledged by many of the other contestants as the most talented cook from that year and never having a single bad comment for any of her dishes, she got booted at 6th after she made some comparatively minor mistakes in a pressure test. Since the judges offered to send her to culinary school and employ her at any of their restaurants, this has led to suspicions that either the judges thought she was overqualified for the largely publicity-based role that the winner gets and wanted to help her break into the culinary world for real, or that the producers just didn't like her.
    • Season 3 had a steady parade of shocking exits:
      • Samantha, both in terms of the way it happened and the decision itself. The first two seasons gave the boot to both of the bottom two in the first elimination challenge, so it came as a shock to viewers and contestants alike that the judges picked out the bottom three dishes in the first Mystery Box challenge and announced the worst one would be eliminated. Additionally, many felt that Ryan's interrupting the judges' deliberations to give a speech about why he was better than Samantha was such a dirty move that he should have been ejected on the spot, even if his dish was marginally the better of the two (both of them were horribly misconceived from the get-go, but Samantha's was raw as well).
      • Dave M. in the same episode as Samantha; while he did produce an overcooked risotto that was full of grit from improperly washed morel mushrooms, Helene and Tali both produced dishes that in no way resembled risottos other than the fact that they contained rice, with Helene's containing raw rice and "scallop baskets" that Joe threw in the trash, and Tali including berries and walnuts in his, making it look and taste more like a dessert, in addition to topping it with an unappetizing tapioca seasoning that Joe likened to baby powder. Dave was still eliminated over both of them.
      • Mike had been in the middle throughout the whole competition, with that episode being his first time in the top three (for the first challenge) and the second time in the bottom (for the second challenge), having previously been in a bottom 4 but not having one of the worst dishes. Tanya's elimination in the same episode can be justified due to her having raw eggplant, and raw flatbread and leaving a whole raw garlic clove in her dish, but Mike's is shocking when compared to David, who made a disaster of a dish that judge Joe Bastianich threw in the trash can, and also to Tali, who made a huge mess of his entire station and served a messy pizza caked in raw flour that Gordon Ramsay spat out after trying to taste, and somehow managed to evade being put in the bottom three (this despite having three previous appearances in the bottom two).
      • After Scott had been in the bottom three twice in two consecutive episodes (with the last time he was in the bottom he got a warning that the next time he was in the bottom he would go home), he was finally tripped up by the dessert challenge in Episode 8 where his strawberry shortcake was ranked the worst out of the four such desserts made that evening and ultimately the worst dish of that evening. However, before the shortcake, there was Felix's tiramisu plate, which was considered poorly prepared and had strayed too far from its ideal composition, and one that Felix herself was embarrassed to have presented. Hers was ultimately ranked the worst tiramisu of the evening, a failure followed up by Becky's trifle dish, which despite its exceptional presentation was made up of too many flavors, all of them so strong that Joe was forced to spit it out. He called the dish inedible and accused Becky of showing off, with Gordon and Graham similarly put off by the overwhelming mixture. Somehow, Scott and Felix's dishes were ranked worse than Becky's, with Scott ultimately eliminated despite having at least stayed faithful to his dessert preparation.
      • Monti. She makes it all the way to the top 5, consistently putting up good dishes and surprising the judges with more skills than she let on, and had only been on two pressure tests, both from team challenges, and she was one of the best performers on both those pressure tests. Her very first time in the bottom for an individual challenge, and she is eliminated over Josh, who has been eliminated before, was brought back, and has since been in the bottom three for 3 times in a row since returning. He also won the advantage in the Mystery Box and squandered it, landing him in the bottom two, yet the judges still chose to keep him over the more consistent Monti.
      • Can also count for Mike and especially Stacey during the episode where several contestants were brought back for a chance to return to the competition. The two who moved on for a chance to return were Josh and Ryan who made, respectively, a chocolate mousse and pomegranate sauce with a quite unappealing presentation, and a simple pork chop dish. On the other hand, Mike made a chocolate flan that looked beautiful and was flavorful (also counting that making a good flan in one hour is a nigh impossible task) and Stacey also made great looking and tasty ravioli and even managed to make her own homemade pasta and ricotta cheese, something that astonished the judges, but despite these great dishes, both were passed over with a feeling this was more about the personalities they wanted to bring back on the show rather than solely based on the dishes being presented that round. Even season 2 contestant Ben Starr wrote in his blog that he felt Mike and Stacey got robbed.
    • US Season 5 has had a few:
      • Astrid; not because she was an especially strong cook, but more because she got the most screentime of any contestant in the first episode, showed herself to be feisty and unafraid of what the judges had to say, and had what the judges agreed was easily the best dish in that episode's second challenge, causing many fans to predict that she would be a key player in that season. In the second episode she completely tanked in the first Mystery Box challenge and was eliminated halfway through the episode, with Courtney subsequently taking up the Alpha Bitch role that Astrid initially seemed to occupy.
      • Kira; in the doughnut challenge, she was eliminated over a problem with her dough that made her donuts a bit tough, and for not having enough filling, but her donuts were still edible. By contrast, Courtney ran out of yeast after messing up her first dough and found herself begging for more, and though a contestant kindly gave her more, she proceeded to completely wreck her donuts by confusing her ingredients, using salt instead of sugar, a basic yet enormous mistake that turned her donuts into an inedible salt bomb, but the judges still chose to keep her.
      • Francis B.; despite being considered one of the early frontrunners by both the judges and contestants, he was eliminated in episode 7 after failing to produce an acceptable plate of spring rolls. His were overly greasy and inconsistent, but Cutter, who had already been in danger of elimination twice (including the first mystery box challenge which saw the aforementioned Astrid go home), served spring rolls that seemed to be just as bad, due to being soft, overly sweet, and having virtually no dipping sauce (which the judges stressed as being important). Since Courtney was spared over Kira in episode 4 due to having shown more potential, some felt that the same should have happened for Francis B.
      • Christine; many chefs felt that Ahran's Red Team should have won the challenge anyways, and then that Christine showed far more potential and leadership capabilities than Leslie; Christine was eliminated due to her truffles looking perfect but being too bitter, while Leslie — who had been in the pressure test four times — had truffles that looked disgusting but apparently tasted decent. If anything, Christine seems to have been the victim of extremely bad luck, given that out of the six people who took part in that pressure test, she was the only one who produced truffles that actually tasted bad (nearly everyone else produced truffles that looked mediocre-to-bad but tasted decent, while Cutter of all people nailed both the taste and appearance).
    • Season 6: Many fans saw Derrick's defeat as this despite having more low placing than Claudia. However he did have more challenge wins than her.
    • Season 7 had:
      • Andrea. She had the best dish of the night while Diamond had the worst. But because Andrea didn't get to the black table in time, she got eliminated even though Diamond gave Gordon Ramsey raw chicken which fans know it's a guarantee for elimination.
      • Terry. He consistently cooked extremely well and never made something the judges didn't like... until he was eliminated for his first and only mistake at Top 9 in place of Tanorria, who, while good, had several hiccups throughout the competition so far. While Terry's dish in that episode had wrong ingredient to complement salmon (thyme inside salmon cake), wrong cooking technique (he baked his salmon) and overall low-looking effort, Tannoria did arguably worse by having a bad presentation which Gordon described as "One of the worst plating I've ever seen" and underseasoned and uncooked salmon croquette filling.
      • Dan's elimination in Top 5. He was scolded by the judges for doing what Tannoria was trying to make initially with her own ingredient and not having more "Dan on a plate," something that viewers see as a weak excuse since the judges have been going on a revolving door regarding their stance on "You on a plate." Many said he deserved to stay than David who had a meltdown after receiving Dan's fairly dysfunctional basket and made a mediocre dish that night. Some said David was kept for rating and Shaun vs David finale the producers were aiming for.
    • Season 8 had all of listed examples involving Yachecia.
      • Newton. Yachecia made all the components of her Champagne Poached Oyster dish, but the pasta was overcooked and badly kneaded. Newton made both his oysters and pasta perfect, but he couldn't open his caviar jar. Many argue that he should have stayed over Yachecia for nailing the most important ingredients and the caviar was the only component they didn't have to make from scratch. In a later interview, Newton revealed that he was weakened by his previous stroke (weakness he tried to cover during the competition), which ended up affecting him in the last moments.
      • Daniel. While he did make several technical errors on his truffles, a lot of fans argued that he should have stayed over Jeff and Yachecia as he's proven to be more consistent than the two. While Jeff is still case of a very vocal Broken Base ignoring his truffles, it's added to the argument that Yachecia narrowly avoided elimination despite having an incomplete box with one of the truffles looking like someone bit it before putting it in the box (previously Brien was eliminated for having only four out of six cannolis, while Newton did better components but couldn't add the caviar in the last minute). Viewers thought that a chunk of chocolate in a truffle is more forgivable than incomplete amount of served truffles.
      • Gabriel. It's a similar case with Daniel above. His cannelloni had a lot of technical errors, but he had proven to be a bit more consistent than Yachecia who was on her second time in the bottom twice in a row, as Ramsay called her chicken and pork tortellini a terrible combination along with her tortellini being too thick.
    • Emily from Season 9 was one of the front runners for the first half of the season, and was expected to be a strong candidate for winning the competition (or at least final three). However, she lost the head to head pressure test to Shanika, a person who she felt had no experience in baking, and was allergic to chocolate (which was the main ingredient in a black forest cake). When it was announced that Emily was eliminated, everybody from the contestants and even the judges were shocked at the outcome.
    • From Season 10:
      • Jamie. He got eliminated and headed home after a dreadful underperforming and producing very badly executed, horrible sausage dish in the black-apron-themed sausage-making elimination test. This was his very first major screw-up. He was on a winning streak before this, constantly turning out awesome, knockout dishes with great performances.
      • Shari. After overcoming her hurdle of cooking only Indian food, she became a front-runner and a strong favorite for many fans. Unfortunately, she had a poor performance in the restaurant takeover team challenge that led to her elimination (alongside Subha).
      • Michael was the front runner early on in the competition as his perfect cut on the chicken prep challenge and his strong Tarte Tartin showed. But then comes the Tag Team Challenge where both he and Liz crash and burn, hard. They both got eliminated and went home in the end.
    • In Season 12, Stephen's early elimination was this to both the fans and fellow contestants. In Season 6, Stephen was one of the strongest chefs and made it all the way to the Top 3. But one bad dish in the first challenge sent him home, giving everyone a harsh lesson that the judges were going to be stricter with the rules and that, regardless of placement the first time around, anybody can go home.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In Season 11, the challenges have been reduced to one when previous seasons had at least two challenges, where the winner of the first rounds could use the advantages against the other contestants. Unlike other production changes done as a result of the season's Troubled Production, by reducing the challenges per episode, the competitive strategy is off, which some viewers have criticized for taking away the personal conflicts between the contestants. The same happens with the Pressure Tests being gone, as the eliminations from the team challenges would be done right after on the spot. Season 12: Back To Win noticeably brought back many of those missing elements.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The judges can be this sometimes, especially Joe.
    • Joe whenever he gets frustrated with the contestants' incompetence is meant to be him coming off as a Tough Love mentor to encourage them to take the competition more seriously, and he's also meant to be painted as a Jerkass Woobie who always has his reputation on the line when having to deal with poor contestants. The thing is, whether contestants succeed or fail, the intention of MasterChef is to decipher the strongest chef from the weaker chefs, and screw-ups that are bound to happen are all a part of the competition since losers will inevitably be picked out. In other words, what Joe gets frustrated over is basically the whole point of the competition. He instead just comes off as a petty Jerkass who rubs the contestants' failures in their faces while simply being cruel to them for the sake of being cruel.
      • Joe calls out Christian after he disagrees with the judge's comments on his food, and it's treated as an awesome moment. While the first time is understandable, he then yells at him again after the challenge for pretty much no reason (he looked down with disappointment), and threatens to physically throw him out. While Christian was being arrogant, the judges weren't giving constructive criticism, as it pretty much amounted to "your dish sucks". Joe comes off less as a tough mentor and more like a bully who is targeting Christian and humiliating him.
  • Vindicated by History: In recent years, Season 4 seems to be getting this treatment with some fans calling it one of the best seasons in the US version and saying that Luca is one of the best winners alongside season 3's Christine. This is also likely attributed to Seasons 9-11 being seen as too gimmicky and or boring.
  • The Woobie: The most obvious example is season 10's Micah, who was one of the youngest contestants (19 years old at the time of filming). His parents, unhappy with his dream of becoming a chef instead of going to university and pursuing a more "manly" business field, had informed him that if he auditioned for the show, he could expect to "find the locks changed" when he came home, and that they would be effectively disowning him. To rub salt in the wound, he didn't technically "win" his audition, but Gordon chose him as his second chance choice. Micah won a lot of fans during the season, as he worked his fingers to the bone, usually performing well and turning out excellent dishes, making it to the top seven. Unfortunately, the "family reunion" episode turned out to be his undoing, as for the first time in the show's history, no one came to see him - not even bothering to send in a video message (which even Krissi got). He was so upset by it that it threw him off his game and he ended up being eliminated that evening.
    • Season 5's Ahran Cho, who was 18 at the time of the season's filming. Fans had been irritated by her after she was suddenly given a "mean girl" edit - for example, commenting that Courtney reminded her of a "fake, mean bitch from high school" - but things finally came to a boiling point after episode five. Shortly prior to the episode's airing, Ahran wrote a post on her Facebook page telling viewers that although she and Leslie would be shown having a nasty fight during the episode, they had since patched things up and were good friends, and asked fans to understand that it was a one-off incident. Unfortunately, after the episode's airing she was hit with a massive wave of cyber-bullying, with people telling her she should "learn her place" (never mind that Leslie was the aggressor and had insulted her age and abilities, along with repeatedly mispronouncing her name as "Iran"), or simply straight out telling her she should commit suicide for being "disrespectful". She wound up briefly deleting her social media accounts due to the intense hatred (saying that it had been harder for her to deal with that than the actual competition), but has since reinstated some of them, although she's still receiving hate almost ten years later.note 

     International Versions 
  • Adaptation Displacement: Anyone remember the original original UK series? Billing itself as "the grand prix of amateur chefs", the show then was similar in principle to the remake where three chefs cooking in colour coded "kitchens" would serve three courses of their devising. Hosted by Lloyd Grossman (who lent it a very fancy upmarket feel), it was significantly more sedate than the current version to the point it could be called an adaptation In Name Only. The show pre-dated most Reality Show genre clichés, being firmly in The '90s, and was a lot more straightforward with chefs being judged entirely on food quality. The sad thing is it's near impossible to find episodes and it has led to a version of Sequel Displacement for those entirely unfamiliar with it, so much so that none of the examples for this show refer to it besides this one.
  • Adorkable:
    • Jorge, the Molecular Biology Doctor from the Spanish version S2. His courgette chaperonines will always be remembered.
    • Canada Season 3 has Mary, with her huge green glasses, bright red lipstick and Squee upon meeting astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield.
    • Indonesia Season 6 had Fifin, a cute and cheerful housewife whose naive comments always make the judges laugh.
    • Indonesia Season 8 had Olivia, whose smile never failed to bright anyone's day.
  • Archive Panic: While the Australian version is generally regarded as the best one of the show, most fans are put off by it simply because each season is 63 episodes long, aka filming every single day in the week of the show including the MasterClass segment as a full-length episode, generally agreed to be the most boring parts of the show. Thankfully, the Junior version seems to learn their lessons and is only about 20 episodes long for each seasons.
  • Badass Decay: Indra from Indonesia Season 9 wows the judges when he makes a very delicious and good-looking banana cake, the good-looking part being more significant than it is because the judges are very critical when it comes to dish presentation down to the plate's choice. However, he shows significant decline after that by failing to cook a sambal and, arguably the most embarrassing mistake he made in the kitchen, forgetting ingredients needed to make a pie crust. This coupled with his personality of redoing his mistakes until he gets them correctly makes his dishes look one-note. It comes to the point when other contestants initially thought he was a threat turned on him and said he's a one-trick pony.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Rita Bruning from MasterChef Brazil season 5. Although she was a fan favourite up until her elimination, her popularity declined after the finale aired, as fans were appalled by Rita's constant attempts to belittle finalist Maria Antônia, which are best demonstrated by her willingness to scream insults and passive-aggressive remarks in front of Maria's family. The fanbase is firmly split into a camp who still views Rita as the season's best contestant, and another who sees her as a spiteful womanchild who was unfairly benefitted by the edit.
    • Alden from MasterChef Indonesia season 8 is either seen as a very cute boy with innocent personality that never gives up in any pressure tests, or an Elimination Houdini who keeps surviving off better chefs and he was only saved because of his good looks. His relationship with Victor is even more base breaking as fans started to ship them together and they ended up making sources of viewership thanks to it, and given its very controversial nature of LGBT in Indonesia itself makes the fanbase divided over this is a complete understatement.
  • Elimination Houdini:
    • Of the ten episodes of the Chilean version, Annelore was up for elimination in six. Karla joked that she has a pact with the devil or Hitler.
    • Gleice from season 3 of MasterChef Brasil was very much a controversial competitor. While she was able to make several dishes that received praise from the judges, she also had made quite a few that were unforgivably bad. Among these were her macarons, which tasted terrible and had the consistency of chewed gum but were still able to save her from elimination, ensuring that fan-favorite Gabriella went home on that challenge, which left many viewers unhappy. When she was eventually eliminated, she came back the following episode, where she cooked, once again, one of the episode's worst dishes. She was eventually eliminated once again, placing 12th, which most viewers cheered over. Many claimed that she got preferential treatment in the show because of her race, which only lead to an even broken base in regards to Gleice.
    • Indonesian Version:
      • Season two have Zeze, a mediocre contestant who landed herself in pressure test for the total of 7 times. However, she somehow is saved from elimination from all because she cooks very well under pressure, making her opponent for Black Team Duel worried for a moment that he had a chance of going home despite being a generally better cook than her. She lost the duel anyway and got eliminated alongside the other Black Team members in a Black Team Battle Royale in top 5.
      • Daniar from Season 5 had to go through 4 pressure tests in a row on the first 4 episodes, two of which she got sent directly from the first challenge to pressure test because she screwed up badly in one and she couldn't complete her dish on another. In total, she had to go through 7 pressure tests including on her elimination episode, but she consistently produced good dishes in them to the point that other contestants and viewers call her "Queen of Pressure Test."
    • Canada Edition:
      • Kaila from Season 1 has similar traits with US Season 5's Leslie. She's a good individual  homecook but is fairly hard to cooperate with in team challenges which ended up making her go through every pressure tests available that season except for the one in Top 6 and narrowly escapes elimination in two of them.
      • Season 4's Thea. She had the misfortune of being in almost every Elimination Test and Pressure Test and was in the Bottom more times than any other chef. Still, she somehow survived over stronger chefs that made mistakes at the worst possible moment and she was able to make it to the finale.
      • Season 7's Andy. Despite being a runner-up from Season 5, Andy quickly proved to be one of the most inconsistent chefs in that season. His dishes were only above average from the rest and he was in the bottom four times (more than any other chef who competed). But somehow, he survived and managed to make a last-minute comeback in the penultimate episode with two strong performances that were good enough to make it to the finale with Christopher and Thea.
  • Fountain of Memes:
    • Érick Jacquin, a judge from the Brazilian version, tends to botch the pronunciation of several Portuguese words due to his heavy French accent. Fans love to reproduce his manner of speaking, with his unusual way of pronouncing the word "tempero" ("spice") as "tompero" being a well-known joke even among casual viewers.
    • Adi, one of the contestants in Indonesia season 8 has a very unique and refreshing personality. While his brand of confidence can border on arrogance (like saying that making congee in 60 minutes is "too long"), he has actual skills to back it up and when it gets a little too far the judges quickly shut him up in a quite interesting interaction. He gets nicknamed "Lord Adi" by his fans, something the official Masterchef Indonesia YouTube channel capitalizes by using the nickname on video titles whenever he is featured.
  • Franchise Original Sin: Many commenters on Masterchef Indonesia YouTube videos criticise later seasons for showing too much drama and existence of characters who can only talk smack without showing much cooking skill, often praising the first two seasons for the lack of it. Not many people realize that the earlier seasons already had these dramas beforehand. In fact, the Black Team members specifically consisted of people who had beef with at least one of the remaining contestants and by extensions, Black Team Duel was specifically made to capitalize on the drama (e.g. Fero, member of Black team in Season 1 who got her spot back from Henry who voted her out in a spike elimination). This was often forgotten because culinary competition like Masterchef in Indonesia was a very new concept it became a hit, the challenges were quite creative, and Bad Boy Juna was such an eyecandy.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: In Brazil's season 5, after Maria Antônia wins her first challenge, the camera focuses on Rita clapping enthusiastically. This moment is much harder to watch with the knowledge that their friendship went sour, as Rita repeatedly taunts Maria in the finale, until the latter threatens to punch her in the face.
  • Memetic Loser: Dalvio Barrichello from Brazil's season 5, due to his extremely poor performance in a blind taste test challenge. Jokes that Dalvio would taste salt and guess it's sugar swept most social platforms after the episode first aired.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Spain's Season 3 had "León come gamba" (Lion eats shrimp), which got its creator eliminated.
    • After the furor over "crispy" Rendang subsided, many Malaysians, Indonesians and Singaporeans turned the "Crispy" Rendang chicken into an internet sensation, sometimes accompanied with the #CrispyRendang hashtag. Even some official businesses like KFC, Tesco, and Malaysian Airlines made fun of it. And the icing on the cake? It became an Ascended Meme when the contestant in question released a cookbook titled, lo and behold, "My Rendang Isn't Crispy".
  • Memetic Psychopath: Caroline Martins from Brazil Season 4 is thought to be mentally unstable due to her erratic behaviour and paranoia, as she expresses how afraid she is of the judges and conspires that the show is rigged against her. When she is offered the chance to return to the competition, she is visibly irritated and treats the judges with disdain, leading fans to joke that, if offered a third chance, she would likely have poisoned her food.
  • Moe: Yuko is considered the cutest contestant of Brazil Season 4 due to her contagious smile and chipper attitude. Her radiant charisma is lampshaded during her elimination, as Mirian comments she never saw Yuko in a bad mood, and Jacquin says viewers will likely feel sad now that she is gone.
  • Overshadowed by Controversy: From MasterChef Italy:
    • The winner from Season 2, Tiziana Stefanelli, caused a serious uproar among viewers. Disregarding the fact that she was very disliked by the fanbase (more because of her personality, since she didn't lack culinary skills), she received universal flak in episode 11, when she was spotted putting oil on her dish over the time limitnote . The judges reprimanded her but took no further action, even though Joe Bastianich told he would have wanted her kicked out. It didn't help that she showed no remorse and even complained that the judges were exaggerating about it. Viewers were outraged that she was allowed to get away with this to later become winner of the season. Her book was boycotted and viewers threatened to cancel their Sky subscription. Because of this, later seasons have been much more cautious about the contestants' correctness and there have been eliminations motivated by similar infractions, even if done in good faith.
    • Season 4 was victim of this after the infotainment show Striscia la Notizia spoiled the season finale and claimed that the winner, Stefano Callegaro, had a past career as professional chef, which would have made him ineligible to be accepted as a contestant at all. This resulted in a massive lawsuit which saw even participation from eliminated contestants of that season. Years later the jury determined that Stefano's career prior to MasterChef didn't qualify him as professional chef, and his participation was legitimate, but his reputation isn't still entirely rebuilt.
    • The worst offender is without a doubt Season 7. It's infamous for its quarrelsome contestants who didn't get along to each other and the presence of judge Antonina Klugmann, who wasn't well received by spectators (to make it clear, she's considered worse than Bastianich). But the episode when contestants had to prepare a Scrigno di venere ("Venus' treasure chest"), a traditional Italian savory pie, deserves a special mention.

      Contestants had to work in pairs, and a part of the preparation consisted in cooling the dough in the fridge or freezernote  before it is stuffed and cooked. That's when all hell broke loose. In the midst of the competition, contestants denounced that doughs were missing, or those stored in the fridge were moved into the freezer, making too cold and unusable. The judges had to give contestants half a hour so they could redo their doughs, and since no contestant came forward to admit any mistake, the judges had check the recordings to find out what exactly happened. The blame was put on the pair of Manuela and Marianna, as the recordings showed Manuela putting the dough in the freezer, and Marianna taking the dough from the fridge. Despite their protests that the dough was their own, which they recognized because of a parsley leaf wrapped on it, they were disqualified from the competition... but then readmitted in the following episode. A better examination of the recordings revealed a long sequence of contestants who moved around or took the wrong doughs becaues their teammates didn't uniquely mark them. Marianna and Manuela had in fact correctly picked their own dough, and it was in the fridge because another contestant moved it there. Manuela only told Marianna to pick the dough with the parsely leaf, without specifying where it was stored, and that's why neither of them noticed anything suspicious.

      The judges' decision was to ignore the result of the previous Team Challenge, save from the Pressure Test those contestants who worked correctly during the preparation of the savory pie, and put through the Pressure Test those who took part in the chain of misplaced doughs. The thing is, even Marianna and Manuela were forced into it, even if they were the biggest victim of the whole thing and had simply no way to know they did anything wrong. To make it worse, Manuela didn't pass the test and was re-eliminated anyway.

      This did not sit well at all with the fanbase. Manuela in particular was a greatly beloved contestant thanks to her culinary skills and her sweet demeanor: she broke down in tears when she was (falsely) accused of stealing another contestant's dough. The fanbase was so outraged dispaly of utter incompetence and negligence both by the judges and the other contestants, this is universally considered the lowest point of Masterchef Italy ever.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Mirian Cobre from MasterChef Brazil's season 4 was the most hated contestant for most of the competition, due to being seen as bossy, uncooperative and arrogant. However, her reception improved later on, as she made a conscious effort to listen to her teammates' critiques, buried the hatchet with her archrival Fabrizio, led her team to victory in one episode, and overall came off as a more positive person. The fact she was constantly mistreated and insulted by other contestants also led some fans to feel sorry for her, ultimately causing her to end the season as a Base-Breaking Character. She would later return for the Revanche spin-off, where her early elimination was surprisingly met with disappointment from many fans.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Paula from the Chilean version is not very likable. And her obvious botox makes doesn't help. Annelore due to her Elimination Houdini status.
    • From MasterChef Brazil:
      • Season 1 gave us some contestants who were seem as arrogant and annoying, as they clearly feel anger when listening to the judges criticism and can't work in groups. Sandra and Marli are good examples. Also, there's Jamilly, who was The Scrappy both in and out universe.
      • Season 2 gave us Fernando and Aritana, who were NOT well received by general public. Both have problems taking criticism and on team challenges they were leaders both had similar problems managing the team and quickly losing their temper when someone did not follow or merely questioned any order they issued. In Aritana's case, people disliked her because of her father, a wealthy businessman. The chefs knew him and people started thinking she was "protected" from elimination because of this.
      • Season 3 gave us Fabio, Luriana and Bruna. Even if they were good contestants, they were excessively competitive and were rather antagonistic towards the others. Fabio was obsessed with perfection, Luriana was way too aggressive and Bruna is a great example of Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who had many annoying quirks, like naming her ingredients.
      • Season 4's Leonardo was intensely disliked for his constant, bitter sarcasm, which many viewers saw as disrespectful not only to the other contestants, but to the judges as well.
    • Canada's Season 3 had Sean, who single-handedly cost his team the victory in the very first team challenge. He constantly insisted on opening the smoker early to check on the ribs, despite team captain Matthew ordering him several times to not touch the smoker. Eventually Sean blatantly disobeyed Matthew's orders and opened the smoker, which resulted in the ribs not being as tender as the other team's ribs, costing Matthew's team the victory. Sean's mistake and his refusal to accept responsibility for it firmly landed him here for many a viewer.
    • Way, way too many to mention in Chile's 4th season. Almost every contestant became this, as the majority of them formed cliques who would behave like snobs and complete jerks to other competitors who weren't a part of their clique, and even more egregiously, during elimination challenges, members of cliques who were safe up in the balcony would outright tell their friends in the challenge exactly what to cook to save themselves and how to cook it, something that is forbidden in other countries' versions of the show, all of which had viewers enraged.
    • An interesting case of an auditionee of Indonesia's Season 6, Uci, who failed her audition to make into the competition after her subpar dish. But instead of handing out her apron like other failed auditionees, she constantly tries to beg for another chance to make it in. The judges have none of her excuses, and constantly tries to explain that she had failed the audition and need to get out of here. Eventually, Chef Arnold lost all of his patience for her, and straight up just cut and rip her apron off in front of her. It's safe to say that most of the viewers found that Uci's constant excuses are annoying and Arnold's rage at her is completely justified.
    • Many Indonesian fans believe that some of the contestants in Indonesia's Season 7 were being overly bitchynote  at each other during Confession Cam, continuously giving condescending comments when others make mistake or get negative comment from the judges. The worst scrappies goes to Vicky and the idol contestant Yuri due to their incompentence yet bitchy behavior towards others as well. And them being the constant Elimination Houdini doesn't help their status at all. Clava on the top 5 is also hated for her bitchiness despite her being quite compentent among the batch.
  • Seasonal Rot: Regarding MasterChef Brazil:
    • Season 5 is usually considered a low point for the franchise. The sudden plot twists and rule changes were seen as unfair to the contestants, leading to some controversial eliminations. None of the top chefs were portrayed in a positive manner, as the show's emphasis on internal spats caused most of them to come off as immature and unlikable. This was further exacerbated by the fact that both the judges and the viewers agreed that most of the dishes presented throughout the season were underwhelming by the show's standards. The last episode was met with apathy by the fanbase, as it culminated in a final cook-off between Hugo Merchan, whom many fans disliked for relying too much on other contestants' tips; and Maria Antônia, who was nicknamed the "villain of the season".
    • Season 7 is widely seen as the worst the show has to offer, due to a radical format change: Every episode introduces eight new contestants who compete for a smaller prize. This prevented viewers from properly getting to know the cooks and forging a connection with them. Also, since the participants weren't given the chance to improve based on the judges' feedback, most of them were only able to present a single mediocre dish before being sent home.
  • Shocking Elimination:
    • Marion in the second season of the Australian version. Even her fellow competitors thought this in-universe.
    • Vern and then Rishi in Australia Season 5. Vern's came halfway through the series despite being a clear favourite to win, and then Rishi bombs out after getting to Top 4 and being acknowledged as the biggest competition for everyone remaining.
    • Tammara and Kaila in the Canada version. They made it to the top 4 and were generally considered to be two of the strongest, if not the strongest competitors of the bunch, and were eliminated one after another for relatively minor mistakes on good dishes.
    • The double elimination of Brandon and Babalwa in the SA version, followed by Guy in the next episode.
    • In Brazil season 5:
      • Crisleine and Kaue were eliminated in episode 7. The shocking part came because the Brazilian viewers had a Like You Would Really Do It about the announcement of multiple eliminations being possible in a single challenge, believing to be just a stunt to raise the dramatic tension, and many were surprised to see the chefs going through with it. Episode 18 sparked a similar reaction, with the simultaneous eliminations of Evandro and Victor Hugo.
      • In the 17th episode, the winner of the first challenge, Thiago, is given the chance to save one of the other Top 3 from the elimination round. He chooses Eliane over Rita, despite the latter offering a stronger performance in the preceding test. In spite of being a major fan favourite and generally regarded as the season's best cook, Rita surprisingly botches her chocolate recipe and finishes in 8th place.
    • Nadia and Eugene's double elimination in Canada Season 5 is seen as this by some. Both of them presented decent albeit flawed dishes. Meanwhile, Beccy receives very negative comment on her dish yet was the one saved instead. Something to note is that Beccy has the advantage to pick her and everyone else's ingredients and yet she still messed up.
    • Andrew's elimination in Canada Season 7 is very polarizing among fans. For the back to win season, he was definitely one of the most improved contestants of the bunch, with him making dishes with poise and finesse that paid tribute to his culture and mother's cooking. Many fans predicted him to be within the top three, yet his slip ups for his semifinal dish sadly put him at fourth place.
    • Adi's elimination in Masterchef Indonesia Season 8 just before grand final was very shocking to viewers. Compared to the other two contestants, Adi had the most consistent performances, winning challenges left and right and defying the judges' expectation of him as the season's goofball. Many thought his "slightly salty" desert can be forgiven when his entire dish's concept blew the judges' mind away and is closer to modernizing Indonesian desert rather than Nadya's relatively ordinary concept of making a cake with Indonesian desert's flavor. Worse, Nadya's dish was criticized for not having enough flavor to remind judges of the Indonesian desert she was using as reference. The decision was so controversial many flooded MCI channel's video with dislikes and countless comments of how unfair the judging in that particular moment was to the point of accusing the show of preferential treatment.
    • Valerie of Masterchef Indonesia Season 9. She wins 5 challenges, is only in pressure test twice, and is one of the judges' favorite for her consistently good dishes. However, her performance in the second (and last) pressure test in top 7 drops significantly because she learns that her 2-year-old baby is sick at home it impacts her performance, something everyone notices after she presents her dish. As a result, her dish duplication is deemed the worst and she's sent home.
  • Tough Act to Follow: MasterChef Peru had a poor reception, considering that Chile, Argentina and Brazil had done well. The failure is mostly attributed to the poor production, the lack of focus on the contestants, and the stiff delivery from the host and judges.
  • Underdogs Never Lose: In Masterchef Canada's three-way team challenge, Red and Blue team are usually filled with early-spotted frontrunners while Green teams are either filled by underdogs/weak homecooks, strong homecooks who captained the losing team in the previous team challenges, or in a rare instance team members who can't get along with each other. Out of all four challenges available so far, Green team always wins.
  • Watch It for the Meme: Hilariously, an enormous portion of the fanbase of Masterchef Italy amounts to this. While already a well-known show, it got a surge in popularity in the late 2010s, when many one-liners and screencaps became popular as memes on social networks. As a result, clips from the official Masterchef Italy YouTube channel exploded in popularity, reaching several millions of views each. Then in 2019 the same channel began uploading periodically all episodes from past editions, earning even more views and attracting all the people who wanted to see the origin of the memes, or wanted to find more potential memetic material. For some time, most comment sections in Masterchef Italy were literal wall of texts of one-liners and memes, often altered and shoe-horned into the context of the episode in question. This trend eventually faded away, in no small part because people started to think the whole thing dragged itself for too longnote . While nowadays episodes no longer reach the million of views each, the show did benefit from the amount of people who came for the memes and stayed for the cuisine.

     Masterchef Junior 
  • Elimination Houdini:
    • Quani Fields from Season 6 scored the bottom of the top chefs more times than he won any challenges throughout the season, and his only victory is an individual challenge which automatically sent him to the finals.
    • A'Dan was in the bottom many times in Season 8 and didn't do well in team challenges, until he was finally eliminated in the Top 6.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: In the third episode of MasterChef Junior's third season, Gordon and Graham, wearing old-age makeup are revealed to be in a mystery box, but Joe isn't. They say he didn't make it, and soon comes Joe right behind them in a motorscooter. This becomes a bit less funny as Joe left the show at the end of the season.
  • The Scrappy:
    • In Brazil's Junior, Ivana is disliked due to a situation similar to what happened in season 2 (read above). Her case is actually even worst than Aritana's, as her father is the CEO of Google's Brazilian Branch and she's still in the game even after committing several mistakes, which were worse than other contestants who were eliminated. People also dislike her because she cries too much, but it's something to be expected from a nine-year-old.
  • Shocking Elimination:
    • US Master Chef Junior 2:
      • Sean is eliminated in the final six after the team he's in loses the challenge. Out of the whole team (himself, Samuel and Oona) he had been the most consistently strong young cook, and in that very same challenge, everything he cooked was properly done, whereas Samuel, who was saved over Sean, had served soggy fish.
      • The following episode sees the elimination of both Abby and Adaiah. On Abby's case, the salmon she cooked ended up rather overcooked, but taking everything into account, this had been her actual first negative review of anything she had cooked in the competition (her only other criticism before this being her shepherd's pie needing a bit more salt), whereas Adaiah's dish had everything perfectly prepared and was tasty, but it had a smell (not taste) of burnt garlic. Despite the fact that they had been the two most consistently strong young cooks in the final four, they were eliminated in favor of keeping Logan and Samuel, who had also made mistakes in this episode, with Logan serving raw vegetables and Samuel's salmon having some overcooked parts.
    • US Junior's season 4 had eight year old Kya's elimination in the Top 6. From the very beginning and despite being the youngest out of all the 24 contestants, Kya had proven herself as one of the strongest contestants, usually at the top of the pack, winning challenges and almost never making any mistakes while displaying skills and knowledge of food well beyond her years. In the Top 6 team challenge, Kya she made only one mistake, yet the team she was in lost mainly due to fellow contestant JJ becoming flustered and committing many mistakes (including spilling contents from a burning hot pan onto Gordon Ramsay's leg and foot). Ultimately Kya was eliminated alongside JJ, angering many fans, who felt that Kya deserved a chance to stay and make the next challenges be a Top 5 (ignoring the fact that Junior episodes eliminate more than one contestants to soften the blow for them) to go down to the Top 2 finale.
    • US Junior's season 6 had Ariana. She was the first girl to get her apron and she had been consistently a strong cook up until her elimination in egg yolk ravioli challenge along with Sammy and Henry. While her mistake of overly thick pasta was bad, Anthony arguably made worse mistake by being the only one who overcooked his egg yolk.
  • Underdogs Never Lose:
    • In Season 7, Episode 10 of US Masterchef Junior, the teams didn't start uneven, but the Blue Team lost most of the usefulness of one of its members midway through the challenge: 8-year-old Reid was badly burned on his right hand when he turned a rack of lamb the wrong way, causing the hot oil in the pan to splatter. Determinator that he was, Reid still managed to motivate his teammates and perform smaller tasks one-handed while cooling his injured hand in an ice bath, however, and the Blue Team eventually won the challenge.

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