History YMMV / MasterChef

* 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 [[ImNotHereToMakeFriends I'm In It For Myself]] attitude), or rather as a ScrappyMechanic 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 EliminationHoudini 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.

* CondemnedByHistory: Although he has always had a mix of fans and detractors from the beginning, Joe Bastinach's treatment of contenstants in the earlier seasons has largely been called out as unacceptable in the 2020's. Most online discussions call out his [[CommanderContrarian habit of not even tasting food before judging the chefs]], making deeply personal insults instead of criticizing the food, and overall acting like a smug {{Jerkass}} to people who can't retaliate or defend themselves. He has also been accused of elitism for his clear bias against "cheap" dishes (garlic bread, for example), and subtle racism for his frequent digs at Asian cuisine and referring to Europeon cooking as more "refined".

* CondemnedByHistory: Although he has always had a mix of fans and detractors from the beginning, Joe Bastinach's treatment of contenstants in the earlier seasons has largely been called out as unacceptable in the 2020's. Most online discussions call out his [[CommanderContrarian habit of not even tasting food before judging the chefs]], making deeply personal insults instead of criticizing the food, and overall acting like a smug {{Jerkass}} to people who can't retaliate or defend themselves. He has also been accused of elitism for his clear bias towards "cheap" dishes (garlic bread, for example), and subtle racism for his frequent digs at Asian cuisine and referring to Europeon cooking as more "refined".

* MemeticMutation: [=MasterChef=] Joe Bastianch's infamous "trash can dunk."

* RetroactiveRecognition: 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 Creator/FoodNetwork shows.

** 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-[[TheScrappy 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 [[NeverLiveItDown in earlier seasons]] ,his lack of knowledge in the kitchen, and his perceived disrespect to non-Western cuisines in some cases.

** 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 pair team challenges and pressure test rounds, leading to every contestant being OutOfFocus as well.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: From Season 11 onwards, 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. 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.
* VindicatedByHistory: 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 Christine. This is also likely attributed to Seasons 9-11 being seen as too gimmicky and or boring.

* EliminationHoudini: 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 is another example. He was in the bottom many times in Season 8, until he was finally eliminated in the Top 6.

** 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.
* FranchiseOriginalSin: Many commenters on Masterchef Indonesia YouTube videos criticise later seasons for showing too much drama and existence of [[SmugSnake 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 [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Bad Boy Juna was such an eyecandy]].

** 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 pouring oil on her dish over the time limit[[note]]not in the sense that time was up and she kept working a few seconds because of desperation or distraction: judges were already tasting other contestants' dishes, and she suddenly poured oil swiftly, hoping not to get caught[[/note]]. 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 said 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 Creator/{{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 seemingly revealed 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=]'' constituted no form of professional chef and his participation was legitimate, but his reputation isn't still entirely rebuilt.

** 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 [[ImNotHereToMakeFriends I'm In It For Myself]] attitude), or rather as a ScrappyMechanic 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 EliminationHoudini 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.

* SequelDifficultySpike: Due to this 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.

** Mentoring in US Season 9 is seen as one to most viewers, even accusing the show of ripping off [[Series/TheVoice 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's 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.

** Ryan easily from season 3, his massive narcisim combined with a crass FratBro sense of humor and often being TheBully to other contestants (namely Monti and David) for no good reason. While Tali was viewed as this as he was [[ThoseTwoGuys inseperable with Ryan early on]], he stopped being a {{Jerkass}} to others after Ryan left and was generally better recieved- even with the InsufferableGenius attitude despite a constiently mediocre performance.

** 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 OutOfFocus 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 ConflictBall in season 5) rather than on the cooking itself, although Season 4 is considered to at least have a likable winner in [[EnsembleDarkhorse Luca]].

** 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 is justified, other changes include doing away with pair team challenges and pressure test rounds, leading to every contestant being OutOfFocus as well.
* SequelDifficultySpike: 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.

** 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 over qualified 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.

*** 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 unappetising 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, 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 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's preparation.

*** 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 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 more stricter with the rules and that, regardless of placement on the first time around, anybody can go home.

** Joe whenever he gets frustrated with the contestants' incompetence is meant to be him coming off as a ToughLove mentor to encourage them to take the competition more seriously, and he's also meant to be painted as a JerkassWoobie 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 apart 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.

* TheWoobie: 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 [[BreakTheCutie 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'' [[BerserkButton 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 then the actual competition), but has since reinstated some of them, although she's ''still'' receiving hate almost '''ten years later'''.[[note]]Her season aired in 2014, but even in 2021 people write comments on articles about her saying things like she's "a spoiled brat who should grow up and learn to behave before someone beats her bitchy ass" and "she deserved worse than she got".[[/note]]

* Season 9's Mark, due to his arrogant and know-it-all attitude.

** Tommy from season 6, 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.

** Shari from Season 10. 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).

** 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 EliminationHoudini 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 shipped 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.

* FountainOfMemes: 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 shows up.

** 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.

** 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, [[NeverMyFault 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.
** Anne from Season 11

** 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 OutOfFocus 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 ConflictBall in season 5) rather than on the cooking itself.

* WatchItForTheMeme: 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 [[TheNewTens 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 [[DiscreditedMeme the whole thing dragged itself for too long]]. While nowadays episodes no longer reach the million of views each, the show did benefit from the amount of people who [[JustForFun/ComeForTheXStayForTheY came for the memes and stayed for the cuisine]].

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Many commenters on Masterchef Indonesia Youtube videos criticise later seasons for showing too much drama and existence of [[SmugSnake 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 [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Bad Boy Juna was such an eyecandy]].

** 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 shows up.

* WatchItForTheMeme: 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 [[TheNewTens 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 [[DiscreditedMeme the whole thing dragged itself for too long]]. While nowadays episodes no longer reach the million of views each, the show did benefit from the amount of people who [[JustForFun/ComeForTheXStayForTheY came for the memes and stayed for the cuisine]].

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