Getting to know the chefs through confessionals
Plus, a comparison to past winners' edits and monitoring the representation of demographic groups in the edit
We’re three episodes into Season 23 of Top Chef, and I know that I at least have my favorite chefs! Part of what makes me like a chef is how they interact with other chefs - but part of it is also their narration in confessionals. As with last season, I wanted to do a deep dive into confessionals.
Skip to the end if you want methodological details (or read my post from last year). WARNING: There are spoilers through episode 3.
What I’m seeing:
So far, only four chefs are over-shown: Nana, Laurence, Jennifer, and Brittany. Let’s break it down:
I think Nana had a lot of confessionals because of how she struggled in each elimination challenge. A far-out theory is that she’s going to win Last Chance Kitchen, and they want to make sure we know her well since she’d be missing a lot of episodes of the main competition.
Jennifer had a lot in the first episode and the third, in my mind to a) set up the fact that she and Justin are a couple, and b) because of her shoulder injury affecting her cooking.
Brittany has had a lot of confessionals in the two episodes where she was in the bottom of the elimination challenge - that’s also true of Justin, but because we’re only three episodes into the season, the fact that Brittany has had one more confessional than he had is the tipping point into being over-shown.
And Laurence? While he’s now leading the Fantasy League in number of points, Rhoda had been in the lead for the previous two episodes. I’m not yet sure what has led him to have one of the highest numbers of confessionals. It could be that he’s a great narrator - or maybe that he’s going to be a main character this season.
Given how strong Rhoda and Anthony’s seasons have been thus far, I was surprised that they have so few confessionals. This is definitely something that I’ll be keeping my eye on.
How are S23 chefs being edited compared to past winners? And what about potential biases in the edit?
Comparison to winners
I don’t yet have confessional data for all seasons, but I can compare these chefs to the winners of nine past seasons.
