WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the Next Level Chef Season 1 finale, “The Final Level,” which aired Wednesday, March 2, on Fox.
Next Level Chef is a clear departure from the usual reality cooking competition show. The premise for the the series centers around a platform that descends through three kitchen levels (causing many viewers to compare it to the film The Platform), which automatically creates an uneven playing field between the teams. As Season 1 approached its conclusion, audiences saw how far competitors would go to get ahead.
Like fellow reality TV icons Robert Irvine and Jon Taffer, Gordon Ramsay consistently creates high stakes that make his shows incredibly addicting. Next Level Chef continued that trend as Ramsay, Top Chef winner Richard Blais and Nyesha Arrington mentored a small group of chefs from around the world who were put under incredible pressure. The competition progressed from a team-oriented approach to individual judging… which completely shifted the tone of the show.
Next Level Chef began with five contestants selected by each mentor to join a team that competed together. Each contestant’s selection was based on their cooking ability after an initial challenge, spotlighting certain chefs who showed great promise and lighting a fire under those who weren’t picked right away. The contestants had a protective nature towards each other by the way they supported their teammates in the beginning, wanting to ensure their team’s success. And during elimination battles, the challengers’ teammates cheered them on and shouted directions to help them keep their spot on the team, showing a real sense of teamwork.
But in the later episodes as the field dwindled, the teams were disbanded and contestants had to approach each challenge individually. That caused the competitors to cut emotional ties with each other. Instead of working together, they were working against one another. Quickly, they went from jolly banter in the elevators — even hugging and encouraging one another — to dead silence between them and tense, closed-off body language.
Next Level Chef became cutthroat and aggressive fairly quickly after the individual challenges began. In the beginning, contestants might have helped grab extra items off the platform for their teammates, ensuring everyone had the ingredients needed to create a stunning dish. Later in the competition, they began blocking each other’s way or grabbing ingredients they knew another competitor might need, even if those particular items weren’t in their own plans.
Not all chefs became ruthless in the final episodes, though. An interesting difference emerged on the basement level, known as Next Level Chef‘s worst place to be. Contestants were assigned to the basement if their dishes weren’t considered to be “next level” in the tastings, and those assigned to the basement became the underdogs of the episode. They had compassion and support for one another that wasn’t present in the middle or top kitchen levels. But the otherwise sharp change in behavior proved that the Fox series wasn’t just a cooking competition; it was also an interesting study in human behavior that fans wouldn’t find in any food show on Netflix.
All episodes of Next Level Chef Season 1 are streaming on Hulu and YouTube.
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