It’s Super Bowl Sunday, which means it’s typically tough sledding for anything on television that’s not related to the NFL. That being said, one huge beneficiary of the overwhelming popularity of The Big Game is whatever comes on after The Super Bowl, and this year, the lucky winner is Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Chef. It’ll have its Season 2 premiere immediately afterwards, and it sounds like it’ll feature some big changes from what we saw last time around.
The basic concept behind Next Level Chef sounds like it will remain unchanged, which is good considering it’s a neat little format. In short, teams of chefs compete against each other in various challenges, but each group is assigned a different level kitchen. The top kitchen contains premium ingredients and all the nicest appliances that you might find in a world class restaurant set-up. The middle kitchen contains mid-level ingredients and equipment you might find at a local restaurant. The bottom kitchen contains lesser options and the sort of set-up your average person might be dealing with at home.
It sounds like all of that is staying, but Gordon Ramsay’s creative partner Lisa Edwards spoke to Variety about the debut, and she teased some other changes that could prove very important. It sounds like where the chefs end up cooking will be more related to their own performance, and there will also be the concept of an immunity pin worked in. Here’s a portion of her quote…
We’ve leaned into the sets. If you’re in the elimination, you start in the basement. If you made the best dish, you start on the top. So we’re working the set in the format a bit more. We’ve also introduced something called an immunity pin, which, in the very first episode, Gordon and Richard pick one chef from their teams each that they see the most potential in and they get an immunity pin, which they can use if they find themselves in an elimination. That means they either can either use the pin and save themselves and nominate someone else to go through or not. That puts a target on people’s backs and ramps the competition up even further.
I’ll wait to see how these individual changes play out to have a fuller opinion on whether they’re appropriate, but I’m definitely supportive of the show making some tweaks. There were some judging issues I got a little frustrated with in Season 1, and it was clear the show was still finding its way. That’s normal for the debut season of any reality competition show, and it was especially true for this one that was filmed during the pandemic in a tent in Las Vegas.
Of course, the one issue with airing immediately after The Super Bowl is it’s notoriously hard to predict when exactly the end of the game might be. Even normal NFL games have some variance to their runtimes. Throw in a halftime show led by Rihanna with all kinds of moving pieces (here’s a guide on how to watch) , more high profile commercials, a post game trophy presentation and more, and there’s no telling when Next Level Chef might start. So, I’d suggest adding some time at the end of that DVR recording.
The Super Bowl starts at 6:30 ET on FOX and is scheduled to run until 10 ET. Next Level Chef is earmarked for 10:30 ET, but we’ll have to wait and see how accurate that is.
