MasterChef
BBC ONE, 8.00PM
The slo-mo walk to camera. The solemn narration. The portentous soundtrack. And two judges-cumhosts whose double act is cheesier than a Eighties’ fondue party. It can only mean the return of MasterChef, and seven weeks dedicated to whittling 64 cooks down to one champion. While the ingredients remain unchanged, the recipe has been jazzed up with a few welcome alterations. The first eight hopefuls are faced with a Market Test – effectively a trolleydash for ingredients, from which the chefs are able to cook whatever they wish. The results range from an ambitious Thai dish with pork and lemongrass to the sort of chickenand-pasta concoction any student worth their salt could whip up. Round two sees the survivors cooking two courses for John Torode and Gregg Wallace, as well as three former finalists. Standout characters include an American interior designer prone to such airy declarations as “the world is my style”, and a travel agent with a taste for clichés (“10 to the dozen”, “cloud nine”). Fortunately, both are better with their whisks than they are with their words. But will either be among the trio who proceed to the quarter-finals?