Cooking competition shows can be stressful. Either the judges are catty, the time limit is too severe or the ingredients are too limiting. To some, this can be justified with a hand wave and saying “that’s the point.” Some programs dare to differ from “Chopped” or “Cutthroat Kitchen” or that one where Gordon Ramsay puts people in a three story building, if you remember that. “Great British Bake-Off” is considered wholesome television (with the exception of an occasional cultural microaggression), and “Nailed It!” embraces the fact that things tend to go wrong in these competitions. Even with these, cooking competitions tend to become predictable; so what would it look like to take these conventions and flip them on their head?
Enter Dropout’s newest show: “Gastronauts.”
Dropout, for those unfamiliar with the company, is a comedy-based media group operating out of the West Coast. Most of their shows revolve around a consistent cast of comedians and the occasional special guest — past guests have included Tony Hawk (famous skateboarder), Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad” and “The Mandalorian”), Wayne Brady (“Whose Line is it Anyways?” and his own reality show) and Rachel Bloom (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and an upcoming Netflix Special) — performing improv or along the lines of humor-focused game shows. So, how do you translate that into a cooking show? When I heard Dropout was producing a comedy-cooking show, I assumed they’d throw the actors into the metaphorical frying pan and force them to flex their culinary skills on camera. Instead, the show takes on an even better approach to the melding of the comedians and the cooks: the actors are the judges coming up with the challenges for professional chefs to tackle.
Rather than humor coming from perceived shortcomings or bad kitchen skills, the show’s entertainment value comes from how creative professionals can get when accommodating ridiculous requests from comedians given free rein to ask for anything they want. The pilot demonstrated a great range as to the types of requests one could ask for. The first host, Brennan Lee Mulligan (“Dimension 20”, “BIGGER!”), asked for a heavy meal, not in decadence, but rather pure weight. Following that challenge, Isabela Roland (HBO’s “Sex Lives of College Girls”) presented an ingredient challenge: make a meal centered around butter as a primary factor. Lastly, Oscar Montoya (“Minx” and “Bless the Harts”) takes the show’s premise of “fun with food” to heart and asks the chefs to create a snack he could play with as an action figure.
All three challenges, while ridiculous on some level, demonstrate the show’s subtle brilliance. While most would not expect great culinary insight from the funny space-themed competition show, the challenges presented in the show offer actual difficulty and ask the professionals to consider multiple elements to their cooking, as well as making it actually edible. It’s easy to build something fun out of ingredients, but making it taste good is a challenge in itself. Keeping the show sane and grounded is host Jordan Myrick, whose experience with past food challenges on their primary shows “Good Mythical Morning” and “Mythical Kitchen” makes them a perfectly suited host for a show asking for the most unserious menus to be taken seriously. Myrick serves as a go-between from the hosts to the chefs, and their gentle demeanor, coupled with an ability to form natural chemistry with any competitor or guest judge, creates a greatly enjoyable watch.
It would be really easy for “Gastronauts” to get kind of gross with the challenges, but one episode in, the show has proven that as ridiculous as the orders get from the judges, the chefs are ready to cook and deliver in the best (and most appetizing) way possible.
