Did you know that the Food Network was so tired of all the press surrounding Bravo's Top Chef program that they made their own version to try and lure you away? It's true.  Granted, Chopped is nothing like Top Chef and airs on a completely different day/time (and even if it didn't, Top Chef reruns almost every day it seems), but no, it's totally the same things.  Those jealous bastards.

To me, the "It's just like Top Chef!" cries about Chopped seem a bit silly.  The Food Network has several cooking competition shows in rotation, but I suppose that Chopped stands alone-ish in being professional chefs in elimination challenges judged by food critics and other chefs.  Also, at the end of both shows the winners (and losers) presumably just go back to being chefs with some shiny new lines on their resumes and some fun cash and prizes.  They don't necessarily get TV shows or their own cookbook as part of the prize package.

The simplest way to describe Chopped is that it's "just like" the quickfire challenges in Top Chef, only without the inter-presonal drama, and everyone is nice to each other.   Oh, and 1/3 of the show isn't devoted to promoting this week's special sponsor or the new book/restaurant of the celebrity guest judge.  

The format of Chopped is very straight forward. Four contestants have three courses (appetizer, main dish, dessert) to impress the panel of three judges.  They have a fully stocked kitchen to work with, but each course must be prepared and plated in 30 minutes.  Four mystery ingredients are presented at the beginning of each round and must be part of the dish. The ingredients are usually pretty quirky and don't obviously go together and don't obviously match the course (watermelon as a main dish, canadian bacon in dessert?).  At the end of each round, one contestant's dish is "chopped" so that by dessert it's a head-to-head competition for the $10k grand prize.  

That's about all that Chopped has in common with Top Chef, and even that's not much.  The quickfire challenges on Top Chef are also usually about 30 minutes long, but they're different every week, and often revolve around a certain type of ingredient and a specific goal. But I digress.

On Chopped, there's a new batch of contestants every week.  I think this shorter format forces the Chopped chefs to be more inventive.  Very few of them play it safe, and if they do and make it through one round, they usually don't the next round.  If they get cut, they hold their heads high, but not with a "those judges don't know anything" attitude.  For the audience at home, the primary benefit of this weekly influx is that half the show isn't devoted to talking about how everyone is getting along in the loft they're living in. There's no rehashing what happened in the previous episode's eliminations, no calls home to the families left behind, and no lamenting about how much better they are than whoever won last week.  It's refreshing.  Between the judges' feedback and the chopping, the contestants stew in a nice room and chat about what they said and did.  You get enough of the contestants' personalities to root for or against anyone, but not much more.  

Speaking of stewing, I've had enough of the shots of the Top Chef stew room where contestants sit in front of shelves covered in product placement.  In Chopped, most of the brand labels in the kitchen are covered so that you don't see them.  It could be because they just don't have the sponsors, but I don't think so.  In conjunction with Chopped's debut last month, Ted Allen (Chopped's host), pointed out something on his blog that I didn't realize was bothering me. He said: "Best of all, there is no product placement, so you never see passionate lovers of good food being forced to use packaged convenience junk thanks to Kraft/Altria/Exxon’s sponsorship."   I hadn't really thought about it too much until then, but he made a very valid observation and it's either gotten worse this season on Top Chef or Ted pulled the blinders off my eyes and now it's all I can see.  For some reason, it's easier for me to gloss over the Tres Semme hair salon and BluFly accessory wall in Project Runway, than to ignore the sponsorships in Top Chef.  Mentioning that the half-prepped food will be transferred from the kitchen to the catering site in Glad storage products is one thing, but forcing every chef to make soup using store-bought broth?  Or having the host and several contestants work Diet Dr. Pepper's catch phrase into the show featuring sugar-free desserts? It turns my stomach these days and I'm frustrated on behalf of the chefs.  None of this exists in Chopped and hope that as the show gains popularity and sponsors start knocking on the door, they're politely turned away.

My favorite difference is the attitude of the judges. On Chopped, even when one competitor mistook salt for sugar in the pastry of his dessert, the judges were nice about it. On Top Chef the judges would have likely trapped the chef into admitting they hadn't tasted it or caught them in a bluff and then berated them for doing something foolish.  It's not just the big mistakes that are handled differently. With the exception of an occasional guest judge, the judges on Top Chef are heavy on the criticism and light on the constructive.  Not so on Chopped. Instead of Top Chef's "You did this wrong, you messed that up, what were you thinking, did you honestly think that was a good idea", on Chopped you hear "I would have liked this, I think I see what you were going for but..., maybe it needed...,  did you consider...".  When the losing dish is revealed, the judge that explains the reason for the elimination speaks positively about the dish before explaining why it was cut.  People may go home crying, but it's not because a chef told them it was a lost weapon of mass destruction.  It's like the difference between TIm Gunn's Guide to Style and almost every other "What's Wrong with Your Closet" show out there.  Everyone (save the occasional contestant) is polite and courteous on Chopped.  Even the "nice ones" on Top Chef have their rude and abrasive moments, and the show seems to pride itself on that cutthroat attitude.

Before you rush to defend either show, I'm aware I'm watching a reality program that is at the mercy of the editing.  I know that what the audience sees is controlled completely by how the scenes are edited, and it's entirely possibly that the Top Chef crews are just as helpful on the cutting room floor, but the fact is, Chopped presents itself as a supportive, positive show, and Top Chef can be downright mean.  As a result of Chopped's positive attitude, I learn more about what goes into making good food, including things I can try myself.  That's certainly not why i watch the shows (that's what Good Eats and ATC are for), but it's a great bonus, and something Top Chef could easily incorporate if it so chose.  

There is one thing that Top Chef does better than Chopped.  Because Chopped doesn't have the following or the week-to-week drama, I can wait until there's a lull in my DVR list before tuning in.  I usually watch Top Chef the day after it airs and spend my time between air-time and watch-time avoiding My Friend the Internet and all her spoilers.  It's not that I'm dying to find out what happens with Leah and Hosea as much as I'd rather not know how the eliminations went before watching since it colors my perception of the entire episode.  Besides, I want to participate in the "Oh no he di-in't!" flurry of activity on my Twitter feed, and I can't do that until i've watched the show.

I take my previous description back: Chopped is "just like" Top Chef, but with everything that belongs in America's Next Top Model boiled out until it's a nice, savory sauce.

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