Food Network Star Week Three

After this blog I'm resolved to give up complaining about the contestant quality this season and just focus on the show as it's given. But I'm still going to get in my last hurrah, so here it comes.

Lenny is the only one who would have lasted more than a few weeks on any of the previous seasons. I really expect to see him in the final challenge and I'll even admit to being relieved when he wasn't sent home tonight. No one else is really showing solidarity. Some have it in the cooking chops, but I don't think any of them could have outlasted Penny from Season 7. Some have decent enough personalities, but I really believe either the network is presuming Chad is going to take the Star Salvation and trump everyone or they're simply as over the whole Food Network Star notion as I think the American Idol viewership was at Season 10.

I think we've seen so many Food Network Star winners go on to do very little that we're kind of used to the idea that the show is just about one competitor winning a competition and not really about choosing an ongoing face for the channel.

So with suitably lowered expectations, I'm predicting Lenny, Nicole and Christopher as the final challenge contestants. Lenny's already proven to have the strength and creativity to go the whole season, and he demonstrated a real sense of humility tonight when he wound up at the bottom. Nicole hasn't really had a bad showing yet and tonight she managed to keep her head above the water with several things pulling her down. And Christopher seems to be finding his screen rhythm, which he's been able to back up with cooking skills.

So as for the rest of them, here is my uninformed guess at the order in which they're going to be eliminated.

Next week: Chris. He's got a charm, but he's chaotic in front of the camera and he's showing no signs of growing. That charm is drawing too much attention to his mistakes.

Week five: Loreal. She struck a chord with the coaches the first week and hasn't been able to live up to that first impression since.

Week six: Probably one of the two who isn't really making much of an impression either way, Reuben or Aryen. The sad thing about Aryen is she's had some real opportunities to win me over and hasn't taken them.

Week seven: Emma seems to have Giada's support so I think Sarah will go that week. She hasn't really convinced me that she's ever watched the show before, but with the overriding sense of blandness coming from so many contestants I think the judges will tolerate her up until the seventh week.

Week eight: Emma. She had a good night tonight, but I really think this was the peak of her, but the show has made a habit of keeping someone who's peaked around for about a month longer.

Week nine: Whichever of Reuben or Aryen who wasn't eliminated in week six will finally go now. Assuming he or she has continued not making an impression, it will have kept them in the competition by not giving the judges a reason to cut them over the contestants of previous weeks. But by week nine they will need to provide a reason to keep them in the competition, a reason they don't have.

So, that's what I'm guessing based on what I see. I don't think there are going to be any upsets, scandals, chair throwing or angry fan write-ins, just a two month meander to the inevitable. It's kind of the Jurassic Park III of Food Network Star.