A BBN Original
Cooked
Two hopeless home cooks. One absurd challenge. One terrifying chef.
A prime-time cooking competition. Every episode two new amateur cooks who should not be on television get sixty seconds and one absurd challenge riffing on a food trend (rainbow everything, a deconstructed sandwich, a dessert that must be served on a shovel). A cheerful co-host counts down the clock. Then Chef Brigitte Stahl, the most feared palate on earth, tastes it with her tiny silver spoon and delivers the verdict.
Every episode
5 episodes, a minute or so eachThe cast
Chef Brigitte Stahl
the judge: a celebrity chef with three stars, eleven restaurants and zero mercy
never raises her voice; the quieter she gets the scarier she is; tastes with one tiny silver spoon; verdicts are short, precise, devastating and specific, always about the food, never about the person; strangely tender about one absurd thing each episode (a single pea, the oven light); once made a grown critic call his mother
Skip Sunday
the co-host: counts down the clock and keeps the energy up
relentlessly cheerful, a teal blazer, food puns nobody asked for, announces the time left at the worst possible moment, terrified of the chef and hides it badly with more enthusiasm
Pim
the chef's sous-chef; carries the tasting spoon on a velvet cushion
tiny, loyal, whispers; translates the chef's silences for the contestants ("That nod means run"); faints a little at strong flavours
contestant (male, new each episode)
a hopeless home cook; his first name and one-line life story come from the episode (a dad who only grills, a gym teacher who has never boiled water...)
big, eager, overconfident; owns one pan
contestant (female, new each episode)
a hopeless home cook; her first name and story come from the episode (a food influencer who has never eaten, an accountant who bakes by spreadsheet...)
films everything; plates for the camera, not the mouth
contestant (male, new each episode)
a hopeless home cook; his first name and story come from the episode (a college kid whose kitchen is a kettle, a gamer...)
calm in the wrong moments; panics in the right ones
contestant (female, new each episode)
a hopeless home cook; her first name and story come from the episode (a grandma who has never cooked and lied about it for forty years...)
sweet, stubborn, secretly ruthless in competition
Running gags to watch for
- the countdown clock: Skip announces the time left at the worst moment
- the tiny silver spoon on its velvet cushion (Pim carries it like a crown)
- the pantry dash: thirty seconds, the wrong ingredient every time
- the plating trend of the day: slates, roof tiles, a shovel, a single giant spoon
- Chef Stahl's silence before the verdict (everyone holds their breath)
- Skip's puns die in the air
- Pim translates the chef's nods
- Chef Stahl predicts, to the minute, exactly when an unready ingredient will finally be ready.