This series is a lot like Tyler Florence himself. I started out liking him as a chef, but the more I saw his smug smile, the less I liked him. Like Tyler, The Great Food Truck Race has worn out it's welcome.
To start off, the series now betrays its original purpose. Originally, the contestants got 50k AND their food trucks, allowing them to start their new business with some cash. Now, I'm sure it was for budgetary reasons why they don't get the truck anymore, but now the contestants aren't necessarily even interested in starting their own food trucks, they just want the cash.
That's all well and good motivation to play, wanting money, it's a game show after all, but this "game show" mentality of the contestants means they don't even feature professional cooks anymore. Some of the contestants are very amateurish.
But all that would be fine, if it wasn't for how the game is now played. The stupid mini games the contestants play in this game used to be to teach them some vital food truck cooking skill, now it's just to make them look foolish and to waste time. Breaking keys out of a block of ice has nothing to do with cooking.
Oh, and to make it even more obvious this show has nothing to do with actual food competition now, they send the contestants to a ridiculous location like ALASKA IN THE WINTER. Food trucks simply do not operate in Alaska in the winter, why are these people being put thru this?
And regularly contestants are now given trucks that break down almost immediately, or catch on fire because they are dirty from the last time they were used and no one from production cleaned them. Seriously, why is this the contestants fault? The loser from episode 1 of season 13 literally lost because the truck was so dirty it caught fire. That dirt wasn't from this season, so that means the producers completely kneecapped those poor people who had obviously never run a food truck (or any other type of restaurant) before. And then Tyler smugly laughs and says "well that's why you always gotta clean heh heh". F you Tyler.
I think Tyler has become cynical enough to hate his own contestants and tortures them for his own amusement. That is the only explanation I have left as to why this series still exists.
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