The Julia Child Challenge

The contestants are genuinely talented knowledgeable cooks. The program is not manipulative with regards to editing - a reason I usually avoid watching these programs. The competition between the contestants is respectful. The guest judges are all very experienced, constructive in their feedback, most with areal to Julia. The program honours her legacy . The producers reveal layers of Julia's life, her wide ranging skills and life experience prior to becoming the charming and influential home chef she became. Julia was confident enough to include her bloopers and mistakes. I'm looking forward to future series, We only have series one in Australia.

What a refreshing change from the nasty, vulgar competition shows that seem to breed like, well, rats in a kitchen. This one is about the food and Julia Child's amazing legacy of making great cooking accessible to all. The contestants and the judges are respectful to each other and clearly find joy in what they do, as Julia did. The interspersed videos of Julia are so inspiring.

Boring cooking competition that uses Julia Child as an "inspiration," but it's just a rip-off of Child's name and reputation. But I'm sure the Julia Child Foundation made some money on this.

The most boring collection of cooks I've ever seen on a Food Network shows "compete" by making dishes that really have nothing to do with Julia Child. Example: Julia used wine in her fish stew. Make us a meal in which you use wine. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

There's more time spent on the contestants yapping about themselves than there is on cooking. Antonia Lofaso (host) and two guest judges ooze on about Julia Child and have a "family" dinner at a big table where everyone is forced to eat the food. Raw salmon? Raw chicken? NO THANKS!

I guessed in the first 5 minutes of episode 1 that Bill B. Would be the winner since he sells cookware. Stay tuned .... I won't.

Came into the show with the idea that Julia would be guiding the contestants on how to prepare certain dishes. Not necessarily the "worst cooks" level but slightly elevated family cooks. These people are not those type of people and they use Julia in tidbits to bring in some nostalgia for the viewer but the chefs themselves don't care.

The premise of the show should be: Provide some footage of Julia cooking and the chefs follow along with cutting a fish for the first time and then cooking it a certain way as shown by Julia and judged.

The end.

This is "Chopped" on a vintage looking set.

No thanks.

I like this show. It's not flashy or celebrating a holiday or season as some other FN show do, but it's more classy. It's neat to see the B&W Julia Child videos. The best part is at the end when the judges and contestants all sit around a big cozy table and try all the dishes the contestants made during the competition. What a great learning experience for all the competitors. They get to taste what others have done and discuss techniques, ingredients, etc. With each other and the judges.