MasterChef South Africa, in its latest season, finds itself at last

We’ve only seen episode one. (Well, you haven’t, but some of us in the media have.) So there is room for disappointment if the promise of the first episode of this new season doesn’t follow through. But I’m not betting on disappointment – it’s looking too good for that.

Why? Because the production values are there, the stories are already in place – and those are the two biggest factors you need in any rendition of MasterChef, whether the original British one, the (almost) eternally amazing Australian iteration, or the often annoying American one. And a world of others in between.

Ours? So often, it’s been cringingly self-conscious. In past seasons, you could almost see them thinking: Are we any good? Can we get away with this? Are they going to laugh at us? There’ve been times when we did, then looked away, feeling bad.

I have never once heard a single person say they think MasterChef SA is great. And don’t think I smile when I write that. I don’t want to think that; I want it to be excellent and desirably watchable.

So I accepted an invitation to the launch last year of the previous season, which was aired on SABC3. They showed us most of the first episode, asking us not to reveal anything that could spoil it for viewers. Obviously, no decent-minded journalist is going to publish a string of spoilers.

It was on a wine farm in Durbanville. The episode began. And I was quietly horrified. There were so many close-ups you could see the judges thinking, blinking, and you hoped to heaven they wouldn’t fluff their lines. It looked rehearsed, uncertain of itself.

Awkward, stilted

Everything was tightly cropped, so that the effect was one of intrusion rather than being welcomed into the scene. It was awkward, stilted, as if everything could wobble, crash and shout “Eina!” at any second.

There was a bristle in the room on that occasion in 2025 when, at question time in the press conference part of the evening, I asked whether they might try to make it a bit more like MasterChef Australia.

They didn’t really think that would suit us, and I’m not saying they weren’t right. Certainly, we are not Australian (we have far more nuance), and our nation is far more multifaceted (we are fabulously multicultural).

But the pizzazz of MasterChef Australia? Who could reject that out of hand?

I don’t know if they decided to make it look a bit more like that empire of a cookery show. But it sure looks as if they did.

They’ve drawn the camera back to make for far more expansive scenes of the MasterChef kitchen, and they’ve honed in on personal stories in wonderful ways. These are two of the very simple things that make MasterChef Australia so very good, and now those two things are making our own version extremely watchable.

I’m going to be tuning in to the entire season, which begins on e.tv on Sunday 22 February at 6pm.

Oh, that’s the other thing that might have made a difference. Or will make at least one difference, with its broader reach.

But there’s something that even MasterChef Australia doesn’t have that our own iteration can boast of, deservingly: it is made, joyfully, in the vernacular. Or many vernaculars. As many, in fact, as there are contestants of differing nationalities.

There’s a lot of use of subtitles as a result, as the spoken languages vary from one to another and another and yet another, with the dialogue overlapping at times.

The interplay among the contestants is a joy to observe. They’ve gelled, undoubtedly, and even if your only language is English, you can keep up with everything because of the deft way it has been put together.

Interestingly, the largest source of contestants in the current (sixth) season is KwaZulu-Natal, with a slew of players from the northern provinces and not all that many from Cape Town. The Northern Cape gets a look-in.

The judges are so much more at ease as well. It’s clear they’ve rubbed shoulders, laughed together and perhaps shared some tense moments on and off camera as they took care of their charges. Because that is something MasterChef Australia has long done exceptionally well – over time, the judges care more and more for contestants who, to them, are individuals, and some undoubtedly will become friends.

Greater use of vernacular

Apparently e.tv pushed for the greater use of vernacular, and what they have been delivered is a season of MasterChef South Africa that they, and we, can be proud of. I certainly am.

At the press conference, I observed that this season was “infinitely better” than the last, and asked the judges and producers why they thought this might be.

Producer Paul Venter replied that “casting, casting, casting is everything”, and observed that it is the fourth season made by Home Brew Films, and that experience counts.

He felt that the use of vernacular made a “massive” difference, which the channel had pushed for. Various other points were made by others in the press conference, but no one really got the point I wanted to make: that this is better because it’s so much more expansive, it’s somehow more grown-up, has relaxed into itself, and yes, that use of vernacular makes it supremely “ours”.

I asked whether this was made on a bigger budget and was told that it was exactly the same as that last season aired on SABC3.

A round of applause for director Geoff Butler and his crew. MasterChef South Africa is infinitely better. Give it a go.

There will inevitably be wobbles. Very happily, that self-consciousness that was so embarrassing has gone.

The good ship MasterChef SA has been righted, and the sailing is looking good.

It has come of age. DM

MasterChef South Africa starts on Sunday 22 February at 6pm.