OK, I admit, I was all excited for this show to start, but am I the only one to find it rather...lackluster? Maybe not. TWOP posted similar misgivings in their last recap, Grub Street hasn't said much, and Amuse Biatch, well, they haven't posted anything!

Here are the problems, at least from my point of view:

1. Since the chefs obviously can't leave their restaurants for weeks at a time, the producers came up with this tournament style competition. Which is all well and fine, but you don't get to really know the chefs.

2. TWOP and I are in perfect agreement on this one: they're spending waaaay too much time building up "suspense" over the points, and not nearly enough time on showing the cooking. These are MASTER chefs -- I want to see them cook, and explain what they're doing as they're doing it!

3. The critics, they are too nice. Are they afraid of being banned from a restaurant if they pan a dish on national TV or something? Even their debates when the chefs are out of the room are a tepid snooze-fest. I never thought I'd say this, but I almost miss Toby Young.

All of this adds up to me being not that into this show, though I'm still watching anyway.

I didn't comment on last week's episode last week, but here's what stood out to me:

1. Wylie has a real potty mouth!

2. I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing Betty and Ilan again. Ick.

3. Suzanne Tracht -- was she on Ambien or something? She made some comment in the beginning about being a "little volcano," but my guess is she's really a long-dormant one. No voice raising, no emotion, and she barely cracked a smile when she won. Eeesh.

OK, this week's take:

1. Yay, the judge who called Dave a pepper monkey in season 1 is competing...why didn't they mention the pepper monkey thing?

2. He may have been arrogant as all get-out, but Ludo Lefebvre was also kind of cute in all his Frenchness.

3. Oh ick, the offal challenge is back. Laughed at Cindy's comment about her group, "Girls Who Eat Guts," though.

4. Rick Bayless was funny -- "what does a Frenchman know about making Mexican food?" Hee.

And really, that's it. I tuned out during the critics' chatter, and only briefly glanced up at the Hugely! Suspenseful! Scoring!

Later I caught The Colbert Report, and Colbert compared SC governor Mark Sanford to a blank piece of paper, and thought "What an apt metaphor for Top Chef: Masters too..."

But I will watch next week. Why? Three words: Neil. Patrick. Harris.