Camp Cutthroat will follow the same format, but instead of taking place in a shiny television studio kitchen, it will all take place in the wilderness.

The overall format of the original Cutthroat Kitchen, which premiered in 2013, is standard for a cooking competition: three different dishes, three rounds of cooking, and one elimination after each round. One chef paid $5,200 for the sole use of the kitchen knives; his competitors had to use scissors and a razor blade.

This never worked for reality TV
Early seasons in the Cutthroat universe mastered the delicate balancing act of comfort and strangeness, but with Camp Cutthroat, the series may have ditched that comfort entirely to make room for as much absurdity as possible. If cooking show competitions start to lean too far in one direction, they won't be cooking shows anymore-- they'll just be boot camps with a food theme. And here's something we often forget when we're in love: novelty has an even shorter shelf life than comfort.

The overall format of the original Cutthroat Kitchen, which premiered in 2013, is standard for a cooking competition: three different dishes, three rounds of cooking, and one elimination after each round. We passed peak saturation years ago, and then we kept going: Top Chef, Iron Chef, MasterChef, Hell's Kitchen, Food Network Challenge, Chopped. Came the spinoff tournaments: Top Chef Masters, MasterChef Jr., Iron Chef: America, Chopped Champions, and Food Network Star. And that idea has never worked for cooking shows, until Cutthroat Kitchen made it work. If cooking show competitions start to lean too far in one direction, they won't be cooking shows anymore-- they'll just be boot camps with a food theme.

If cooking shows are an approximation of love, then Cutthroat Kitchen's recent episodes have been like a couple trying to reignite that feeling of infatuation from the start of their relationship. The sabotaged chef had to take a shot of one of the sauces each time he wanted to taste his food. Another chef was forced to wear a scuba mask and prepare scallops with his head underwater.

The best challenges in the Cutthroat series aren't about physical activity but culinary expertise, when the chefs are required to use strange and unappetizing ingredients in their dishes. In a first season episode, one chef is forced to make dessert macaroni and cheese, so he adds white chocolate to his cheese sauce. In another episode, a chef is asked to make a turkey dinner without butter, so he decides to make an Asian fusion dish instead of something traditional.

cooking shows felt like some approximation of love
In 2005, there were two cooking challenge shows on the Food Network. We passed peak saturation years ago, and then we kept going: Top Chef, Iron Chef, MasterChef, Hell's Kitchen, Food Network Challenge, Chopped. Came the spinoff tournaments: Top Chef Masters, MasterChef Jr., Iron Chef: America, Chopped Champions, and Food Network Star.

But the creation of Camp Cutthroat seems to stem from the misguided impulse that if some extremity is good, a lot must be great. A teaser for the series suggests there will be obstacle courses, fire-building, and bounce houses. This could be just another attempt to recreate the kind of whimsical folly Cutthroat Kitchen has previously done so well, or it could be too inane to be anything other than slapstick. Cooking isn't by nature a suspenseful thing-- and what is television without suspense?-- so Food Network had to forcibly turn it into a multi-headed monster of haute cuisine and Survivor.
Reality TV has already tried to breathe new life into tired premises by making the boundaries as insane as possible, specifically, by throwing physical challenges into the mix. And that idea has never worked for cooking shows, until Cutthroat Kitchen made it work.

Cooking shows haven't always been like this. There can be comfort in a cooking competition. Watching cooking shows felt like some approximation of love while we ate Seamless orders delivered in plastic bags.