"The look on my wife's face was just absolute, sheer disgust."

Annabel Crabb’s Kitchen Cabinet has been the subject of some pretty heated debate ever since it began airing in 2012, often drawing criticism over perceptions it’s too ‘soft’ on the politicians it showcases.

That criticism has intensified over the last few weeks, mainly due to the Season Five debut episode that revolved around Treasurer Scott Morrison. Critics writing for New Matilda and Fairfax papers have pointed to Morrison’s pretty execrable record as Immigration Minister in the Abbott government, as well as his stonewalling of journalists who ask inconvenient questions, to lambast Kitchen Cabinet for seemingly giving him a free run.

Crabb, for her part, has defended that episode in particular and Kitchen Cabinet in general, arguing that it gives a unique and otherwise neglected insight into the personal lives and motivations of some of Australia’s most powerful people, who are far more likely to reveal things about themselves on a program like KC than in an interview on 7.30. Writers like Sabine Wolff have weighed in too, writing that “not everything has to be a battle to the death in which politicians are ritually executed on the Lateline desk”.

Getting relatively overlooked in the whole debate is the substance of Kitchen Cabinet itself. Last night’s episode focused on Victorian Motoring Enthusiasts Party Senator Ricky Muir, and it presented a pretty decent standalone argument for the effectiveness of the softly-softly approach Kitchen Cabinet advocates.

Speaking to Crabb over a meal at his dinner table, Muir opened up with an anecdote on how he came to support marriage equality, and it wasn’t your typical political greyspeak. Instead, Muir candidly and honestly recounted a conversation he once had with his wife where he declared he would disown his son for being gay, before realising the need to critique his unthinking prejudice.

It’s a fascinating and genuinely insightful look into one of Australia’s most influential people, and I’m not just saying that because my mum texted me last night demanding that I watch it (hello Mum, we both know you’re reading this). Muir’s stance on marriage equality aside, it gives you a real sense of how this guy comes to decisions that affect the lives of millions of people.

Of course, one example doesn’t magically untangle the knottiness of the argument as it stands. Muir has a history of wearing his heart on his sleeve, at least as far as politicians go, and not every politician is going to offer genuine insights into their worldview over dinner the way he did — at least not intentionally. Soft-form political coverage can be fraught, misleading, or prone to exploitation by the people it seeks to explore. But people who tuned in to Kitchen Cabinet last night got a good deal for their brain cells.