I know that we watched season 2 of The Next Food Network Star. I know that I cared enough about it at the time to write this comic. But, I swear, sitting here, I have no memory whatsoever of that season or anything that happened in it.

I remember that the show lost me when the Food Network brought in three of their most successful cooking show hosts to act as team captains and had them constantly antagonize each other. Not only did that make me like the show less, it made me like those three hosts less. It was a show so bad it damaged four or five other shows. The show had an actual measurable blast radius.

Note from Missy: I had to look back through the Wiki for The Next Food Network Star to confirm that it’s where the world was given Guy Fieri for the first time. Turns out he was on season 2 (if memory serves, we voted for Reggie), and this comic must have been written about season 9, which aired in 2013 and had a contestant named Nikki and a guy who made pie.

Also, holy crap, it was season eight when they changed to the Alton/Giada/Bobby smack-talking team system. So we watched nine or ten seasons of a show, and all I can really remember of that 100+ hours of television is 3 celebrity chefs being total dicks to each other, and a vague memory of greatly disliking Guy Fieri before disliking Guy Fieri became cool.

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