THE BULLETIN • MAY 20 - 26, 2021
tastytv
TV • PAGE 21
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Bakers turn detective to recreate delicious
desserts on Fox’s ‘Crime Scene Kitchen’
Fans of baking and forensic investigation will likely
find a unique new competition series upcoming on
Fox suits their tastes.
In each episode of “Crime Scene Kitchen,”
premiering Wednesday, May 26, contestants are
tasked with entering a kitchen and then using a scant
few clues left behind – crumbs, trails of flour, contents
of a trash can, etc. – determine the delicious dessert
that had just been consumed. They then must set
about recreating the confection. The baker who not
only gets the dish right but also most impresses the
judges – chef Curtis Stone and cake artist Yolanda
Gampp – wins a $100,000 grand prize.
So not only is there baking know-how and technical
expertise at play here but also deductive reasoning, a
mix Joel McHale – the show’s host and a non-baker –
found fascinating.
“When you go in the kitchen, you have to check
everything,” he explains, “including like the bulletin
board, you can check the garbage, you have to check
the dishwasher. And the (contestants) are like, ‘Well,
I used milk.’ And (the judges are) like, ‘You shouldn’t
have. Why? Because the milk was not opened. Just
because it’s there doesn’t mean it was used.’ So there
are a couple of misdirects which drive people out of
their minds. It’s great, and the clues only get harder
and harder as the thing goes on. So sometimes
you wind up with close to everybody baking the
same thing and then other times just everything is
different.”
And it is in those other times when things get
interesting as contestants will create an absolutely
over-the-top spectacular dessert worthy of winning
any baking contest – but it’s only problem is it’s
wrong. The judges then must decide whether that
baker continues or goes home.
The contestants are a mix of professional and
home bakers, some of whom thrive under the bright
lights of televised competition while others grapple
with their nerves. It is the job of McHale, a stand-up
comic by trade, to keep things light and enable the
competitors to focus.
“I am a Golden Retriever dropping the tennis
ball in front of you so you’ll throw it,” he says. “So I
enjoy all that and I literally get my energy from it. ...
I enjoy getting to know the bakers; they all have very
interesting backgrounds. ... So I think Fox wanted
a non-baker or non-chef as their host just to keep
everything kind of – you know, the judges are the
experts and the host is the person making loud noises
into a microphone and the bakers are baking.”
Joel McHale