MasterChef’s lessons for I’m a Celeb

THE ratings are a good indication the producers of I’m a Celeb got it very wrong this year. They should follow MasterChef’s blueprint for coming back from the brink, writes Colin Vickery.

SHOULD I give I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! another chance?

That is the question I have been pondering after what was clearly the worst-ever season of Ten’s reality show.

It is hard to comprehend just how wrong the producers got the casting of this year’s season.

I was mildly intrigued to see how tennis bad boy Bernard Tomic would fare but he only lasted three nights in the jungle.

A lot of other Aussies must have felt the same way because this year’s opening episode averaged a very healthy 1.274 million viewers across the five capital cities.

But it was all downhill after that. Singer Tiffany Darwish was plain boring — a surprise because the chart topper is a veteran of a number of US reality shows. You would think she’d have showed some spunk.

Former Hawthorn champion Josh Gibson spent most of the season admiring his own sixpack. Give that guy a mirror!

I expected actor Kerry Armstrong to be a standout but she shrunk into the background. She’s great at playing fictional characters such as Heather Jelly in Seachange — but not so good at being herself.

Eventual winner Fiona O’Loughlin was good value but her charm was undercut by the fact that she had appeared on so many other reality shows. I sort of knew what to expect.

Fiona O'Loughlin was a rare bright spot in this year’s cast of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here. (Pic: Channel 10)

Kath & Kim’s Peter Rowsthorn was pleasant but nothing more. Real Housewives of Melbourne’s Jackie Gillies and model Simone Holtznagel provided a glimmer of much-needed spark.

The truly offensive dud was boxer Anthony Mundine. Some of I’m A Celebrity’s best successes have been sporting bad boys who the audience comes to love — think Brendan Fevola and Barry Hall.

But Mundine had no redeeming qualities. His boorish behaviour quickly palled. The spats with rival Danny Green were eye-glazingly tedious.

When Ten backed that up with divisive former politician David Oldfield and wife Lisa it was apparent that they were desperately trying to court controversy.

It was a tactic that backfired spectacularly. One of the charms of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Here has been that it hasn’t devolved into the nasty stoushes that pepper My Kitchen Rules and Married at First Sight. This year it joined the pack — and stank as a result.

Ratings tumbled. This year’s season is down 18 per cent year-on-year in total viewers and the finale couldn’t get anywhere near cracking the 1 million-viewers mark.

I reckon I could see it on the faces of hosts Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris. They knew they were fronting a turkey. The strain showed in their not-so-funny-anymore interludes.

Ten has said that it will do a thorough review before making an official decision about the show’s future but Sportsbet has already released odds that it will be axed.

Right now I couldn’t care less if I ever see another episode of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! but I think there is a precedent for Ten being able to get the show back on track.

The fifth season of MasterChef Australia, which screened in 2013, was an absolute shocker. Ten was clearly spooked by the success of My Kitchen Rules and so decided to ramp up the controversy.

Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston and George Calombaris helped bring MasterChef back from the brink after the show made some dud decisions. (Pic: Dylan Coker)

The on-air promotional campaign spruiked a “girls versus boys” battle. The first episode — my vote for the single worst episode of any reality show ever — featured an egg challenge in the middle of an empty Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The 2013 finale rated just on one million viewers — less than a third of the 3.745 million that watched the first season Grand Final. The show was on the ropes.

Fortunately everyone associated with the show knew they had stuffed up. Judges Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan, in particular realised things had run off the rails.

The following year MasterChef Australia got back to being aspirational feel-good television. The snark disappeared and ratings grew.

Crucially, Preston, Calombaris and Mehigan demanded that they have a greater say about which contestants get picked for the show. Their reputations were at stake.

One way to turn I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! would be to give Brown and Morris some say in which celebrities are picked for the jungle.

At the moment they have none. Brown has told me he purposefully doesn’t want to know because he likes to be surprised but after this year he might want to rethink that position.

But Ten has to dump the trumped-up controversy and remember that it was heartwarming contestants such as Casey Donovan and Chrissie Swan who have provided some of the best moments of the past four seasons.

The one silver lining in this mess is that Ten has to bring in a completely new bunch of contestants every season — it inevitably changes the dynamic and is a fresh opportunity to reset every time.

I’ve done a bit of a survey of my colleagues and there is no shortage of names they would like to see eating bugs.

Channel 10 here are some suggestions: Schapelle Corby, Naomi Robson, Grant Hackett, Altiyan Childs, Antonia Kidman, Mark Holden, Ron Moss, Abigail, Rowena Wallace, Pamela Anderson, James Hird, Jack Vidgen, the Blakeney twins, Marcia Hines, Greg Fleet, Daryl Somers, Vanessa Amorosi, Natalie Imbruglia, Warwick Capper, Carlotta, Denise Drysdale, Nikki Webster, Greg Evans, Ian Smith, Linda Kozlowski, Terri Irwin, Greg Page.

I’ll give you another chance … but get it right this time!

Colin Vickery is a Herald Sun TV writer.

@Colvick