Julie Goodwin returns to MasterChef and more highlights from Ten’s 2022 Upfronts

Julie Goodwin, the original Aussie MasterChef winner, is back in the competition – one of the 2022 scheduling highlights announced at Ten’s Upfronts today.

Season one MasterChef winner Julie Goodwin will return to the show that made her famous next year, competing in a special ‘Foodies Vs. Favourites’ season alongside other favourites like Alvin Quah, Sarah Todd and Michael Weldon.

The next season of MasterChef, announced at Ten’s 2022 Upfronts today, will see 12 returning MasterChef stars competing alongside a dozen newbies.

Could Julie Goodwin win MasterChef for a second time?

“We know people love to see their favourites – but also, they want to have their cake and eat it, and they want to see new people. I think that adds a new element to the show,” Beverley McGarvey, chief content officer and executive vice president at ViacomCBS Australia and New Zealand, told news.com.au.

Ms McGarvey said she was particularly excited to see Goodwin return to the show, 13 years after she beat Poh Ying Leow to become Australia’s first MasterChef in 2009.

So what are the other highlights announced for Ten’s 2022 schedule?

Returning favourites

Australian Survivor host Jonathan LaPaglia. Picture: Supplied/Ch10 .

Australian Survivor will return for a Blood vs. Water season – expect to see a handful of familiar faces, playing alongside family members.

“I think that dynamic is interesting – you’re very honest about who you are with people you know really well,” said Ms McGarvey.

I’m A Celeb will kick off the year on January 3, with reality TV favourites The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, The Masked Singer and The Amazing Race all on the line-up for 2022.

Ten poaches a Seven show

One surprise on the schedule: First Dates Australia, which drew a cult audience across four seasons on Channel 7, has been nabbed by Ten.

Ms McGarvey admitted she’d had her eye on the program for a while.

“Absolutely. It’s authentic Australian people doing what everybody does – everybody’s had first dates. It’s a very particular type of contestant that goes on the big reality shows – and that’s fantastic – but this is different to that. We’ve always been very interested in it.”

First Dates is coming to Ten.

It’s the latest in a string of shows to move between networks in recent years, among them The Voice – which moved from Nine to Seven – and Dancing With The Stars, which recently returned to Seven after two seasons at 10. Ms McGarvey said it was an interesting time for the local TV industry.

“It does keep us more on our toes – it used to be a thing that didn’t really happen here, because it was really hard for shows to move networks. But it is happening a bit more often, and you can change a show to suit your [network’s] style.”

Extreme new reality shows

An Australian version of the “infamous” reality show Hunted will air on Ten next year – a cat-and-mouse game that pits a team of hunters and hunted against each other in a city environment.

Ms McGarvey called the concept “really different. We have a team being hunted and a team of hunters – and they each have their own production team, who don’t overlap. Nobody’s getting tipped off from the crew on the other side. It’s an urban street game – I’m reluctant to call it this, but it’s a bit Survivor in the city. You need to have particular survival skills – you need to be a particular type of person to want to play it.”

Another high-concept offering, this one coming to Paramount Plus: The Bridge, which will see 12 contestants abandoned in the Tasmanian wilderness and tasked with building a 300m bridge in just 12 days.

Ten will also Air an Australian iteration of the popular UK comedy panel show Would I Lie To You?, while Paramount Plus will air an Aussie version of Couples Therapy, a fly-on-the-wall show set inside a professional relationship therapist’s office.

Two shows not returning

Two shows not on the 2022 line-up: Making It, Ten’s recent crafting contest that was shunted to Saturday nights after debuting to low ratings, and Hughesy We Have A Problem, which had been on air since 2018 but suffered low ratings during its 2021 fifth season.