I watched them on Rachel Ray before seeing the show on Sunday and I thought Lisa was head and shoulders above them all. She actually interacted with her helper and came off as being very warm in my opinion.

Episode 8 (7/20) - "The Ultimate Buffet!" (guest judge Guy Fieri)
 

Down to three... who will be in next week's finalé?

Sooooo... they just didn't want to although he or she deserved it.

Which leads me to believe that the FN has plans for said person.

Obviously don't look if you want to be surprised, but Wikipedia already lists the winner for tonight. The Food Network's website supposedly revealed it a couple of days ago by mistake.

I ain't lookin'.

Ok, I've been saying Aaron since the first week, but Adam's pilot needs to be turned into a show. I don't care if it's food network or pbs or mtv, it needs to happen tomorrow.

Congrats Mr. McCargo. :banana: I've liked him since Day 1!

... and I agree with Keith6601, I really enjoyed Adam's show, and I would watch it. I liked the internet theme.

I'm a bit confused. Suzie and Bob (I think that's VP guy with the fucked up mouth when he talks), said they wanted the person they could pick up and do a show tomorrow with. That's clearly either Lisa or Adam, not Aaron. Not to say that Aaron shouldn't have won, because he's been the most consistent, but it's funny to make a comment like that, then pick the guy who's clearly the most green in front of the camera.

I agree, Adam should have his own cooking show. I'd watch it.

I agree with this 100%. I personally liked Aaron the best, but I felt that Lisa or Adam would be a better "plug and play" option.

IMO, Aaron had the best personality out of all the three and also has a charisma that Lisa and Adam lacked. Plus I think the Food Network is looking to expand their demographic to more urban viewers but I'm only basing that on the ten thousand commercials for the Neelys I see everyday.

I definitely agree with te urban rationale. As I said last week (and Tony did help flesh out) they just didn't want to send Aaron home. This week my girlfriend and I both felt Aaron weakest amongst the three--My girlfriend was an Adam hater most of the show, despite my liking his quirkiness, yet after his pilot ran, she had him picked as the winner. I wasn't the biggest Lisa fan, but her pilot had me in her court.

So, on a scale of Party Line to Gourmet Next Door, how quickly will Aaron fade into obscurity?

I have to agree with some of the above posters. I had liked Aaron early on in the show, but Adam really grew on me and thought for sure his concept of a show was the best. Unfortunately for him, that new Aida show seems sort of similar, so apparently FN liked the concept, just with a different host.

I wasn't a fan of Lisa the entire show, but she warmed up to me a little near the end, and her Pilot was very good. However, she wasn't exactly in need of a show (not that should have an impact on their decision).

Aaron had the weakest of the three pilots, but once he got over his insecurities and was himself on camera, he came off very well. He just needs a little polish, but I can see him succeeding where previous winners faded away.

All in all I think they had three winners at the end and really couldn't have gone wrong with any of them. I feel the same way about HGTV's Design Star right now, but that's a different thread. ;)

The Food Network also wants someone they can mold into the kind of host they want to see. I can't see Lisa selling out and dumbing down her approach like they'd probably want. I could just see that producer's eyes glazing over when Lisa was presenting her well thought out show ideas to him. She's probably better suited for the Fine Living Network.

Adam definitely had the charisma, but not the knowledge. And how many times have we seen the beer can chicken done?

Aaron...well, I'm sure they'll shape him into something that'll fit right in with Paula Deen and the ultra-obnoxious Neelys.

...and Guy Fierri, "cooking for real" Sunny, Bobby Flay's throwdown, blah, blah, blah. Fine Living Network for me. The original Iron Chef, Molto Mario, Wolfgang Puck, etc. The only show that I actually make a point of watching on the FN is Barefoot Contessa.

As everyone has already mentioned, it was blatantly obvious that they wanted Aaron all along. This was the first season that they had a 3 person finale because Aaron would have had to be the one that got eliminated in Vegas. If Adam's food had bombed with the Vegas chefs, Flay would had gladly dumped him and it would have been a 2 person finale. Also, this was the first season not to have the winner determined by a viewer vote. They probably feared that Aaron wouldn't have gotten the votes. Oh well, I was really hoping that the Romulan would have won even though I knew she was a longshot.

now thats funny!!!

Aaron was the weakest in front of the camera but I would rather watch and cook his dishes than Lisa or Adam's..
Lisa is such a pretentious yuppie ..

I'm not a regular watcher of this show, but I caught a few minutes last night. I saw the end of Aaron's pilot and either the audience was high or they sweetened their reaction with editing. He made a mildly amusing comment like "If you don't think that looks good, well, then you better get your eye's checked." and the audience went crazy.

The fix was so obviously in. Fortunately these "reality" shows don't have to play by the same rules as real game shows so the producers are free to tamper at will.

Thing is, this isn't just a pure competition like Top Chef. They want to pick the one who will make the best show, so at times it did seem like the fix was in, but I don't see anything wrong with that. They have a very vested interest in who wins.

As for the 3 pilots, I thought they were all good. However, Aaron has a warmth that the other 2 lack. I disagree that he is the least ready to make a TV show now, I think just the opposite. He needs lots of training to be consistently comfortable in front of the camera, sure, but when edited his personality shines through right now in ways that Adam and Lisa don't.

That having been said, I thought Adam's show was the coolest idea. Lisa's show seemed like the same show that Amy did from last year, with a different name.

His show page is up:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_am

Beginning August 3, 2008, Big Daddy's House airs Sundays at 1:30pm/12:30c on Food Network.

So doing 50 takes and getting enough editors to cut that four minute segment into good pieces is "ready for the camera?" :lol:

Nobody is saying he can't do it, but relying heavily on editing to get him looking comfortable is not the same as having someone like Adam or Lisa who clearly are comfortable in front of the camera.

honestly, i think they edited the finale to make it appear as though the shoot for Aaron's pilot was the most challenging so that it would be more dramatic when he won. i'm willing to wager that they did pretty much the same number of takes and spent the same amount of shooting time for all three contestants.

in Vegas it only took Aaron a few attempts to hit his promos spot on.

Something we may never know, but it's clear from all the other challenges shown where he's had to do camera work, he's basically sucked.

I have to agree with you and I think they took that into consideration when they chose him. Sure he'll take time to train and get comfortable, but that can be fixed.

If you watch the video "On Set With Big Daddy", you'll see clips of Aaron making his show. And if you pay attention to the part where he is pouring a spice into his hand, you can see it shaking. :D

... but personality, that's hard to develop.

If you watch Suzie's comments after the show, she admits that with choosing Aaron, he just might bring in a new demographic to the network. Which I found to be quite interesting (and that echos what I said a few weeks ago).

Anyways, I took a few screencaps of the video of Aaron's show. He has a cool townhouse style kitchen and an herb garden as part of the set. Here are the pics:

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/6681/bdhvn5.png

i don't think that's completely true. you were in before my edit, but in Vegas, his promos were the best of the three and it appeared to only take him a few attempts before he relaxed and found himself in each one.