Well it seemed quite clear from the outset that this year was a bit different. For a start all three "judges" were in this together as a business enterprise rather than just Raymond, and the normal two-episode format had been ditched in favour of a much smaller one episode per week series.
Were specific cooking tasks given, or was cooking just part of a bigger picture? The tasks were more like The Apprentice than Masterchef.
We had The Pitch, The Chain, Opening Night, Seasonal Ingredients, Afternoon Tea, Singles Night, Demo and the Banquet.
Yes cooking was involved but it wasn't all based on cooking. Raymond was trying to find the best theme and couple to push his idea forward, and that happened to be the winkers. That isn't to say Chris was a bad chef, he clearly wasn't and had Nathan bucked his ideas up a lot sooner they may have done it.