The second series of the Australian cookery game show MasterChef Australia premiered on 19 April 2010 on Network Ten, concluding on 25 July 2010 when Adam Liaw was named the winner. The series finale was predicted to be such a success with ratings that it forced a national election debate between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to a different time slot due to a fear of low ratings. The "Winner Announced" was watched by an average national audience of 5.29 million, peaking at 5.74 million. The consolidated 5 city metropolitan audience was 4.03 million (the second highest rating program since the current ratings system began in 2001) and the consolidated regional audience was 1.26 million.

Changes

The second series of MasterChef Australia brought some changes to the format of the show. Most notably, Sarah Wilson, host of Series 1, is not present in the second series, with producers opting instead to use the show's three judges as hosts. Furthermore, Series 2 began with the 'Top 50' component of the show, as opposed to the auditions phase. This allows for the audience to begin identifying and connect with contestants while allowing for more time to be spent in the actual competition phase of the show. Another change to the show is the reward for winning a Celebrity Chef Challenge. In Series 1, the winner would receive a free pass through to the final week of the competition. This was problematic in that it removed the contestant from the show altogether, meaning they didn't keep themselves in the pressured situations that the others had. Instead, in Series 2, a successful contestant will now receive an 'Immunity Pin', which they could use at any time during the competition to save themselves from elimination except in finals week. Out of all the Celebrity Chef Challenges, only Marion managed to win the immunity pin by defeating a Celebrity Chef (Adam also won an immunity pin, but not by defeating a Celebrity Chef). Also different in Series 2 is the elimination after a team challenge. In Series 1, all the contestants from the losing team had to vote off someone from the competition. This was problematic in that contestants might vote off the best contestants in hopes of improving their chances of winning the show. Instead, in Series 2, the elimination process has changed. A variety of different challenges have been used to determine which member of the losing team is eliminated: Furthermore, the selection of members from the losing team to face elimination has varied. In some weeks, the judges select the worst two performers, in other weeks the entire team must compete in the elimination challenge. In one week, the team members had to nominate three members themselves. From Week 4, Donna Hay replaced Gary Mehigan on the judging panel during the Celebrity Chef Challenges. This was done to allow Mehigan to act as a facilitator in the kitchen during the challenge (this was ex-host Sarah Wilson's role in Series 1). During the filming of Week 7, Mehigan injured his leg, and consequently was unable to film episodes. During the time in which he was injured, Matt Moran acted as a fill-in judge starting from Celebrity Chef Challenge 6 and continuing until Mehigan returned during Week 8.

Euro Week

Airing from 20 June, the remaining eight MasterChef contestants travelled to London for the first stop in "Euro Week". Later in the week they went to Paris, where they competed in what has been called the "ultimate super-challenge". Celebrity Cooks who have appeared include Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, Martin Blunos and Brett Graham. The Icelandic volcano eruption in 2010 caused filming to be delayed.

Contestants

The top 24 contestants were chosen throughout the first week of challenges amongst the top 50. The full group of 24 were revealed on Sunday, 25 April: Future appearances

Special guests

Many of the guest chefs returned for the announcement of the winner.

Elimination chart

Episodes and Ratings