Television's best cooking show travels to Sin City for its sixth season, and Bravo's ubiquitous promos have been promising us for weeks that this is to be the "biggest season ever" with "the most talented group of chefs yet" vying for the title of Top Chef. It's difficult to judge from the first episode whether this will prove true, with too many contestants with too little screen time, all still attempting to find their footing in the competition. One thing is abundantly clear, however: Top Chef's producers have obviously taken the Vegas setting to heart, layering on heaping helpings of gambling metaphors and Vegas-y twists, even trotting out Stardust showgirls (for all of 30 seconds, after which they were presumably ordered to pack their headdresses and go) to introduce this week's mise en place Quickfire challenge. One can only hope that over the course of the season, the setting won't end up overshadowing what this show is really about: the food.

Jumping right into the relay Quickfire, the 17 contestants (I'm sorry, but you can't pay me enough to actually refer to them as "cheftestants") were divided into four teams of four, while Robin, who drew the lucky gold chip, was allowed to sit out and, in addition, was granted immunity in the Elimination challenge. The rest of the teams divided up the tasks: shucking 15 clams, peeling 30 prawns, cleaning five lobsters, and butchering an enormous slab of beef ribs. As is often the case this early in the season, it was difficult to keep track of who was doing what exactly, but two of the teams clearly dominated the challenge. Poor, unfortunate Preeti was saddled with the shucking of clams, something she had absolutely no experience with, and never even finished her leg of the relay. Meanwhile, tattooed Jennifer Z. managed to slice her finger open with her shucking knife.

Winners of the Quickfire were then able to cook against each other for a $15,000 prize. Robin was offered the option of trading in her immunity for a shot at the prize money, but she declined (which I thought showed a lack of aggressive drive that hints Robin may not be long for this competition). Against a strong group of dishes, Eric Ripert protege Jennifer C. took the prize with a classic clam ceviche.

The Elimination challenge involved creating a dish based on a personal vice, and a shocking, though not entirely surprising, number of contestants immediately named alcohol abuse as their vice of choice. Chefs competed against their Quickfire teams, with the best and worst from each group sent to Judges Table. In the first group, the deeply obnoxious Mike (clearly in position to be this season's villain, with his sexist comments and overall cockiness) earned high marks for his olive oil poached halibut with eggplant puree, while Hector placed at the bottom with a smoked rib-eye dish that he inexplicably chose to deep fry instead of cooking in a wood-fire grill, despite the fact that the dish was meant to invoke his love of smoking cigars.

In the next group, Jennifer C. became an early front-runner when her poached halibut in whiskey, bourbon, and scotch sauce earned praise, but Jesse's dry (though still delicious looking) braised chicken with potatoes and fried egg brought her in danger of elimination. While the judges enjoyed Haitian chef Ron's jerk sea bass, I shared their confusion over what his vice was, exactly, after he shared his memory of people being thrown overboard on his boat ride to America, and Jennifer Z. faced harsh criticism for her chile relleno stuffed with seitan - eventually became the season's first castoff. Rochester native Laurine turned in an intriguing sounding dish of bacon donuts with chocolate and beer sauce, which earned mixed reviews due to the donuts' textural resemblance to footballs (helpfully demonstrated by guest judge Wolfgang Puck when he chucked one across the room). Top prize was awarded to the immensely likable MIT dropout Kevin for his Arctic char with salsa verde of turnips.

As long as the Vegas theatrics are kept to a minimum, season six of Top Chef seems to hold a lot of potential, with several strong personalities in the group (including an ascot adorned Frenchman and a pair of hyper-competitive brothers) and an overall high level of talent. And, we were spared the appearance of card-carrying asshat Toby Young in this episode, which increases my personal enjoyment tenfold. What say you, dear readers? Is the season off to a strong start? And more importantly, what did poor Ash do to deserve not meriting a single comment on his dish from any of the judges?