Baek Jong-won, the CEO of The Born Korea, has made a quiet return to television with the premiere of MBC’s documentary reality program, Chef in Antarctica, on November 17. The show’s modest national viewership rating of 1.8% at launch reflects a subdued beginning, following earlier controversies involving Baek and his company.

Baek had announced in May of the preceding year that he would step back from broadcasting to focus on corporate management. Consequently, Chef in Antarctica, which concluded filming in November of the previous year, is not considered a full-fledged broadcast comeback but rather a pre-taped project. Nevertheless, the program's reception will likely influence the timing and nature of any future return to television for the celebrity chef.

Jointly produced by MBC and LG Uplus's 'Studio X+U,' the series features Baek, alongside actors Im Soo-hyang and Chae Jong-hyeop, and singer Suho, as 'Honorary Crew Members' traveling to an Antarctic science base. Their mission is to prepare warm meals for the researchers. This ambitious project follows in the footsteps of MBC's 2011 documentary, Tears of the Antarctic, maintaining the network's connection with the Korea Polar Research Institute to tell the story of the continent today.

The first episode, which focused on the crew's journey to the base, revealed the production team's deliberate effort to steer the narrative away from a 'Baek Jong-won-centric cooking show.' Instead, the episode emphasized environmental documentary elements, featuring repeated shots of the melting Antarctic and its wildlife, along with extensive interviews about climate change. When asked about his reason for going, Baek stated it was driven by a sense of duty: "Antarctica is the beginning of climate change. Hearing that the researchers working there are enduring hardships, I wondered what I could do for them. It was a sense of mission."

PD Hwang Soon-kyu acknowledged in an interview distributed by MBC that the company had "deeply considered" the program's direction following the 'cast member issue'—referring to the controversies that caused the show, originally slated for April, to be postponed. Hwang stressed that the program is not a "cooking show where the cast member is the protagonist," but a "climate and environment project exploring the meaning of human beings, nature, and coexistence in an extreme environment."

The production minimized typical entertainment elements. Unlike many foreign location cooking shows that highlight cast chemistry and quirky personalities, Chef in Antarctica felt restrained. While Baek, as a chef, is structurally central to the show, the editing gave extended interview segments to Im Soo-hyang, Suho, and Chae Jong-hyeop to prevent the narrative from focusing too heavily on Baek alone.

The show's debut was preceded by a public spat where the National Association of Franchisees demanded MBC postpone the premiere and delete Baek's scenes, which The Born Korea countered as being the "claims of a specific brand’s franchisees that are an extreme minority." Criticism also arose online when it was revealed that the crew did not bring their own food ingredients from South Korea, opting to film the reality of the base's resources, leading to concerns that the broadcasting team might have been a "nuisance" to the scientists.

However, the general audience reaction post-premiere has been largely indifferent. Factors contributing to the low buzz include the limited 'viral' elements in the editing, and the fact that comment sections for YouTube clips released by MBC were disabled. Accessibility issues further hampered reach: due to co-production agreements with LG Uplus, 're-watch' availability is restricted, with episodes first premiering on U+tv and U+Mobiletv every Monday midnight, and no immediate re-watch service offered on iMBC. VOD will only be available on the OTT platform Wavve three weeks after the initial broadcast.

The industry is watching closely, as Chef in Antarctica is the first broadcast to proceed with Baek's involvement since the controversies. Another pre-taped show, Black and White Chef: Culinary Class War Season 2, which completed filming without changing the judge, will be released on Netflix on December 16. Meanwhile, the fate and air date of tvN’s Business Genius Baeksajang Season 3, filmed overseas in April, remain unknown. The consensus is that Episode 2 of Chef in Antarctica, where actual cooking scenes are expected to commence, will serve as the true test of public sentiment.

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