Channel 4
A roundtable discussion on where our favorite comfort watch went wrong, our love of Lizzie Acker, and the problem of Matt Lucas
For over a decade now, The Great British Bake Off (titled The Great British Baking Show in the U.S. for copyright reasons) has enchanted British and American audiences with its charming contestants and cozy appeal. Described by many as Xanax in the form of reality TV, the world of Bake Off stands out for its good sportsmanship and friendship among the bakers. There’s plenty of tension surrounding the challenges — do you use the balloon method for your sugar dome, or a mold? — but the stakes are low and there’s no cash prize, so almost everyone leaves the competition tent with graciousness and new friendships.
But even something as wholesome as Bake Off can’t be entirely without scandal. Beloved hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, along with widely respected judge Mary Berry, left the show after seven seasons over multiple disputes. The show switched U.K. networks from BBC to Channel 4. Giedroyc and Perkins were replaced by the equally adorable Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, while Prue Leith — all chunky necklaces and bright colors — came on as remaining judge Paul Hollywood’s new partner.
There was a brief moment where Bake Off seemed like it could recover from its Season 7 fracture and for a while, it looked like it had. Unfortunately, Toksvig was next to quit the show and Fielding was joined by comedian Matt Lucas, someone the audience really doesn’t seem to like. Bake Off has evolved into The Paul Hollywood Show, with increasingly ludicrous and impossible challenges all set up to play into Hollywood’s enormous ego. Still, we fans continue to turn in for new servings every season, even if they’re not — to borrow Prue’s most awful catchphrase — “worth the calories.”
Here we gather as Eater coworkers and Bake Off fans to discuss our personal relationships with the show, where it goes wrong, and what could be fixed. Plenty of spoilers for the current season below.
Madeleine Davies (culture editor): Welcome, colleagues, to The Great British Bake Off Eater Round Table (GBBOERT). Think of this Slack room as your own Big White Tent, fully stocked and ready for your opinions, be they overbaked, underproofed, or handshake-worthy. Do not hold back, but remember, one of you will be fired at the end of this.
Rebecca Flint Marx (senior editor): I’m just here to say that Lizzie was robbed.
Dayna Evans (Editor, Eater Philly): I shit you not — I cried.
MD: Before we get into the current episodes, I want to start a little farther back — what was it that first made you a Bake Off fan?
RFM: I first got hooked when I saw it on a visit to England. It was so pleasant and soothing. I love a show where the biggest stakes are whether your frosting sets in time.
Amy McCarthy (staff writer, Eater.com): Calm soothing British vibes after years of rotting my brain with American reality television, which is only evil.
DE: I don’t remember how I got into it originally but I can no longer recall a time before Bake Off.
James Hansen (associate editor, Eater London): I’m British so I’m legally obligated to watch it, otherwise Paul Hollywood appears in my dreams at night.
MD: James, that could be a Babadook sequel.
RFM: I’ve always thought of the show as a place of refuge. For me, not the contestants...
DE: My heart rate lowers the instant I see that chocolate cake with raspberries in the intro.
RFM: Yes. It’s like Xanax for me. My pinnacle of happiness is eating dessert while watching the show.
DE: Oh, yes, followed by making something they made on the show.
MD: For audiences in the U.S., based on how it was released on Netflix (as The Great British Baking Show) here, I feel like the Baked Alaska Incident was what first sucked American audiences in. It was such a low-stakes scandal.
JH: I’ve actually never been convinced by the Xanax quality of Bake Off (sorry, most of the world) and first started watching it because it struck a good balance between explaining why baking works and why it doesn’t, but not being quite as surgical about it as other British cooking shows (Masterchef, in particular). As the series have gone on, the hosts have changed, and the challenges have got both more ridiculous and shorter, I have adopted a sort of critical fondness toward it. I want it to be better, I know it can be better, but, still, Paul and Prue persist.
RFM: Yeah, I love it for that, too; I’ve actually learned a lot from the show. Paul Hollywood, for all of his issues, is very good at explaining bread, for instance.
MD: So this might be a bit obvious, but when do you think the show started to go wrong?
RFM: Matt [Lucas].
AM: Things started to go off the rails when the challenges became more about making absurd sculptures and not just highly technical baking
JH: Going wrong stage one: removing Mel and Sue; removing educational history tour.
RFM: I’m going to say something very unpopular, which was that the way Mel would bellow “baaaake” really annoyed me.
JH: Going wrong stage two: Amy’s point on absurd sculptures/turning challenges into vehicles for memes. Going wrong stage three: Matt Lucas.
AM: Also, the time constraints. That focaccia this season was so embarrassing.
RFM: The time constraints are sadistic. The ice cream sandwiches this past episode being a case in point.
JH: Sorry, adding to “going wrong, stage two”: introduction of the Hollywood handshake in Season 3.
MD: A lot of people point to Mel, Sue, and Mary leaving as the beginning of the end. James, this is the first I’ve heard someone mourn the history segments!
DE: I’m with James regarding the history segments.
JH: At least, if you historicize a biscuit that was made once for an 11th-century banquet in an obscure corner of Normandy, at-home bakers can learn something or have a better shot at doing it and it makes the show feel less about, “So, there’s this whole history of baking... but what really matters is that these two British people Paul and Prue like it y/n.”
DE: The added context made the show feel more like we’re all here to learn not BAKERS, YOU MUST KNOW LAROUSSE GASTRONOMIQUE BY MEMORY.
MD: And it helps foreign audiences, too. I know much more about eel pie now that Mel took us to that old eel shop on the Thames.
Okay, so the big turnover and network change is where it started to lose its luster. But I’ll say that I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which new hosts Noel and Sandi took over!
RFM: I love both of them.
DE: I love them both. Noel... a king.
MD: Or a French Duke, as he was known on The Mighty Boosh.
AM: Noel really grew on me. I found him almost Matt levels of obnoxious at first, but now he’s very charming. And he has really great hair.
JH: Noel brought some edge to the tent of vanilla.
RFM: He’s like a cuddly vampire.
MD: He seems so genuinely kind to everyone. I love when he banters with the bakers. And he always loves the biggest weirdos.
AM: It seems like he really makes friends with everyone. That’s another reason I love the show — the cast always loves each other so much and it is very sweet.
DE: Loved the Lizzie moment this week where she was like, “It smells like jaguar wee” about chocolate and Noel goes, “You’re weirder than me.”
RFM: Or that goth woman a couple of seasons back who was obsessed with Halloween.
JH: Oh yeah, Helena.
DE: She had a cameo on What We Do in the Shadows!
MD: I loved spooky Helena and her bats. All the jokes about her and Noel running away together.
RFM: Lizzie could be their child.
MD: I think it was around that time that challenges started to get a little more ridiculous, but the hosts’ charm was distracting enough, and new judge Prue still seemed kind of fun with her chunky jewelry and statement glasses.
JH: A truly weirdo decision, given that literally the best thing about Bake Off is the organic chaos. The baked Alaska. Freezer drama. Things on the floor. Is the oven on? No. Is that sugar? It’s salt.
RFM: There is already inherently enough drama in baking.
JH: It’s also meant that’s it’s lost one of the most consistent and good tropes. Up until I thiiiiink the 2020 season, when they’re going round the bakers and everyone is doing something and they’re like, “Yeah cool, that sounds like it will work” and they get to another person and they’re like, “This really obviously foolhardy thing that we already know will go 100 percent wrong.”
MD: As anyone who’s done even a small bit of baking can attest, working for hours on something only for it to burn or fall apart or go wrong in all the ways it can go wrong is absolutely heartbreaking. No need to throw in a Cake Boss-esque twist.
RFM: Even if it goes right, you must accept that it will be almost immediately demolished.
AM: Ugh, Paul takes such delight in cutting into those pretty desserts!
DE: He’s a sadist.
JH: I do think there is a small distinction between...