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A Tent Full of English Short Crust: The Great British Baking Show

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
That opening was cringe but also so was every other opening so like...*shrug*

The one where they made fun of Prue for leaking the prior season’s winner was the most charming opening they’ve done since the change.

Tom owns a store that only sells model trains...??? Is that a viable business model in England, or anywhere?!

Maybe less so here in California but it was absolutely a thing in Nova Scotia.

Also I’d been hesitant about whether I wanted to give it a try after the last season but your endorsement is encouraging!
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Episode 1 Showstopper / Zeta Gundam spoilers:

“This cake’s soul is being pulled down… By Earth’s gravity!”

(Kamille Bidan smashes through the tent, impaling Noel)
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
Interesting start to the season!

I feel like there's always one or two people who are immediately struggling right out of the gate, but in this one there were at least four of them. Similarly, at the opposite end of the spectrum there's always at least one person who immediately stands out, but this time around it seems like there are five of them (Jürgen, Maggie, Freya, Crystelle, and Giuseppe). Gonna be some tough competition if they all keep up the level of quality they started with.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
I agree that this was way better than the dire mess of last season. Matt and Noel are much more subdued and the editors are focusing more time on the contestants than their C-list celebrity improv team. The technical was actually completable, which was a nice change from some of Prue’s past attempts. While the showstopper was a bit awkward it was at least about making a cake, rather than doing sculpture with baked goods.

I agree with lincolnic’s ranking of the contestants; it’ll be interesting to see if that same set stays on top through different subjects.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
Tom owns a store that only sells model trains...??? Is that a viable business model in England, or anywhere?!
yup. I've been to one in Raleigh, NC. For architecture school, building scale models, a good model train store can be a gold mine of random things at precise scale. They sell little I beams for making bridges that I just bought up their supply of for an exposed structure project. Scale figures and trees and all kinds of fun stuff. I miss having the time to make scale models.
 

SabreCat

Sabe, Inattentive Type
(he "Sabe" / she "Kali")
It's amusing how hard they're leaning into Giuseppe's engineering background. Like, any time someone does some arithmetic, or measures something carefully, they cut to G's reaction.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
They've had engineers on the show before and they always lean into that angle. It's a good angle, at least, because those bakers are always really technically skilled!
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
It's also quite hard to ignore when people walk into a baking show with actual blueprints which has happened in the past
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
So where can we get old episodes of this? Kylie and I have been looking all over for the back half of Season 1 and it's really confusing trying to locate a streaming service.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Paul was a grouchy ass as usual during bread week. There was one judging in particular - the seaweed milk bread - where Prue just flatly contradicted him. But overall they’re doing a much better job than last season. Matt and Noel are doing a better job of joking with the contestants instead of mocking them, there’s more focus on the contestants and less on the hosts, and there’s less mythologizing around Paul.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
I do agree that Jurgen/Giuseppe are the obvious front runners, but there's still a lot of time left and you never know. One of Freya/Crystelle/George (in that order, most to least likely) seems like a possible 3rd, but who knows. There's still loads of time. So far all the choices have seemed obvious, but that's preferable to last season's "throw darts at a board" approach to eliminations. But you never know, all it takes is one bad week, etc. etc.

Also I tried selling this show to a coworker who likes reality TV and the idea of a reality show where the contestants aren't constantly fighting was like...such a foreign concept to her. She just could NOT wrap her head around it.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Jurgen giving Paul shit for his “German week” challenges being bullshit and then just continuing to go off when Paul tried to hem and haw about it was incredible, as was Prue straight up telling Paul he was wrong about Jurgen’s showstopper . I’m basically always here for people putting Paul Hollywood in his place. 🗑

The elimination: yeah I absolutely saw that coming. Either of the other two would’ve been a better choice, and are showing all the signs of contestants who are going to be having breakdowns in the next two episodes as they go from overwhelmed to completely over their heads. But Paul had very clearly had enough of the “vegan baker” gimmick, so there you go.
 
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