On Your Marks, Get Set, Baaaaake! A Thread for Great British Baking Show / Bake Off & all of its sundry delights

"alice has received an upsetting phone call" - I thought someone had died

Neither me or my partner had a favourite in the final this season! Usually there's at least a "least bad" candidate but we were both a bit mehhh about all three this year. I woulda repped Henry or Rosie if they'd made it.

Rosie's parents were both very loving so it's wrong to criticise that, but by God they were a little much.

Rosie? Do you mean Alice?

yes! i mean alice

"good management alice!" etc

It seemed like none of the contestants this year actually liked...baking. Every week it was 'ugh, I hate bread, I never bake it' or 'Ugh, pastry' etc etc etc. David really grew on me with his unflappable precision, but he seemed like kind of...hated food and eating, and it was just a project of time management and task execution for him? He did seem to have a passion for decoration and design, and I guess that showed through.

Having good management means you don't need to have baking fairies.

i started scolding the parents for bad management when they were having flight problems.

def had some eye-rolling for alice’s indulgent parents.

steff’s nerves def did a number on her...she was SUCH a mess.

honestly the final didnt quite feel finalsy bc it seemed like her & alice were off their game.

glad david won tho. he was a cool cucumber all the way through.

Guess who:

Not at all. “I’m not that clean and tidy. I don’t like showering. I never wear shoes. I’ve not washed my hair in more than 15 years. I didn’t go to a hairdresser until I was about 28. I think these things are healthy.

“I’m very hippy and outdoorsy. I love talking about my bowels and anything disgusting and medical.”

Rosie?

Hollywood

The Junior bake off that's on at the moment is reassuring TV. The kids are impressive, there's very little criticism of anything, It's nice to see Liam again and Harry Hill is amusing.

(The kids age from 10 to 15 which is a massive range. And such a display of bad teeth...)

Quotation comes from David!

wow. unexpected

wash yr hair u savage

Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/nov/06/bake-off-winner-david-atherton-i-enjoy-the-buns-innuendos

Choice pull (his parents are Evangelical):

Atherton came out seven years ago by writing to his parents. He chose this method, he says, to give them time to process the news. “The reaction that someone might have from it being sprung on them might not be the reaction they’d want to have if they’d considered it. You’ve been thinking about it for ages, but it’s new for them. I told my parents in a letter and said: ‘Speak to my twin brother before you speak to me because he wants to be able to answer certain questions first that might seem offensive to me.’ They took it very well.”

wow

lol i swear i am not a wow-bot

that’s kinda fascinating. impressively methodical

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

https://deadline.com/2020/03/matt-lucas-host-the-great-british-bake-off-1202879260/

Great, more Nardwaur or whatever his character was on Who.

otoh no more “sandi is short” joeks

I think he'll be ok. He's very jolly.

yeah i am good w this
will miss wee sandi though

on a rewatch kick this weekend

rewatching the Rahul season

There was news of a new series, specifically how they would have to all quarantine together for a while beforehand because prue is high risk and they can't get insurance otherwise.

(Most links for this news are the Mail or the Express so I won't link them)

This year's Sewing Bee is better than last year's Bake Off

I’ve never seen Sewing Bee!

Ahh you would love it I'm sure, and the current season is great

Unlike Bakeoff it took a few seasons and presenter changes to work itself out tho

Figuring out Sandy's nationality was like watching Inception.

Have you heard her Apollo 11 story?

I have not!

New season starts on Netflix US this Friday 9/25 😃

From Wikipedia

"In 1969, her father covered the landing of the first man on the moon from mission control. Toksvig was holding the hand of Neil Armstrong's secretary during the landing."

(She recounted this, and a bunch of other stuff you wouldn't think would happen to one person, on various QI episodes)

Hooray, actual likeable contestants this year instead of Innocent Smoothie labels in human form

Interesting/edgy that the woman who enjoys scandi metal chose to commit a hate crime with her Louis Theroux cake

the technical accident and the result of that round was good tv.

they must've been quarantined with the presenters and tv people for, what, 2 weeks beforehand. i wonder how much mingling there was. and if they got to go straight home afterwards or faced another fortnight in isolation.

Laura's resemblance to Theodora from I May Destroy You was unnerving.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/09/22/23/33477066-8761361-Digital_manager_Laura_31_looked_to_be_feeling_the_heat_in_the_ki-a-30_1600814097535.jpg
https://tvarchive2020.bradfordzone.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2020/05/Harriet-Webb.jpg

Anything else would just make it a holiday rather than a bubble, surely? Also bits of the 'journey'/'kids are my life' narrative ring a bit hollow if you leave them at home alone in the middle of a pandemic; I noticed this when they said one of the guys was "part-time carer, full time dad" to two daughters. Does that mean they/he were shielding? If so then leaving them is a big deal.

Interesting to see how this will change the production of the show - if we assume 10 episodes, filming is normally at the weekends so it's 2 1/2 months. Now, assuming back to back filming, it's done and dusted under 3 weeks.

This week I'm not sure anybody's baking stood out so this may be a personality-driven series. Also lol we are old, one of the entrants remembers John Whaite inspiring him "when I was just a kid".

Hats off to the one who said she never wanted to eat baking again, before the first cake was out of the oven.

It was filmed over six weeks: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/sep/20/pizza-by-paul-flowers-by-prue-how-great-british-bake-off-built-its-covid-bubble

Yeah, that Guardian article pretty much agrees with my assumptions and clears up discomfort over home Vs TV bubbling.

Really enjoyed the new episode

The cake busts challenge was v good tv!

poor Freddy Mercury & David Bowie
https://townsquare.media/site/295/files/2020/09/Mercury-Bowie-GBBO.jpg

Tom DeLonge cake was a) lol and b) terrifying
https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TD-and-cake-696x442.jpg

Marie Antoinette came out surprisingly awesome tho!

tbf, the mercury and delonge cakes are pretty recognizable!

It was all good tv and I felt so bad for the lady who bumped into the guy at the end of the technical challenge

We’ve really missed Noel’s voiceover giving the contestants’ bios, always the best part of any season

It was pointed out on Extra Slice last night that Marie Antoinette was actually David Cameron.

yeah that was rough

(xpost re the woman that bumped into the guy)

re Noel’s voiceovers the one where the woman was a pantomime producer who did yoga in her spare time & enjoyed listening to Scandi metal
made us fully crack up laughing

i made up my own contestant voiceover script feel free to play along

“VG is a chicken sexer from North Whistlington. She worships the Outer God Yog-Sothoth in her spare time & lives with her half sister in a haunted bakery where they enjoy listening to calliope music.”