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

guy who got his cakes bumped seems a little socially awkward, he seemed to be having a hard time acting anything other than really pissed
been on both sides of that problem of course

plus the stress of being on-camera for the whole thing cant be easy to deal with

oh yeah, there's no way i would ever go near a reality show.
hollywood's "you signed up for it mate" about the closest i've gotten to empathizing with him

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

i know he'd just had his cakes knocked over but that guy (who is in the tent days after his wife has given birth, iirc) was really ungracious about it and had a bad energy imo

Oh yeah to be clear I think that guy is probably Qanon-curious at a minimum

ah the internet, where you can go from "guy-who-wasn't-happy-about-having-his-cakes-carelessly-knocked-to-the-ground" to "yeah, he's probably a 9-11 truther" in twenty minutes

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


We do this too!

cmon i dont think he deserves that level of flaming. humiliation & disappointment are pretty hard feelings to mask in the moment, even for a Britisher.

As they also pointed out on extra slice, she was flailing long before he got anywhere near her. But she was obvious gutted and moreso when she won.

There was no joke about what the judges were about to get up to either.

No judge chat before announcing the winner either

cmon i dont think he deserves that level of flaming. humiliation & disappointment are pretty hard feelings to mask in the moment, even for a Britisher.

trust me i know pass/agg arsehole British blokes, this guy is almost definitely oe of them [prepares to have assumptions destroyed next week when he turns out to be good egg, I honestly don't think there's ever been a bake-off contestant i didn't like]

I feel like I watched a different show from the rest of you! I barely noticed the man whose cakes fell; he was like the intact paste of other chewed-up humans.

Meanwhile, the lady who knocked down the cakes seemed (to me) rude throughout the episode and then shed crocodile tears to make the drama about herself, followed by visible embarassment. I thought she was very selfish! Suffer in impotent shame like the rest or us, geez.

What are examples of her rudeness?

Rudeness maybe the wrong word – maybe 'ungracious' is a better one. "I feel sorry for whoever has to clean up after me," (smirk); "I don't like Battenburgs" ; "I don't want to eat cake again" ; "half of the Batttenburg is in the oven, it's like toast, it's horrible." eyeroll, sneer, turning her back on the bland guy right in the middle of him saying, "it's okay, accidents happen."

"I don't like Battenburgs" ; "I don't want to eat cake again" ; "half of the Batttenburg is in the oven, it's like toast, it's horrible."

i don't think ungracious is really the word for this but maybe the typical brit sense of humour doesn't travel very well? she just seemed funny to me

I thought she came across as mostly nice, smart and funny so idk

Yeah, my partner had already said "Okay, I like her" before the cake nudging incident - and I think she was genuinely mortified over it.

Sura is VERY London - I was sold on her when they showed footage of her walking a leashed cat in front of her estate.

Ha! Yes, that was exact moment that sold Sarah, too!

Definitely agree with you, Stevie. Those remarks seemed very much like jokes.

I thought it there was a strange energy in the tent, as if everyone knew each other and the presenters better than in previous series (but maybe that's just the way Matt Lucas is with everyone? Just instantly friendly?) but also everyone's nerves were stretched almost to breaking point, and anything at all could have set them off. I wasn't surprised that there was an accident in the first round. Hopefully (for the sake of their own sanity) they'll all have calmed down a little bit by this week.

Lockdown, innit? Weird vibes all round, I'm betting.

I mean, soda feels what he feels, obv. I liked Sura, thought she was very deadpan in general (exchanges w Noel lol) and actually mortified at the cake-knocking.

No surprise though that soldier cosplay armored guard couldn't pass off graciousness. Son, we have had an actual prison warden who had better manners than you.

This thread, from the favourite group of a particular bit of ILM:

When we were 16/17 we had one of those teachers you never forget (1/9)

— The Clientele (@theclientele) September 23, 2020

That’s great.

I love Rowan: he’s like a non-miserable Kenneth Williams.

We think he looks like old ben whishaw. Except we like him.

Oi, disliking Ben Whishaw is NOT ALLOWED. Few things more hilarious than watching Paddington 2 and A Very English Scandal as a double bill (“Hugh Grant just bummed Paddington!”)

Aw thats so great!

I was corrected last night that we like Ben Whishaw a great deal, I was in my cups apparently and thinking about a conversation about a different cast member of The Hour (dominic west)

(I wasn’t in my cups at 11am, I was in my cups when the conversation happened)

is dave the one we don't like? his florentines looked pristine.

is dave the security guard who made a bust cake of a UFO conspiracy theorist?

Yep.

Dominic West has an extremely annoying daughter.

tbf we don’t really hate DW either we just hated him in The Hour.

I absolutely love everything about The Hour. You were supposed to think he was a massive posh dickhead. BTW we were cruelly deprived of S3 because Steven Moffat stole Peter Capaldi off them.

Again, I am watching a different show from the rest of you. Does Rowan not seem overly precious and pretentious?

Well, I mean yes on a base level but this isnt the DMV - in the context of the show i find his whole deal quite delightful! and i bet he’d be a fun teacher to have

Veg otm; he's precious for sure but pretentious? It's only one episode, so :shrug:, but he does make good TV.

I just hope he's able to recalibrate his ambitions so that he isn't constantly running into time crunches.

Mostly you can be pretentious if you’re nice, and Rowan is probably still in because he’s a) happy Kenneth Williams and b) good TV but I am not pleased that Brexit Pru and Christian Paul have lobbed out someone from a minority two weeks running.

I thought it there was a strange energy in the tent, as if everyone knew each other and the presenters better than in previous series

Is this not because they were all isolating together before recording started? It's nice, I like it.

I think so, but I could just be projecting because I know that about them. I like it too, but it must make it bittersweet for the people who have to go.

Rowan seems the opposite of pretentious - he seems to own and be proud of his eccentricities (plus seems nice)

He prob deserved to go yesterday but I would've missed him. Booting Loriea out on the first week was mean, though.

sidebar

this clip of celebrity GBBO with Gary Kemp is v funny

https://youtu.be/BDMHTPWYSzQ

Martin Kemp!

wtf why did i say gary LOL

i'm not British and had never seen or heard of Mel, Sue, Noel or Sandi before watching this show on Netflix, yet fell in love with all of them

but

the new guy Matt seems like a real dud

He is an extremely well known comedian here.

This is how he got famous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-WEIVIbcQw

This is the first season of Bake Off I've actually sat down and watched! I've seen the odd celeb special or whatever. It's very pleasant, I can see why it's so popular.

I'm in the pro-Sura camp. She's funny!

The shots of her reacting to time calls are priceless too.

I am growing quite fond of the ginger bloke from Liverpool, the one who made the ethiopian coffee ceremony set this week

sura is funniest w noel, they make a good double act

baffled by all the bakers using molds for fkn florentines. Let them spread & get brittle you weirdos. and using cutters, too! AGHAST, i tell you.