This Is Why Americans Love ‘The Great British Bake Off’
Channel 4
I enjoy this show for its culinary art. However, other TV components make this series delicious.
If Sunday is for Football, and Tuesday is for tacos, then Friday is for The Great British Bake Off.
And to be frank, as I type this article, I’m finally watching the last episode where the final contestants, Jasmine (23, London, Medical Student), Aaron (38, London, Senior Systems Architect), and Tom (31, London, “creative entrepreneur”), are baking for the title.
And as I watch this Netflix hit, I can’t help but wonder, why do I love this show so much? Of course, I enjoy this show for its culinary art. However, other ingredients make this series delicious.
And that exact question was headlined in a BBC article by Vicki Baker, Why do Americans love the British Bake Off? She wrote, “Contestants never say things like ‘I didn’t come here to make friends.’ There are no irritating product placements and — perhaps most incomprehensibly to American audiences — no material riches to be won.”
Channel 4
Perhaps this competition show’s appeals to Americans because it’s not overproduced. One might say that’s a contradictory sentiment since most American reality shows are heavy on the drama. Typically, there’s an element of people backstabbing each other in their confessional interviews or face-to-face where the viewers might even harbor a strange resentment against the competition, as if we’re a part of the show.
But in The Great British Bake Off, the episodes aren’t a series of competitors gossiping, hooking up, or sabotaging each other. Not only that, but they champion each other’s confection successes, or when one receives the coveted handshake from judge Paul
Hollywood.
Additionally, there’s no “real world” element to the show. We aren’t privy to their personal lives outside of the white tent. The focus is simply on what the amateur bakers’ can craft for these three rounds: the “signature bake,” the “technical challenge,” and finally, the “show-stopper.”
And sidenote: The technical challenge is my favorite round. Each contestant is given the same ingredients to make the same bake and is ranked blindly by the judges. This is where the bakers get a complete, unbiased judgment of their skills. Their gender, race, looks, or personality are not subconscious factors in the judge’s opinion. It’s wholly merited by their talent.
Channel 4
And not only do their bakes look refreshingly relatable, but so do the bakers. This might not seem like a huge deal, but none of them seem to be “dolled up” with TV makeup. We can see their wrinkles, their sunspots, their rosacea, their dark spots — they look like people, they look like us.
Overall, for every season I’ve watched, the contestants (dare I say it) get along. Some even cry when a beloved competitor is announced to leave the tent by equally upset hosts Noel Fielding or Alison Hammond.
Perhaps the American viewership is subliminally sending American TV producers a message — less drama is sweeter.
