{"id":40682,"date":"2017-09-10T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-09-10T10:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=40682"},"modified":"2017-09-10T07:23:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T11:23:20","slug":"tv-im-watching-great-british-bake-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=40682","title":{"rendered":"TV I’m Watching: Great British Bake-Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago someone asked if I was watching any TV. At the time I said I was watching one show. It turns out this is not remotely<\/em> true. <\/p>\n

I lost interest in television back in 2001 or so. I was sick of the commercials and not interested in planning my entertainment around TV schedules. Besides, TV was expensive and the internet was way more interesting. So we canceled our cable service and that was the last I saw of television for the next decade and a half.<\/p>\n

But now? Now “television” is on-demand streaming. Our family subscribes to several streaming services: Amazon Prime, Hulu, Drama Fever, Crunchyroll, and Netflix. Combined, they cost us about what cable TV cost back in 2001. The difference is now we don’t have to put up with commercialsActually Hulu has some commercials and schedule annoyances. I’m not sure anyone still watches it. We should probably cancel it.<\/span>, we can watch when we want, and the overall quality of the content is quite a bit better. <\/p>\n

Which means TV (assuming we can still sloppily refer to streaming shows as “TV”) is really different now. In the old days if I said “I watch the A-Team” it meant I had my ass in front of the TV on Tuesday nights. Now if I tell you I watch some particular show, it means I binge through a dozen hours of it once a year. That’s still really strange to me. Like, that’s breaking a 70 year old tradition. To me, the change in viewing habits seems stranger to me than the new methods of delivery. When I was a kid I might have predicted a world of bigger screens, flatter displays, sharper images, better production values, and a shift in cultural standards regarding violence, language, and nudity. But the entire idea of “timeslots”? I figured that concept was as timeless as book binding. That’s just how you deliver that sort of content.<\/em> <\/p>\n

But here we are. Timeslots are dead. That’s pretty cool.<\/p>\n

There is one show I’m watching “now” in the sense that I’m actually watching it recently, as opposed to “I’ll binge on it when the next season drops”. The Great British Bake Off<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Great British Bake Off<\/h3>\n

The judges. Left: Paul Hollywood. (Yes really.) Right: Mary Berry. (Yes also really.)<\/div>
The judges. Left: Paul Hollywood. (Yes really.) Right: Mary Berry. (Yes also really.)<\/div><\/p>\n

In America it’s broadcast under the name “The Great British Baking Show” because the numbskulls at Pillsbury own a trademark on the term “Bake-Off” in the US. I’m not sure why they feel the need to own a common English phrase, but if I start ranting about that we’ll be here all friggin’ day so let’s just move on.<\/p>\n

Where was I? Right. GBBO. Love the show. When I think of “Reality Television” in America I think of people being confrontational, gossipy, nasty, selfish assholes, being goaded on by producers, and then having all of that behavior magnified through editing. I don’t get the appeal of this sort of thing and I don’t ever want to watch it. (Yes, I’m aware the British have their rude shows<\/a>, but going by reputation I think the US is the winner in this particular race to the bottom.)<\/p>\n

But GBBO is not an American style reality show and in a lot of ways it’s almost the opposite. It’s a show about 12 generally likable people as they try to do the best baking they can. They’re friends more than rivals and the tension comes from the challenge of applying their skill rather than interpersonal drama manufactured through editing. <\/p>\n

The setup is simple: At the start of a seasonThe British call it a “series”, which is actually a better fit nomenclature-wise.<\/span> you’ve got 12 bakers. Each week they’re given three different baking challenges. At the end, the judges select the worst performing one to go home. The cast shrinks as the season goes, which means we really get to know the last few. By the end it’s usually a contest between a small handful of really talented and likable people.<\/p>\n

It’s kind of amazing how good the show is at coming up with interesting challenges. I mean, how many things are there to bake? Cakes, pies, cookies? Wouldn’t that get old after two weeks? But no. Every week they have a new thing to focus on and a new trick to test the baking skills of the contestants. <\/p>\n

I’m not even into baking. I know nothing about kitchen wizardry and I can barely operate a microwave without killing myself. But the friendly tone and endless creativity are really charming. I basically can’t get enough of the show and I’m going to be very sad when I run out of archives to binge through. <\/p>\n

If you think you might be interested then you might want to steer clear of the comments. Given the elimination-style drama of the show, I anticipate the discussion will be a bit spoiler-ish. (And please don’t spoil season 4 or later, since that’s where I am.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago someone asked if I was watching any TV. At the time I said I was watching one show. It turns out this is not remotely true. I lost interest in television back in 2001 or so. I was sick of the commercials and not interested in planning my entertainment around TV […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}