The Great British Baking Show.
I am very particular about reality TV shows, in the sense that I’m almost exclusively drawn to ones about dating. I don’t know why this is true, except maybe it has something to do with how, when I played Sims as a kid—me and my sisters huddled around the family computer, taking turns with the mouse—I was always most invested in them getting them to fall in love.
When I started college, I majored in Psychology with the hopes of becoming a relationship counselor. I had been in exactly one relationship by then and it had not ended well, but I think I was less interested in “fixing” couples, so to speak, as I was nosy about their relationship’s complications, its highs and lows, its secrets. Maybe I could fix them and maybe I couldn’t, but I wanted them to talk to me about what was going on, for sure.
During 2020, my sister got really into House Hunters International. She’d watch it while she ate her cereal in the morning, and I’d sit down and watch it with her. These people weren’t falling in love—in fact, they might actively be fighting about what kind of house they should buy—but it was interesting to see people want something and go after it. There was vulnerability in that, in imagining some kind of future for yourself and trying to get it when you don’t know that you will. I didn’t watch House Hunters on my own—I was binge watching Love Island—but I got the appeal.
The Great British Baking Show feels like House Hunters to me, except it’s better than House Hunters because these contestants aren’t just trying to find the house they imagined, but instead are trying to realize a more specific dream. In pursuit of this dream, they have become incredibly good at their craft. They can be told to bake a giant cookie that is a time capsule and has inside of it more cookies that represent different objects from their personal history. They can be told to do all of this in four hours, and reader, they deliver. They might be freaking out, their cookies might not be cooked all the way or the icing might not dry the way they wanted, but maybe it will. Maybe they will have some final product that is so lucid that they get a handshake from the judge.
I don’t know, something about the uncertainty of not knowing if you’ll do a good job or if you’ll end up with a crumbled cookie mess, and at the same time, still trying to do a good job, it’s really comforting to watch. I know this is not a hot take, that this is a very popular show for this exact reason—its comfort appeal—but I don’t know, I always thought this show would feel kind of low stakes, too low stakes to keep my attention, because it’s about baking, and nobody is making out with anybody and then finding out that the person they made out with is in love with someone else. And there is no making out (so far), but there is definitely the potential for heartbreak. There is the potential for the bread you’ve practiced making a hundred times not rising when it matters the most or the judges saying that your elaborate cookie is underbaked. They could crush you, and you’d have to stand there on a very popular TV show and take it on the chin. You can be affirmed in your dream, and you can be denied. You can have a harsh critic look you in the eyes and tell you that you are a great baker, and your chin might wobble a bit at that too (mine did watching it, because come on, who doesn’t want to be told that they’re great at what they do?).
The show isn’t low stakes, is what I’m trying to say, though sure, if you get voted off, you’ll probably still be the best baker in your town, maybe even in your country. You could probably open a bakery, which is likely as much of a dream for these bakers as being on this show. You’ll probably be alright either way, and maybe this is part of the comfort appeal too. The show teaches you that you can try for the things you want, that it might be dauntingly scary and definitely uncertain. You might get what you want and you might not, but you can try, and if you do, someone might even shake your hand, tell you this is the best chocolate hob nob they’ve ever tasted.
Image: Netflix
