Do I have to spoil comments on previous winners? I would not want to know who won the other seasons I haven’t seen, so I will.
We just finished the UK series 5, season 1 as listed on Netflix USA.
Nancy? What??? We thought Richard the Builder was a 100% lock. I know his final baking projects did not go to well, but he was a solid star throughout. Man, what a shock. We were really disappointed. We had been cheering for Martha(17 year old) and Chetna, but Richard was clearly the best of the bunch. Totally shocked.
I was happy for Nancy, who was a very consistent baker. But Richard seemed like the star to me. Not the charismatic star, that was Martha, of course, but the baking star. I’d be happy to have any of them cook for my party, though.
As it happens, The AV Club has a Q&A with Martha Collison, who competed in the fifth series. She says that they knew what they would be expected to prepare weeks in advance, but that they would only practice the current week’s challenge (since they didn’t know whether they’d be eliminated).
And apparently Mel & Sue were protective of the contestants, to the point that they would sabotage a shot if the contestant was upset and would look bad on camera.
I’m curious to see if the show survives. Apparently Mel and Sue have had a lot to do with creating the low-drama, cooperative atmosphere of the show, pushing back against the producers, who wanted more drama. And that adds SO much to it.
(Mel and Sue are loved by the bakers. They also swoop in and swear like bandits to spoil footage that shows the contentents upset)
My wife, kids, and I are watching season 1, having watched everything on Netflix. It’s on youtube, by the way.
Anyway, it’s massively boring compared to later seasons. When did the show start to focus on the contestants and the actual baking competition more? We like the human side of the show more, not the “history/science of food” part that we are getting in S1.
