Mary Berry in particular seems to require some obscure thing be made. And if you’re not familiar with it, that’s why she and Paul Hollywood will sit there and talk about it before the contestants attempt it. He’ll even mention what things to look out for. (Although this bit is only for the benefit of the viewer, not the contestants.)
I think both have chosen obscure things, (At least once Paul has had them make a cypriot pastry that I’m not sure any of them were aware of) but Mary’s obscure things are usually still something British-y.
There are three sections. For the “make a whatever, any kind you like, but it has to be whatever,” they know what they’re going to make in advance, and have time to practice and bring in their precious ingredients. For the technical challenges, it’s a secret. For the showstoppers, again they know in advance what they’re going to be asked to make. All the tasks (except the technical) are known at the start of the show, so they technically have more than a week to practice. The only problem is that you want to practice the thing you’re going to make that week, and you’ve only got a week between shows, so you always want to practice this week’s stuff. What’s the point of practicing for next week when you might get eliminated this week?
What I’m wondering is why is the show set in a tent on what looks like the front lawn of some grand house. Why not just build a set in a building someplace? (And how do they manage to film the outdoor segments during the four sunny days Britain sees in a year?)
Thanks.
The first season they moved the show all over Britain to locations that were relevant to one of the challenges. I assume the tent was to help maintain consistency when every week they were somewhere else.
They stopped doing the moving after that first series, but it was a breakout surprise hit and the iconic look of the tent and layout stayed.
The tent is an homage to old timey style bake offs at English country fairs.
The show used to move around the country, and the tent called back to the village fête vibe. They kept it when they stopped moving around, and seemingly after the channel change too.
OK, that makes sense.
I tried the first couple episodes the season the BBC started running it, but quickly stopped. I’m just not that interested in most of the content and there’s something (and I don’t really know what) that makes me not want to watch Jo Brand. I don’t watch things like Talking Dead on AMC either.
The new season with the move to Channel 4 isn’t as bad as I feared it would be. The commercial breaks exist, but there’s no “reality television” editing to them. Unfortunately, the Channel 4 app (at least on PS3) doesn’t support subtitles. This hasn’t been as important this season as some in the past where you could get some of those thick accents that could be hard for an American to interpret. For that matter, the whole app simply doesn’t work as well as the iPlayer.
Other thoughts…I always like Sandy Toskvig, but Noel Fielding just doesn’t quite seem to fit right for me. I don’t really know anything about Prue Leith but she seems a perfectly fine judge. Paul’s always been the annoying one anyway.
Aah, yes, that makes sense.
You beat me to it 
Heheh, beat 