Bake Off is better without the drama
Last night's episode came without a side of ruined showstoppers and mean-spirited finger pointing - and it's a good job too, says Ellie Walker-Arnott
Last week was the week Bake Off went bad. When Iain’s bincident and the kerfuffle over whether Diana really did take his ice cream out of the freezer changed Bake Off as we know it.
We thought we’d seen sabotage last year with the great custard theft of episode three but we hadn’t seen anything like this. And I didn’t like it.
We don’t tune into the Bake Off for drama. We tune in to drool over crème patissiere, jewel-coloured macaroons and teenie weenie petit fours. To get to know lovely, wholesome chaps, look at bunting and pretty food processors, be pushed to the edges of our seats during the technical and to feel our bottom lips wobbling over the discovery of disastrously underbaked dough.
Thankfully, last night’s episode was a return simpler times. Bake Off was back to being as comforting as a wedge of buttered, and perfectly baked, bread. Gone was the drama, the ruined showstoppers and the mean-spirited finger pointing.
Even the innuendos were gentle this pie and tart week. Lovely pears was as hardcore as it got.
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Not that it was a dull spell in the tent - Martha had her first serving of negative feedback, Richard made an almighty mess and poor Norms' attempts to be fancy saw him heading for the exit - but when it came to drama, a pie with a leak, a tumbling tower of tarts and a misguidedly fragrant meringue was as serious as it got.
There was one reference to a bin and a few fond farewells to Diana in the opening seconds and that was it. And we will have nothing more said about the matter.
Forget scandal, outrage and bitterness, give me the simple pleasures of testicle wedding pies and mummified pears any day.
The Great British Bake Off continues on Wednesdays at 8:00pm on BBC1
