“Desserts Week” Doesn’t See Justice for Anyone

Before we get into Desserts Week heading into next week’s Quarter Finals, we need to stop and discuss the state of The Great British Baking Show. We are now in Season 14, and it is as popular as ever in the U.K. and the U.S. The series regularly lands in the Top Ten on Netflix’s Most Popular TV Series row all weekend after each new episode drops, and Channel 4 is still renewing the show in batches and casting Season 15 as the current one wraps up. Moreover, the issues that rose to the top in Season 13 have been hastily skimmed off like bad pudding skin. The production finally admitted the chemistry with Matt Lucas wasn’t working as host and let him go; I think it is universally agreed that Alison Hammond is a massive upgrade. The series also dropped the National Theme weeks after it finally blew up in the show’s face, recognizing it simply didn’t work for them.

However, one person kept arguing that Mexican Week went just fine last year, and he didn’t understand the fuss in the puff piece where all this was revealed, and he’s the one part of the problem the series has yet to resolve: Paul Hollywood. He's the 100lb gorilla hanging around the show’s neck, sitting wherever he wants in the tent, and whose decisions about who stays and who goes, completely independent of how the contestants actually do week to week, have become obvious to the point that no amount of editing can make the audience buy them. Over at Decider, Meghan O’Keefe called out Prue and Paul after Episode 6 for playing favorites with Tasha and Dan. (Never forget Dan served raw dough on Bread Week and is still here.)

But those aren’t the only two. Paul’s been pushing Matty and Cristy hard to stay, even though neither deserves it, and Prue knows it, and he’s shocked! shocked! Jason is doing so well, even though he should have been Star Baker twice over.

And that brings us to this week.