'The Great British Baking Show's “Chocolate Week” Needs More Chocolate

The Great British Baking Show's sixteenth season is halfway through the "mushy middle" rounds that fall between Bread Week and the Quarterfinals, and the good news is that the series has yet to go off the rails. The last few seasons haven't just had poor finales; they've also been marred by confusing eliminations of contestants who seemed to have done perfectly fine, in favor of keeping lesser talents in an attempt to force Paul Hollywood's preferred final three to succeed by default. However, we're already a month into this year's run of episodes, and the contestant leaving the tent every week has been the correct choice.

Not that viewers can relax, we know that whenever he starts pushing, Prue Leith will always give in. While Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding have done much as a team to provide a counterweight to Paul's ridiculous male posturing, they aren't able to sway the vote.

The good news for Americans is that, if this season starts to go south, The Great American Baking Show (which also stars Paul and Prue as judges) has just released a new Celebrity edition geared towards Spooky Season over on Roku. Even better, the American celebrity contestants have even less time for Paul's nonsense than Sandi Toksvig did during her run as host. So if we get mad at Paul in the next few weeks, at least there's an alternate version to watch where everyone treats Paul exactly as he deserves.