The Great British Bake Off - Channel 4 edition

We just started watching this with the one series on Netflix. Now we're sad that it's about to be killed off.

I heard a rumour that Phil & Holly are being brought in to replace Mel & Sue. Source= my wife, pinch of salt required. I like Phil & Holly but it's still a very different show with them in it.

That would be weird. Phil makes everything better but, somehow, I can't see him commiserating with a baker over under performing cup cakes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entr...

Oh Schofield you zany madcap prankster you.

Maq wrote:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entr...

Oh Schofield you zany madcap prankster you.

Ah, ok. I'll tell my wife not to take everything she sees on daytime TV so seriously

In a way that's a shame, of all the options for who could take over, Phil and Holly would have been near the top of my list.

Schofield!!!!!!

*shakes fist*

IMAGE(http://i837.photobucket.com/albums/zz298/sleepy_orange/Gifs/Barrowman.gif)

I mean personally I can't stand the twat but some folk clearly like him.

DudleySmith wrote:

After last night, I'm now determined to eat chilli in a Yorkshire pudding. It's a genius combination of two of my favourite things.

Dud, you're a gentleman and a scholar.

Next time I'm cooking chilli, I'm telling the wife she needs to whip up some Yorkshires.

Maq wrote:

I mean personally I can't stand the twat but some folk clearly like him.

Tell us what you really think

He's actually very good with the contestants on the Cube. Perhaps they could have people decorating cakes in the cube while balancing on a short beam.

Well, I managed to find the first series on YouTube, but no luck on the rest. They're either better hidden than I can find, or they've all been scrubbed. The other option seems to be donating at least $60 to my local PBS station, which would let us stream two additional seasons through them. Oh well.

Usenet is your friend.

Unsurprising who left the tent this week. I figured it was only a matter of time until they had a bad week.

In further "It'll be crap without Mel and Sue" news, I found out last night that apparently any time a baker got really visibly upset they would crowd around them and swear like sailors so they couldn't use the footage.

And people say bad language is never nice.

Mary Berry's quitting as well.

Paul is still taking sneaking meetings with Channel 4 apparently.

The good news here is that there's a lot of interest in having the BBC reboot the series. Simon Cowell even threw his hat in the ring to produce it.

I sensed that Mary was a BBC loyalist. Can't blame Paul. He's probably being offered several dozen wheelbarrows full of money at this point.

Reboot? Does that mean roughly the same thing with a different title?

So, at this point Channel 4 have essentially spent a whole lot of money for a luxury marquee and some kitchen appliances

It's quite a nice marquee .

Any word on what the squirrels are going to do? They always looked like BBC-loyalists to me.

Not sure, but the goats took the dough.

The company that makes those ovens with the doors that slide underneath should pay to keep GBBO on the BBC, they must have sold so many thanks to the show.

Zelos wrote:

The company that makes those ovens with the doors that slide underneath should pay to keep GBBO on the BBC, they must have sold so many thanks to the show.

I know my wife really wants one.

Silly question, but will this effect the Great Australian Bake Off? I remember liking the second season of that show and I was able to find all of the episodes on dailymotion.

Songbird wrote:

Silly question, but will this effect the Great Australian Bake Off? I remember liking the second season of that show and I was able to find all of the episodes on dailymotion.

It shouldn't affect it, it's a UK only deal. However, both shows are produced by the same company, so they won't be above hawking it out to the highest bidder in Australia too, as we now know.

I think they might be about to learn the Top Gear lesson.

For better or worse, the talent is what makes the show.

It felt like Val was going to go soon for a long time. She seemed like a very nice lady.

The last few weeks have been when the show has hit the sweet spot for me. They've whittled down the number of bakers enough where everybody gets their time being shown and I know who's who.

Maq wrote:

In further "It'll be crap without Mel and Sue" news, I found out last night that apparently any time a baker got really visibly upset they would crowd around them and swear like sailors so they couldn't use the footage.

And people say bad language is never nice.

Not only that, Mel and Sue pushed back against the producers trying to get some Food Network style drama:

But Perkins admits that she and Giedroyc walked off the set during the filming of the very first series because of the attempts to manufacture drama, X Factor-style, which had left contestants in tears.
“We felt uncomfortable with it, and we said 'We don’t think you’ve got the right presenters’,” says Perkins.

I think Paul's the easiest of the four to replace but the continuity he provides might help the new show

Looks like the Beeb are certainly considering a 'bake-off style' show in competition to Channel 4.

They also retain the rights to license the bake-off format to other countries until 2028(!) apparently

Selasi's Botanical Week shirt: 100%, A+, Wunderbar

I think Selasi was robbed there.

I don't think I can ever get behind someone for whom fougasse is their standard cinema snack - Tom's recipes have a very hipster feel.

Selasi was, indeed, robbed. His showstopper was spectacular. I assume it was the technical that swayed it.

In other news my run of correctly guessing who will be voted off continues. It's always the one who looks like they've given up.

Contains some sweariness and soul-eroding bleakness.

Spoiler:

I see you, Paul Hollywood.

I see the jagged spikes of your gelled and silver fringe, as if you’re forever prepared to stop a cavalry charge with your forehead. I see your neatly trimmed goatee and the White Walker blue of your cold, dead eyes, tiny orbs of winter glaring out from the furrows of your grumpy head. I see the tight shirts, the barrel of your chest forever threatening to split the fabric when you flex, your whole body a coiled spring as you stomp around the tent and force disappointing cake after disappointing cake into the sorrow-hole in the centre of your face. You’re never happy, are you, Paul Hollywood? It’s either an interesting flavour combination that doesn’t work, or you can’t taste it, or it’s too strong, or all you’re getting is booze, or the dough hasn’t proved or the crust is too thick or the scent of blood is coursing through your nostrils and filling you with an unnatural hunger or there’s a soggy bottom. You’re impossible to satisfy, aren’t you? There’s an abyss in the pit of your soul and no amount of pie or jolly banter can fill it.

They can feel it too, Paul Hollywood. Mel and Sue stand a little closer together when you’re around, twitching and on edge like a couple of meerkats preparing to flee. Mary Berry smiles and nods, but off-camera she’s always got a set of keys in her fist, the most jagged one poking between her fingers and ready to go straight for your eyes if you ever turn on her. It’s been years of this macabre dance, Paul Hollywood. Years of contestants wincing under your blunt and withering judgment, years of confused and broken men and women trying to cook 36 buns in one small oven each, years of hipsters with crap beards failing to set their ice creams and retreating in shame to the vegan charcuterie they run in Shoreditch. With every passing year you get stronger, Paul Hollywood, and with every passing year you struggle against the bonds that trap you to this meagre existence.

Once you were so much more, Paul Hollywood. In the long night before the first days, you were the first ruler of the frozen wastes, The Nameless Death who rode a great white bear into battle and swept his enemies away in a tide of blood. With your berserkers by your side your axes split the skulls of your foes and you ran roughshod across the face of the world, burning villages and claiming your tributes. You were death and carnage incarnate, Paul Hollywood, pillaging and reaving in the day and retreating to your great cavern-fortress in the frozen woods at night. You slept on a pile of gold and bones, the stench of blood rich in your nostrils, your belly full of entrails. There were no soggy bottoms in those days, Paul Hollywood. There was only the roar of battle and the sweet taste of victory.

Until the druids came, Paul Hollywood. They came in the night, silent in the mist, surrounding the mouth of your secret cave and piling it high with great, green branches. They muttered their incantations under their breath as they worked, the eldritch fire they summoned working quickly to consume the pyre, the thick white smoke billowing and feeding into the cave. You and your men coughed and retched, Paul Hollywood, but you did not die. You simply fell asleep, your breath as shallow as a first victim’s grave. The druids piled the rocks high and sealed you away, daubing their runes in the blood of a white stag, watching the side of the mountain seal itself into one great sheet of rock.

And so you slept, Paul Hollywood. You slept and the worlds of man thrived and rose and fell and rose again. In your dreams you thrashed against chains made of bone, swimming in a sea of blood, pulling against an anchor lashed to your foot, the tide forever threatening to pass over your head and drown you. But you fought hard, Paul Hollywood, your spirit screaming against your bondage and blasting itself free. You emerged anew in the modern world, walking the Earth once more, a small and diminished thing, but a thing made of flesh and a thing thirsting for vengeance.

You walked the Earth, and you presented The Bake Off, and you snarled your indignation in the public’s faces.

I see you, Paul Hollywood. For years now, the BBC have tried to restrain you. They wouldn’t let you snap Edd’s neck and suck the marrow from his spine - not on camera, at least. They wouldn’t let you build a croquembouche out of human skulls and crow livers. You asked Nadja if she wanted to watch you kill an elk with your bare hands but she just pulled a face at you and went back to her croissants. Well, no more, Paul Hollywood. Your demands have got too extravagant, your price in human blood too high.

The Bake Off is going to Channel 4, Paul Hollywood. Mary Berry and Mel and Sue will be your jailers no longer and your terrible whims will be indulged without the quiet restraint of the BBC.

I hear the hunting horn blowing in the distance, Paul Hollywood. In the frozen tundra I hear the sound of drums, a distant booming that rises from the bowels of the earth and beats like a heart against the thin skin of the world. I see the great mountain crack and shatter, dust and rock billowing out into the wastes, the thin sticks of the blasted trees collapsing and spinning away in the tide of snow and debris.

I hear the battle cries, Paul Hollywood, thin and raspy things, as your skeletal warriors pour free from your ancient tomb. I hear their flint spears crashing against their hide shields. I hear their bones rattling. I see the terrible, shuddering ruin of Isthangor, your loyal bear. He stands twenty feet tall, now a thin frame of bone covered loosely in a ragged sheet of fur, the empty sockets of his eyes glowing with hellfire. Soon you’ll ride again, Paul Hollywood. You’ll ride again, and all of Channel 4 will tremble in your wake. Your every whim will be indulged, your every bloody horror made flesh.

Well, almost every bloody horror, Paul Hollywood. I imagine your wife won’t let you have a pretty young co-host again. She’s not a f*cking idiot.

I see you, Paul Hollywood. I f*cking see you.