The Great British Baking Show
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
As America grapples with the nature of democracy,TheGreat British Bake Offgrapples with the nature of a theme.
In the Bakeoverse, every week is a theme week, of course.
And a theme, as far as this show is concerned, can be anything.
Bread is a theme.
Pudding is a theme.
Chocolate is a theme, and so is patisserie.
They are clear and concrete, like Paul Hollywood.
I would argue, endless pudding weeks.
Some of the shows themes feel more like bat-mitzvah variations.
Last season, for example, we had Roaring Twenties, a jazz-age extravaganza of beignets.
And now, hot off last weeks rousing Japanese Week, we get this weeks 1980s Week.
It is a celebration of monetarism and quiche.
What is 80s baking?
Nothing, in particular!
80s baking, it turns out, is very much like regular baking.
I was hoping there was going to be an aspartame challenge; sadly, there was not.
Prue doesnt evenmentioncocaine, although she does wear a tasteful tie-dye-inflected shell.
Is this a problem?
Do we need conceptual cohesion?
Maybe its fine to go from breads and biscuits to the idea of the 1980s.
I was a teenager then, reminisces Marc, wistfully.
Prune cocktail, gross, offers Dave.
(I do appreciate the episodes vigorous real-time defense of its own premise.)
Someone really should have done something about this problem in the 1980s!
Lauras pizza quiche is leaky, and Daves English breakfast scrambled egg quiche is overspiced.
Young Peter (b.
You might say she is engaged in risky business.
If it works, itll be wonderful, Prue tells her, encouragingly.
Paul says it will not work.
It does not work.
Which brings us back to the issue of the episodes theme.
This episode is evidence: It was, in all ways, fine!
But I cannot shake the feeling that the show no longer trusts us to stay interested.
It has lost its confidence.
Can you really havetoo manytart weeks?
I love knowing things!
This is the gift of repetition: you could really appreciate when other people mess up.
If anything, offering the same themes every year would, I think, only enrich the experience.
Wed all get better!
It is, in fact, exactly what I want.
