The Great British Baking Show “Desserts Week” is often a cause for great excitement in my neck of the Netflix-streaming woods. It means that a new season of The Great British Baking Show is drawing to an end. Tensions in the iconic Bake Off tent are usually high and the challenges typically turn out to be quite complex. Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith are poised to eliminate one of the five final bakers. Everyone still in the competition is not only talented, but also someone we’ve spent over a month getting to know and learning to love.
“Desserts Week” is usually a high point for any season of The Great British Baking Show. However, this week, as I logged onto Netflix, the usual thrill was gone.
**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show “Desserts Week,” now streaming on Netflix**
This time around, I wasn’t overly nervous about who would go home because the field had been naturally thinning out over the season, with Jasmine Mitchell leading the pack as the overwhelming favorite. The challenges were fairly classic, the jokes predictably raunchy, and the bakers unflappably kind to each other. Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond enjoyed their sweet, silly rapport. Even the rare ripples of weirdness — like Iain Ross getting attacked by a gust of wind blowing into the tent — were charming.
All of which is to say The Great British Baking Show has absolutely course-corrected from its years of chaos and controversy. Everything about The Great British Baking Show “Desserts Week” was as cozy as could be. I should have been in heaven. Instead, I was bored.
The Great British Baking Show has been quiet this season. Nothing too upsetting has happened and there have been no shock eliminations. The challenges have all been lovely and the few innovations made in the Technical Challenge have worked. The bakers are all effervescent, but the aforementioned Jasmine and Iain are maybe the only real “breakouts.” Beautiful, brilliant Jasmine’s alopecia helps her stand apart visually from the pack, while “short king” Iain could always be counted upon to play with the hosts’ games.
Prue has been nice, Paul almost sweet, and Noel and Alison have gotten on like a house on fire. On paper, The Great British Baking Show is doing everything right. It’s hitting all the traditional marks fans were demanding the franchise return to after a rocky few seasons.
So why do I feel so blasé about it this year? Is there a way The Great British Baking Show can maintain its cozy, steady vibes, while also being creatively compelling in 2025?
To be clear, I’m in no way arguing that The Great British Baking Show should bring back the culturally-insensitive challenges, miserable hosts, and impossibly cruel standards that made certain seasons absolutely infuriating to watch. Instead, I’m wondering if there’s a reason this season hasn’t hit me in the same way past favorite seasons have.
My first thought, weird as it might be, has to do with scheduling. Since 2020, Netflix subscribers have gotten used to new episodes of The Great British Baking Show hitting the service every Friday in the fall. The show always premieres in September, but this year, it dropped earlier than ever before. Americans were still recouping from Labor Day weekend when The Great British Baking Show arrived this year, meaning we were still blasting the AC instead of binge-watching from under our blankets. Maybe the energy is just off?
Another unique challenge for this specific season of The Great British Baking Show? The 2024 season was an all-timer installment of the series. Last season’s cast was packed with idiosyncratic characters you instantly fell hard for. There was an organic madness in the tent, a giddiness that overflowed in some lovingly bananas way every week. The bakers were more evenly matched, to a point where anyone could conceivably win Star Baker or go home, week after week.
All of which is to say recent memory sets a crazy high bar for this season to clear.
Then again, maybe there’s nothing wrong with The Great British Baking Show this season. Maybe this is the platonic ideal of what this show should be: sweet, steady, and understated. Maybe the problem is me. Maybe I’ve simply outgrown jokes about soggy bottoms or debates about rhubarb.
This season of The Great British Baking Show is boring. It’s been comforting, quiet, and uncomplicated. The Great British Baking Show 2025 is exactly the show hardcore fans missed while we trudged through the messy years. Boring isn’t necessarily bad. In many ways, Bake Off loyalists would say it’s good. I’m still a tiny bit bored, though.
https://decider.com/2025/10/24/the-great-british-baking-show-is-boring-again/