Television right now is an goddamn nightmare. Not because it’s bad, of course, but because it’s so good. Good and plentiful. Gone are the days where everyone was watching the same three stations every night. Gone are the days when everyone would hang around the water cooler discussing last night’s episode of the show that everyone watching. Instead, everyone is now hanging around the water cooler telling everyone else what they should be watching. Well, I guess no one is hanging around water coolers right now, but you catch my drift. It's an endless string of recommendation after recommendation.
It’s absolutely insufferable.
Insufferable not because these are bad recommendations, but because they are good recommendations. Sure, we all know that one guy who tries to get to watch his weird show even though you’ve made it very clear that it’s not your jam and you don’t want to watch anything like it. I can handle that. What I can’t handle is knowing that there are four dozen shows available across 5 different streaming platforms that are all super great and I would love if I ever got around to watching them.
Yes, Bojack Horseman is probably excellent! I’ll watch that next! Oh, but wait, everyone is talking about Stranger Things. Lemme just watch that first, it’s only eight episodes. Oh, wait, The Good Place has some big plot points that might get spoiled when the new season comes out? Alright, hang on, I’ll binge those to beat the spoilers and then, hang on, all of my favorite writers are talking about how good this Fleabag show is? Okay, I’ll watch that but, ooooh, hold on, I did like Breaking Bad so surely I should watch Better Call Saul so I can keep up with the discourse and…look! The guys from Queer Eye are on Big Mouth! I can rush through that so I can see that episode and then, OH MY GOD, is that a BABY YODA?
All of this content keeps getting added to our ever-growing collection of television. Nothing on the to-do list gets done because a new item appears before you can finish the last one. That last paragraph isn’t that much of an exaggeration. After all, I’ve still never seen Bojack Horseman.
A large part of my reluctance to enter “binge mode” and marathon through these shows is, quite simply, the mental bandwidth necessary to do so. It took me three, count ‘em, three tries to play Mass Effect in large part because there was an entire new language to learn by way of stats, characters, levels, and lingo. Television, especially today’s highly-detailed “twelve-hour movie” shows, require much the same mental commitment. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the phrase “Oh, you just have to make it past the first season.”
That’s…a big ask. A season of television before you even get to the good stuff? It’s an insane assumption, not only of someone’s taste, but of their time. Yet I’m guilty of it nonetheless.
Sure, television should be smart, well-written, thoughtful, and engaging. But the overwhelming, sprawling landscape of “Good Shows to Watch” has made the journey seem almost like work. It’s stressful to keep up with everything! And when I’m stressed, I turn to food.
I don’t stress eat, mind you. Not anymore, at least, as I thankfully kicked that habit shortly after college. No, my relief comes not from eating food, but from watching it be prepared. When I’m stressed, I turn to The Great British Baking Show.
Allow me to explain.
I watched more game shows growing up than I realized at the time. There was Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! There was also Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Deal or No Deal. Toss in some American Idol (for the first few years) and a few seasons of Survivor and, wow, I’ve actually consumed quite a bit of competitive television, haven’t I? While Jeopardy! was always the quiet little nerd show that was on after dinner, most of the others were prime-time entries that hooked my entire family during my middle school years. So when a show is competing for prime-time attention, the stakes get raised.
This is American Idol, dammit! One person will be a pop star for the entire goddamn country! What can be more important than that? Being a millionaire, of course! Complete with dramatic lighting and tension-inducing music, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? reminded you that the eyes of the world were watching you answer these trivia questions. This shit was important.
So when The Great British Baking Show popped up on my Netflix home page, I just said no. I’d seen Chopped. I’d seen Cutthroat Kitchen. I didn’t need to see more amateur chefs fighting for their lives in an over-dramatized kitchen. But when it eventually found its way onto my TV, vis-à-vis my girlfriend’s background noise while cleaning the living room, I realized it was none of those things.
The Great British Baking Show won me over when it made no bones about just how meaningless it is. These bakers aren’t competing for millions of dollars or franchise rights. The winner gets a little cake stand and that’s it. The real prize is the joy of baking good food. The contestants don’t just want to win, they want to do their best. The judges don’t want to humiliate the weakest of the bunch, a la Simon Cowell, they want to empower them to do better next week.
It's an injection of self-esteem directly into my veins.
A lesser show would emphasize the competition. Who can be the best? Here, however, we have a team of bakers. Bakers who don’t backstab the competition or wish ill on their fellow contestants. These folks root for each other, help each other out when they have a free moment, and offer the best of advice wherever possible. The show almost seems to go out of its way to subvert drama wherever it may rise.
And when I’m stressed, that’s just what I need.
“Wholesome,” much like “epic” and “the Dark Souls of,” is an incredibly overused phrase on the Twittersphere. But this show, I tell ya, is just so goddamn wholesome. Genuinely wholesome, too. There’s no saccharine music or schmaltzy cinematic trickery* going on to make you all warm and fuzzy inside. Those feelings are authentic, and it’s nice to feel authentically happy.
I would be remiss, of course, if didn’t mention one other element of the show: the British aspect. As a typical big, dumb American who loves me some British slang. Things like “That’s the best biscuit of the lot, that one” or “Innit?” just make me smile for no reason other than I went to school with a lot of Long Islanders who seemed hell-bent on making the English language sound as ugly as possible.
I do feel bad for some of the excellent shows out there. I’m sure you’re great. I’m sorry your numbers aren’t higher. But I also don’t feel guilty about watching The Great British Baking Show instead. I feel good about it because the show is honest about its role as “fluff entertainment on stressful days.” The treats look great, the people are charming, and, best of all, no one is forcing me to watch it. It’s my show and I’ll watch it when I please.
Oh, and it inspires my girlfriend to bake, so I guess I get some desserts out of it, too.
*It’s pretty easy for me to spot when editors are “tricking” viewers into feeling a certain way because, well, I’m a pretty good editor myself. I’ve noticed enough little things in the presentation of the show where, if tricking the viewer was the goal, it’s clear the team certainly didn’t opt for the deceptive route.
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