From baking and sewing to pottery and even glass blowing, there is pleasure – and ratings success – to be had in gentle shows where contestants do the things they love
The X Factor final was once considered quintessential, if high stakes,
Christmas viewing. But this year, instead of watching Alexandra Burke sob into Beyoncé’s shoulder post-duet, we will see her performing Silent Night on the Christmas edition of The Great
British Bake Off, now an annual fixture on Channel 4, along with the new year edition. After the year we have had, watching former contestants compete in a spin-off contest that doesn’t really count feels like the right, tolerable level of excitement.
Since it launched 10 years ago on
BBC Two, Bake Off has been a wholesome, welcome escape from real-world stresses; it has felt particularly welcome this year. It is just as well: Bake Off – and its many successors and imitators – is now almost unavoidable. A slew of baking competitions have been commissioned in its wake, from Netflix’s Sugar Rush to the Food Network’s Cake Wars, The Big Bake and Holiday Baking Championship. Zumbo’s Just Desserts, a co-production by Seven Network in Australia and
Netflix, is essentially the same thing but with confectionery, while Netflix’s Nailed It! is a sort of reverse Bake Off, featuring really rubbish bakers doing their best to win a cash prize.