The Great British Baking Show
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Which one of them?
It is that Hermine, pathologically endearing and refreshingly un-media-trained, was good at being on TV.
She approached every new challenge with a spirit of light-hearted dread.
She kept you guessing, that was the best thing about Hermine.
You had no way of knowing what shed make, based on how she talked about it.
That is compelling television!
Perhaps this is the finale we deserve, over-proofed and under-spiced.
We have spent so many seasons cooing over the soothingness ofBake Offthat we have put ourselves to sleep.
Here is how it happens.
It is Patisserie Week.
Hermine is a trained French baker, and France is where patisserie comes from.
The stakes are very high.
Peter, by contrast, is a badminton enthusiast from Edinburgh.
Laura is a woman with a pizza oven.
Dave enjoys walking his dog.
Hermine, this should be your day, chirps Prue, ominously.
This is such aclassicFrench thing.
They are beautiful; they are also under-proofed.
Even Lauras tropics-themed rum baba slightly messy, too heavy on the cinnamon has a lovely sponge.
This illustrates the problem with setting expectations, which is that then people expect things of you.
Nobody has heard of one or seen one; in this way, they are the babka of Denmark.
I just dont have a logical brain!
Laura weeps, staring at the diagrams for horn construction.
Lauras is the worst, because it is crumbling and misshapen and also raw.
Peter deserves it, agrees Hermine.
Hes really good with detail, which Im not, particularly.
You cant take that away from him!
(I never would.)
All the bakers have their charms, obviously.
This is theGreat British Bake Off,and there are no monsters here, only gentle British amateurs.
Ilikethat Dave enjoys his girlfriend and also mangos.
Iappreciatethat Laura is teetering on the edge of perpetual disaster, because it reminds me of my own life.
I would be thrilled to be seated next to any one of them on an airplane.
But they do not have the texture, the specificity, the je ne sais quoi of Hermine.
I would like to say what happens next is a miscarriage of justice, but I cannot.
All legal votes were counted.
It is, instead, a miscarriage of entertainment.
This is right up your street, Noel tells Hermine.
If you cant pull yourself into the victors spot today, theres something wrong.
But if we have learned anything this year, it is this: There is something wrong.
Its not going too well, is it?
sighs Hermine, whose coffee-praline cubes have taken on a weirdly jiggly quality.
Her raspberry mousse cubes have not set.
Sometimes, Hermine braces for catastrophe when there isnt one.
This is not one of those times.
Her cherry-chocolate cubes are melting.
Her coffee-praline cubes are unsettlingly bouncy.
Also, the cake is ugly.
By your standards, its a failure, Prue assures her.
Lauras cubes are messy, of course they are, but this is no longer news.
They are saved by their deliciousness.
Hermine is saved by nothing.
For Hermine, it is a disappointment, but we are the real victims here.
There is no frontrunner and no underdog, only a flat sea of pleasant greige.
Where is the narrative excitement?
Where is the delight?
Perhaps this is theBake Offthat we asked for, but this is not theBake Offthat we really want.
