I'm a hardcore reality TV fan, one who regularly watches cutthroat competition shows like Survivor and The Traitors (the latter of which is streaming with a Peacock subscription). I'm watching The Great British Baking Show for the first time this season, and have been enjoying what is arguably the most wholesome reality series of all time. Some fans are complaining about the twists of the season, but as a newbie I disagree.
The premiere of Bake Off's new season instantly charmed me, as did new judge Nigella Lawson's love for food. Folks with a Netflix subscription are now five episodes into the season, and hardcore fans are complaining about the difficulty of the bakes. One such fan took to Twitter to voice her opinion, in a viral post which reads:
Dear Great British Bake Off producers, PLEASE stop making everything unnecessarily complicated. We don’t need impossible time limits, ridiculous challenges, or bakers being set up to fail. We just want lovely people baking things we’ve never heard of, random shots of rabbits in the grass, contestants helping each other, and Alison laughing in the background. That’s literally why we love this show.
In some ways I get her point. The charm and kindness of Bake Off is a big reason why the show has been running for so long. It's not a series that's built on drama or onscreen twists, like some other popular reality competition shows. Although as a more casual fan I don't think that The Great British Baking Show is doing too much.
I'm a hardcore Survivor fan who often complains about the show's twists, which have become more and more common in recent years including this year's Season 51. But compared to that long-running CBS series, I still feel like Bake Off's complications aren't all that serious. I mean, we're getting a new wild complication every episode as part of Survivor's Open era.
That being said, some of the challenges on The Great British Baking Show have been pretty brutal. Namely the technicals, with the bakers not given an actual recipe for the majority of them (so far). Add in fan votes and family visits, and I can see what longtime fans might be annoyed about. Still, I don't think they've taken away from the show's charming and feel-good tone.
Obviously I'm a new fan of Bake Off, so perhaps my opinion matters less than those who have been watching since Day 1. But when compared to the twist-heavy reality shows I usually watch, I just don't think that the baking series is doing all that much. We'll see if that changes as we get deeper into the season.
New episodes of The Great British Baking Show air Fridays on Netflix as part of the 2026 TV schedule. Longtime fans might not be happy, but I've been thoroughly enjoying watching my first full season.
