Junior Bake Off

[Kromm]

Anyone else see these?  Seems like kind of a half-hearted spinoff, what with NOT A SINGLE PERSON from the original show (hosts or judges) as part of it.  What's common?  They bake. Inside the Bake Off Tent. The show uses the same music. The hosts are a double-act, even if not the SAME double act as the main show.  The titles are SIMILAR to the original, if not the same.

 

Also, due to a short schedule (3 episodes) the way they present and test the bakers has to be pretty different (groups of four doing a single bake to get into a quarter-final).

[GaT]

I've never seen this before, so I watched the first episode of season 5. Just some random thoughts.

1. No idea who the host is, but I wasn't impressed. No idea why there's only one.
2. Liam (from season 8 of GBBO) is one of the judges, along with Prue. They keep putting him on variations of the show (he was one of the hosts of Great British Bake Off: The Professionals) trying to make him happen, but to paraphrase Regina George, it's not going to happen, stop trying to make Liam happen.
3. No signature challenge, just the technical (they were a mess), & the showstopper (also a mess)
4. They don't have any problem showing the kids crying. One dropped his plate (which broke) of English madeleines & I think they just picked some up off the floor & put them on a new plate, & a girl started crying when one layer of her layer cake broke. They both cried, & they showed it. Not right IMO
5. They didn't eliminate anybody, I guess they didn't want to kick a kid out on their first day, but they're going to eliminate two next episode.
6. The episodes are daily instead of once a week, not sure how many episodes there are.

[akr]

15 episodes, apparently. https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/junior-bake-off-2019-contestants-presenters-when-channel-4-start-time-821934 (I found this while trying to find the schedule - every night, it says - but it also says 40 contestants. So - ?) 

I really like Liam in this role, actually. He interacts well  with the kids & seemed to be the one trying the most to help them keep things in perspective & be proud of what they'd done, without being condescending about it. 

[akr]

This was such an enjoyable series! I hope some of you catch it at some point. Here's a good article about what made it such a treat.  https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/nov/11/junior-bake-off-the-kids-spinoff-thats-the-perfect-antidote-to-baking-brutality 

[Occasional Hope]

It was really lovely.