iamsamiracle

This show had so much promise to be a charming fun show, but the stupidity of the challenges and the poor execution, topped off by the utterly stupid judges who seem to have no clue what they're doing and are not good enough actors to convince us of any semblance of sincerity, made this such a huge flop of a show that it deflated any charm or enthusiasm it had at the beginning. Get different judges and stop making the challenges as idiotic possible (that nonsensical improv challenge and the talentless E interviewer moments were the most painful), and then maybe choose a winner who actually fits the criteria of what you claim to be looking for. I'm not even going to watch the movie the winner was cast in, he's such a terrible actor who didn't do anything well the entire season of this show.

Where do you even begin? The judges (except Carla Hall) are downright terrible to the point of being unwatchable.

If I have to look at that pretentious prick Duff Goldman bugging out his eyes as he shovels food down his gullet one more time I may hurl something at the TV. Nancy Fuller's drunken grandma routine has never been charming and why her opinions on any food are worth paying attention to is a mystery I shall hope never to solve. It's never clear what their judging criteria actually is, as they judge some contestants very harshly, so much so that they are blowing up things that are not even mistakes, or picking on overly nebulous details, to make it sound like something is a failure even if it was well baked and tasted good to them, and was visibly well constructed. Then other times they are waxing rhapsodic trying to convince viewers that someone else's sloppy simplistic work is actually brilliant, both in terms of decoration and the quality of the baking when visually you can see the work and the product is not appetizing. They place complex sophisticated baking skills on the same level as simplistic, limited abilities when the producers have taken a shine to someone or they're trying to make a star out of them. They so frequently contradict themselves that there's no rhyme or reason to who they pick as a winner by the end of the show. The usually pick someone whose work left a lot to be desired for most of the season, and then they never explain their decisions in a way that make anyone take them seriously. The hosts solemnly reciting the flaws in a cake as if they're an oncologist telling their patient the cancer is terminal, is such deep cringe the producers should be ashamed. Fire everyone and start fresh or just cancel these shows altogether. They are an embarrassment for all involved.

This show is so confused and overproduced, it lowkey gaslights its audience. The content itself usually tells you right away who the best team is, which is sometimes at odds with the editing and final winners. To try to make sense of the scripted/manufactured peaks and valleys of the whole competition, they repeat the same pre-commercial hooks portending disaster that never comes to pass, as a distraction (not content to let the stress of doing this much work speak for itself without obnoxious sound and music mixing), and then edit the judges commentary very spuriously to de-emphasize the reality of what we see before us.

The balance of the commentary will vary wildly from episode to episode, sometimes accompanied by an obscure rubric they made up that day to justify a pre-determined outcome in one and then going back to common sense in the next when the best team winning that week perfectly slots into the structure of the entire season. As a result, the judges frequently contradict their own opinions and tastes, and what we can see, so you the viewer learn not to attach any meaning to what they say, except as premade building blocks for a pre-determined narrative that the footage doesn't back ip.

You can tell when the producers have backed themselves into a corner by the way the judges over praise one team's basic ideas as unheralded brilliance and downplay the flaws as if they don't matter, like: wow this puddle of strawberries really tastes like strawberries! I don't taste the other flavor you were supposed to work with, but I love strawberries coming through so I don't care...your structure is really basic and the design is boring, but I'm so impressed you melted a lot of sugar and poured it on a board, not letting it burn while you're watching it the whole time is so much work, I'm really impressed.

Then when they get to the other team who has demonstrably done a better job with their display, they over play nitpicks, ignore elements blowing them up to be catastrophic failures, or resorting to bad faith criticisms of problems that don't exist, like saying two distinctly different colors look the same when we can very clearly see they do not, or suggesting a tiny accent element that's not the focus of the challenge should be way bigger (because we need to make it sound like you did a bad job, based on the announcement we have to make in ten minutes). And then they don't even consider the "tasting element" as a factor when they can't pretend that the pre-chosen losers did that better too.

Every season it follows the same pattern, unless one team's display is so sloppy/falls apart/loses pieces and the judges have no other option but to pick the team they hadn't chosen before they filmed. These shows are only fun when they're not so scrupulously scripted, and they've only gotten more scripted every year. Adding cookie artists didn't help, it just exacerbated the problems.