‘The Great British Baking Show’: Noel Fielding is “Traumatized” By How Badly the Bakers Did in “Pastry Week”

Noel Fielding said something during The Great British Baking Show “Pastry Week” that stopped me in my tracks. No, it wasn’t a wacky story or his request to touch stuff on Maxy Maligisa‘s bench. During the judges’ final deliberation, Noel shockingly said he was “a little bit traumatized” by the bakers’ collective performances. Noel Fielding, the guy who knocks over cakes for laughs and knows next to nothing about baking, was feeling disturbed by what went down in the Bake Off tent. Was he right to be?

While there have been many criticisms flung at the latest season of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix, usually the bakers aren’t to blame. No, not our precious angel baking babies. Not our Sweet Babboos. Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith are the villains of this show, not our beloved batch of remaining bakers. They’re innocent! But…they also fumbled quite a bit during “Pastry Week.” To Noel’s point, it was a tiny bit distressing watching the bakers struggle their way through the quarter-finals.

So what exactly happened? Why was The Great British Baking Show “Pastry Week” so disappointing? (Besides the spring rolls…)

This week of The Great British Baking Show is affectionally called the quarter-finals. Only five bakers entered the tent to duke it out for a spot in the penultimate episode of the season: Abdul Rehman Sharif, Janusz Domagala, Maxy Maligisa, Sandro Farmhouse, and Syabira Yusoff. Except for Abdul, every baker left has won Star Baker. Janusz and Maxy traded the honor back and forth for the season’s first four episodes before Sandro and Syabira caught up. Abdul might not have nabbed a win, yet, but he’s been consistently, er, consistent. (He also almost edged Syabira out this week so that consistency is not a knock, but a strength!)

So “Pastry Week” looked like an even playing field of the season’s five most technically proficient bakers. But then several of them kept making rookie mistakes in their Signature Challenge. Sandro forgot to turn on his oven. Maxy tried to make square vol-au-vents with warm butter. Janusz gave up on his claggy custard. Abdul and Syabira didn’t make super bad mistakes, but neither of them totally nailed the pastry.

The less I can add to the spring roll debacle, the better, but the Showstopper Challenge should have been straight-forward for the bakers. I mean, compared to biscuit lanterns. They were tasked with making multiple pies to create a 3D storybook landscape. And once again, Janusz, Sandro, and Maxy struggled with their pastry, while Syabira and Abdul impressed, though Abdul was told his bakes were too “simple.” (Okay, but they were well done.)

“Pastry Week” was a trying couple of days for the bakers in the Bake Off tent. Was it traumatizing to watch, as Noel suggested? No, that was “Mexican Week.” I still have the shakes from that episode. The bakers stumbled a bit, but that’s not a big deal. The bigger issue is how “ruthless” Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith were in their assessments. At times, they literally mocked the contestants by just listing everything they did wrong and muttered backhanded compliments.

There’s a lot that’s going wrong with this season of The Great British Baking Show. Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith have the fangs out while the producers have lost sight of the show’s original winning formula. Heck, Matt Lucas has decided to just double down on his obnoxious time calls as some form of insipid protest. Bakers having a bad day sucks, but it’s part and parcel for The Great British Baking Show experience.

And if the top five bakers are struggling so much with Paul and Prue’s challenges, then the fault still lies with the production. Either too much is being asked of these literal amateurs or casting isn’t working hard enough to find bakers of the highest calliber.

Again, our sweet bakers have done nothing wrong.