I love this show, and even with all the baked goodies to look at, my favorite part is the cutaway shots to the beautiful landscaping and grounds. They are almost like mini stress-busters for me. Of course, there are a million other pieces to the puzzle of this show that make it top quality, but I love the scenery that surrounds that tent.
shareI love that too, especially when they show ducks in the water and an occasional lamb in the field. That whole setting with the big tent in the field and that old house in the background provides such a beautiful atmosphere, much better than being in a generic TV studio somewhere.
Speaking of the house, I've always wondered if the bakers stay there over the weekends. I doubt if they'd have time to go back to their homes on Saturday and then return on Sunday for the Showstopper. They frequently show the bakers walking down the steps between the house and the tent and I've always wondered about this. Does anyone know?
"Welford Park, near Newbury in Berkshire, where filming takes place over 10 weeks.
Filming starts in April, with one episode filmed every weekend, when contestants stay in a nearby hotel before returning to their normal lives on weekdays."
I spotted this in an article about the upcoming season for the end of August in England.
Thanks, mary. I had no idea where the filming took place but I did secretly hope that the bakers got to stay in that great-looking house.
shareAgain, thanks for for directing me to this answer.
I was also hoping the contestants were able to stay at that fabulous looking house. I had wondered if they only film on the weekends because I figured they probably had families and work to attend to.
Imagine every weekend for 10 weeks you get to participate in this wonderful opportunity. But I could see, also, how nerve wreaking the competition is on all of them.
I'm sooo happy for Nadiya. She really had a roller coaster ride. I was delighted with the reaction of her family - her kids hugging each other and crying, her dad jumping up and down and her husband looked and sounded very proud of her.
I have watched Chopped and Food Network Star and it is a world away from TGBBS. The Brits seem nice and supportive of each other and are a delight to watch.
But the Americans make me SICK. I've seen some of these jerks say, to the judges, "you can't talk to me like that" and then LEAVE - one guy just took of his apron and flounced out the side door! Another guy placed all his used dirty prep pans and utensils around his stove and the judges had to tell him, "hey respect others and don't leave all that on the floor for others to have to trip over".
Interestingly - I would say 60-70% of the men come in talking about how great they are
and they consistently bomb. I've seen a couple of women come in and they seem even worst than the men in praising themselves and of course they also bomb.
I stopped watching Chopped and FNS because a LOT of the "chefs" are egotistical and just plain psychos, LOL.
I'm an American and I MUCH prefer TGBBS - I've never seen bad behavior on that show - thank goodness.
I'm an American too and I wholeheartedly agree with you about GBBS.
The worst behavior I've ever seen on it... and this really doesn't even constitute bad behavior... was a couple seasons ago when Ian's ice cream-based Baked Alaska was accidentally taken out of the freezer by another contestant and melted with only a minute or so left before judging. Instead of presenting the melted mess for the judges to at least taste, he threw everything into a trash can and left the tent. He returned later and presented the trash can to the judges, who scolded him for not at least turning in what he had even though it was a mess and he wouldn't have won that round. Like I said, that's the worst thing I've seen on this show and it doesn't even hold a candle to some of the routine everyday behavior I've seen on American shows.
I used to watch Buddy Valastri's The Next Great Baker and enjoyed it. For the first couple seasons it was about the baking and decorating But then came Gretel Ann and her ugly attitude of "I'm the only one that realizes it's a competition" which I guess meant to her that cheating (hiding baking trays and changing oven temps) was acceptable. Buddy even laughed when commentating abut these incidents. It was not fun to watch and angered me. This was not Survivor, this was baking. Learn your audience.
I was encouraged by the backlash and pure disgust for the behavior by fans. Of course Buddy back peddled and said he had no idea yada yada, but it was painfully obvious that this was encouraged and viewed as good television. The fact that the show tanked after that season is a good indication that we viewers do NOT want to see that crap.
Since watching TGBBO I have wanted to show producers of TNGB and Buddy in particular and say "LOOK, it's baking! They like each other and don't sabotage and the best baker wins! and guess what? It is interesting and fun to watch on its own! TAKE NOTES"
I used to watch Cake Boss (also featuring Buddy and his bakery), but even that show became increasingly staged."Oh no! We dropped the cake! And I need to deliver it in only two hours!!" and then they magically pull it off, or some drama between his family. It became so overly ridiculous that I stopped watching fairly early on.
MasterChef is another show that's gone down the "drama" route. I don't know why these shows can't take ordinary people and just let them cook/bake (like in TGBBO). No, they need to have rivalries, villains, and give contestants perks so they can sabotage the others. The "judges" seemingly make up/enforce rules whenever it suits the direction the show should be going. It has to be one of the most ridiculously fake competitions on tv right now. And to me, if they'd just let the show be as it was intended to be (a cooking competition between home cooks) it would have been just fine.
That shocking behaviour made the news here and the BBC received over 500 complaints about it. May we never have a repeat of such terrible times again.
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