The Great British Baking Show: The Professionals

This is a slightly different format than the other baking shows of the same name. Different judges and different hosts- one of which you may recognize as a contestant from the great British baking show/bake off, Liam.

The judges are actually professional chefs, but definitely not professional actors. For some reason their dialogue is scripted and their mannerisms and speech are over the top ridiculous, but not in a comical way- just cringe and robotic.

The hosts are a whole animal of their own. While I like Liam's personality when he's just being himself, him playing host is pretty bad to watch. The other host, Tom Allen is supposed to be an actor. He's worse than Liam (if possible) and honestly just unbearable to watch. I got a taste of him on Great British baking show holidays and thought "surely he can't be this awful, maybe some writer screwed him over?". I wish I'd been right. He is terrible and between the hosts and judges, this one is nearly unwatchable. If not for the excellent creations by the chefs, this would be trash. I can foresee it getting cancelled anyway.

I was excited to see this series pop up on Netflix since I'm a huge fan of the original GBBO series and I also loved Liam as a contestant so I was happy that he landed a gig as a host on one of the show spin-offs. That's about as exciting as this show gets. I agree with what the other reviewers have said here, the judges on this show are terrible. They're arrogant, mean, and WAY too critical of what these bakers create. There's no fun or lightheartedness here like in the original series, there's no chemistry between the judges and contestants and unfortunately as much as I love Liam, he doesn't have the greatest chemistry with the other co-host. I'll finish the show to the end, but I'd be surprised if this one gets any more seasons...

It's really too bad, Liam was charming on his season of the real show, but stacked against the bald doofus and the overanimated judges, he doesn't stand a chance.

The worst part of all of this is that after 2 episodes I don't know much at all about the chefs, because the 2 judges devour center stage. The woman is just loud, and the guy is fine till he likes something, then it's "boom *mic drop* boom BOOM" ridiculously.

Also, the male judge is French. Does he or the gal not know the difference between Macarons, a French delicacy, and Macaroons, an American invention?

I watched because I thought Paul & Prue would be working with other professionals. The chefs have the short end of the stick here, it's a waste of their time and talent. Skip it.

The show is interesting enough despite the head judge whose accent is very thick. The hosts are irritating at first but they grow on you. The most irritating aspect of the whole show is the annoying Harry Potter-like music that plays every time they show what the contestants are making. Ugh! A little variety would have been nice. It gets annoying really quickly. Otherwise, the use of classic music is very nice.

As far as the competition goes, however, the creations are artistic, dramatic and sometimes spectacular. There is the usual drama of show pieces collapsing. The judges seem to be fair in their eliminations.

I guess I enjoyed this enough as an interlude to the original, there is a lot missing. The pluses...loved seeing Liam. The judges don't bother me - they're judging professionals rather than amateurs, they should be harsher imo.

But let's be real. They should have named this Confections, Chocolate, and Sugar Work. There is very little actual baking. Where are the cakes? The bread? Other baked good? I may be misremembering, but iir, there are a couple of episodes with zero actual baking.

In any case, I'd rank this as "fine" but don't expect a version of its namesake. Other than the format, this ain't it.