info-42423

All over the map, time wise. Dragged out story lines. Succinct, apparently, is not part of the creators' vocabulary. Condensed to two episodes would have been watchable and riveting. Watching the narrative unfold over 9 episodes was a tiring slog. Since some of the characters are interesting, and engaging, this would be a good episode by episode story arc crime show. But not this gargantuan Ring Cycle of a TV series.

This has almost nothing to do with "Blithe Spirit", either the 1945 movie or the original play. Almost all of the non-improvable Coward dialog has been jettisoned and replaced with dull, unfunny, amateurish twaddle. Chateubriand ground up and turned into meatloaf from a lousy recipe. Broad, hammy performances, that must have been embarrassing for the actors to deliver, and certainly is embarrassing and cringey to watch. Miserable.

GBBS has gotten difficult and painful to watch.

Ridiculous technicals with only a fractional amount of time to complete are destroying what used to be an enjoyable, if slightly angsty program. And, I think, because of the long history of the program, the bakers seem to feel unnecessarily pushed to produce impossible to complete, and/or get right, show-stoppers. Disasters seem to happen with more regularity, and emotions, for my taste, are running way to high for what used to be an enjoyable, if challenging, TV show.

To appropriate a trope from you-know-who, the show has become under proved, and over baked.

I cried more at the end of this semi-final than at an episode of "Call the Midwife". That's not right. And it's a shame.