There are signs of strain, if not desperation, at the BBC, as it fails to come up with hit new entertainment formats. As a result, things like this and Spelling Bee (which actually looked as though it had been retired) are being bumped up to more prominent positions, though they are themselves already pretty tired shows.
The format changes deemed to make this suitable for prime time have not done it any favours. For a start, an hour of it is far too much; and Susan Calman, installed as presenter where there had been none before, is totally superfluous and (therefore) just irritating. At one point, because someone had been appointed as 'veteran' mentor despite being unable to eat fish, we had a ludicrous situation where no fewer than three people - one per contestant - were hovering annoyingly around the kitchen and getting in the chefs' way.
I thought children's literature would be a welcome relief from the sanctimonious themes of recent years with all those heroes, but it appears political correctness is now too deeply ingrained to be removed. The chefs - few of whom give the impression of having read any books - seem to expect applause if they produce a dish representing racial harmony, or dyslexia, even if it's horrible; and the Scots in particular think it a great thing to use any ingredient from Scotland no matter how revolting everybody finds it. Efforts to make the contestants more 'diverse' routinely end in early failure. Then we were treated to a tirade from Cressida Cowell about school libraries which was as woolly a piece of thinking as you could want.
The portions are getting vanishingly small (steak with one chip - ONE!!); but perhaps it doesn't matter as few of the chefs produced anything that looks like it would be worth eating. So many of them are about technique and concept, and you wonder whether they really understand what it is to *enjoy* a meal.
It's not quite a dead horse, yet, but this extra flogging isn't doing it any good.
2021: the reappearance of things like this and Masterchef far less than a year after the previous series shows that they only continue to be flogged harder. GBM has another improvement for the worse in the replacement of Susan Calman (who is perhaps too busy having grand days oot) with the self-important though entirely unqualified Andi Oliver, who insists on chirping up with her own contribution after the mentor has delivered his judgement - an infuriating habit. And she in turn has been replaced as judge by Rachel Khoo, another entirely undeserving case and one of the most irritating people in TV. I suppose we should be grateful that we still have two of the original judges; but, truth be told, they don't play a big part in the show as it now is.
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