‘The Great British Baking Show’ Finally Let An American in the Tent – And It Got Wild

If last season of The Great British Baking Show was a “very demure, very mindful” refresh of international Netflix hit, trading viral bakes for continental classics, then the Season 12 Premiere can best be described as fully embracing“brat.”

Already dated pop cultural references aside, the last time I experienced this much tonal whiplash between two back-to-back seasons of The Great British Baking Show, I was being introduced to Mary Berry’s South African replacement, Prue Leith. The last season of “Bake Off” was indeed a tempered delight, favoring wholesome quietness over reality television tricks. The Great British Baking Show Season 12 premiere isn’t bad, per se. I’m already madly in love with the new bakers and continue to adore Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding as a hosting pair. However, in just one introductory episode, The Great British Baking Show has broken three of its most enduring “rules.” 

**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show Season 12 Episode 1 “Cake Week,” now streaming on Netflix**

In just a little over an hour of runtime, The Great British Baking Show upended everything we know about the rules of the Technical  Challenge, shockingly reprieved all the bakers from a standard first week elimination, and…welcomed an American baker from the Bronx to the Bake Off Tent. 

The Great British Baking Show finally added an American to the mix and the end result is already giving reality TV mayhem. I fear the show may never be the same again. (I’m only half sarcastic.)

The Great British Baking Show has been an international hit for over a decade by sticking to a tried and true (and rather twee) formula. Twelve or so amateur bakers enter the tent to show off their homegrown skills and after ten weeks, the winner gets a cake dish. No one back stabs each other. There is no cash prize waiting for the contestants at the end. Friendships are formed, chocolate is tempered, and soggy bottoms abound. 

A big part of The Great British Baking Show’s brand is celebrating just how decidedly “British” the whole series is. Contestants brandish regional accents from all over the United Kingdom and beyond. Biscuit Week usually highlights the Brits’ beloved firm digestive variety of baked snacks over the U.S.’s preference of gooey cookies. And, of course, the whole thing takes place in a tent raised in pristine British garden. 

Although there have always been diverse nationalities in the tent — as, Britain, after all has welcomed immigrants as varied as the 20th Century’s wind rush generation from Jamaica to the medieval Norman invaders — we’ve never seen an American in the tent. In fact, as popular as The Great British Baking Show has been in America, there’s always been an unspoken rule that we should not show up on the classic version of Bake Off. We have our own American version for the role playing of it all. Our boisterous energy and sheer “Americanness” would be too much to maintain the delicate balance that keeps Bake Off so positively British. 

So imagine my shock when Jeff, born and bred in the Bronx before marrying his British wife, popped up in the tent. They were actually letting someone from New York City bake in the tent? And not like the Ellie Kemper/Zach Cherry version of the tent…but the Noel Fielding/Alison Hammond, fully British one. 

At first it seemed that Jeff’s arrival would not upset the delicate balance of the tent too much. He gamely listened to Alison’s “New Yawk” accent and vibed well with the rest of the cast. But then, slowly, but surely, little twists arrived that soon signaled that his casting was an act of ambition on the producers’ part. They were going to make the show dramatic again. 

First, Jeff had to leave the tent early. No, he wasn’t eliminated for being from the five boroughs; he was under the weather. No matter. That happens in the tent. However, immediately after Jeff’s break from the competition was announced, the bakers learned that the Technical Challenge would be unlike any other we’ve seen before. They would not be getting a recipe. 

That’s right: they had to recreate a classic Battenberg after seeing and tasting a finished version of the bake. 

Nothing like this has ever happened in Bake Off history. In fact, it’s a complete upheaval of the rules that we already know. Usually, the bakers get a vague recipe with zero information about what it’s supposed to look or taste like. Naturally, people freaked out. (I would and I did and I was just watching on my laptop.)

However, the drama didn’t end there. At the very end of the episode, as Paul and Prue were debating which baker would go home, Noel teasingly asked what would possibly happen if they sent no one home. What? But it’s the first week. As sad as it is, someone has to go home!

Not so! Because of Jeff’s absence, Paul and Prue exercised their prerogative to spare everyone for a potential two-elimination bloodbath next week. Whether intentional or not, this last bit of chaos is all because of the American in the tent. 

All in all, I’m not sure what to make of the first episode of The Great British Baking Show Season 12 on Netflix. There’s a lot to celebrate, including Alison and Noel’s increasingly intoxicating rapport and a new group of adorable bakers to obsess over. Then again, the premiere had the arrival of an American, the upheaval of the Technical Challenge, and the strangeness of no elimination — not to mention someone got a Hollywood handshake in the first Signature Challenge!!?!

This could wind up being an incredible season of The Great British Baking Show, but the start has me slightly nervous we’re veering back into the abyss of manufactured drama, when the bakers are all the entertainment we need.