Cake wrecks for kicks
If, like Ben Pobjie, you find most baking show contestants a bit too… proficient, you’ll love Netflix’s latest confection.
Aren’t you sick of The Great British Bake-Off, and its less aristocratic cousin, The Great Australian
Bake-Off, and all the celebratory positivity that these shows keep sending out into the world? Aren’t you fed up with seeing ordinary people make their dreams come true and prove their baking skills in heartwarming pastry journeys punctuated by sweet encouragement from expert judges? Haven’t you just about had enough of watching baking competitions where the winner is great at baking, and the runners-up are really good at baking, and all the others are actually pretty good at baking? Don’t you long for a show where everyone sucks and the judges openly laugh at their incompetence? My friends, Netflix has come to your rescue.
Nailed It! is the show for everyone who ever dreamed of being a famous master baker, but eventually realised that they had absolutely no talent and gave up on that dream entirely.
Hosted by the bubbly and gleefully insensitive Nicole Byer, the show takes ordinary home bakers and gets them to show exactly how ordinary they are. Because these aren’t the amateur geniuses that shows like Bake-Off showcase: these people are seriously, irretrievably awful at baking.
Luckily, they are aware of this fact, so it doesn’t end up like the opening episodes of American Idol.
In each episode, three bakers are asked to recreate spectacular baked goods, their efforts to be judged by celebrity cakesmith Jacques Torres and a guest judge, and the most successful will win $10,000. “Most successful” is a relative term, as the winner never comes up with anything actually good, just slightly less nightmarish than their rivals.
It’s hard to fully convey just how refreshing – how positively exhilarating – it is to finally see a baking show where a contestant can not only serve up a Donald Trump cake that looks like an albino Gollum, but where nobody pretends for even a second that the dessert has any redeeming features.
Lopsided, misshapen, deformed and
downright terrifying cakes and cookies are unveiled to hysterical laughter on all sides, and everyone has the time of their lives.
Nailed It! has no sentiment, no inspiration, and no skill – it’s a celebration of ineptitude, and the beauty of that cannot be underestimated.