THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF
Channel 4, 8pm
The Bake Off final is here, and the three remaining contestants – Syabira, Abdul and Sandro – are tasked with making a perfectly scrumptious picnic for the Signature, a classic summer bake for the Technical and, for the final Showstopper, a bake that celebrates our planet. There’s no doubt that the three will thrive, having each gotten better and better as the competition progressed. Who could forget Syabira’s fairytaleready Jack and the Beanstalk pie, or Sandro’s astonishing globe made out of mousse? Though it’s been a delight as always to watch the bakers grow in confidence, one can’t help but feel that the glory days of Bake Off are behind us; hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas’s attempts at chatty banter are distractingly long-winded, stealing precious time from the reason viewers actually tune in – to see the amateur bakers creating wonderful treats (the incredible skills of the contestants from the get-go also now means that we get fewer hilarious mishaps, but we can’t really hold talent or practice, practice, practice against them). Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith, meanwhile, just don’t have the same chemistry that they (or others from former channels…) once did. How long until it’s the final finale? Poppie Platt