True story. Yesterday, I was minding my own business, enjoying a lovely Sunday, when my wife and I threw on Netflix and saw a new season of The Great British Baking Show. I said, “I guess the rest of our day is planned.” But no. Turns out it was not because after we finished the first episode, there was no second episode. We had to find other things to fill our time (we picked Target) because the new season is not bingeable.
Well, I immediately hit up the Internet to figure out WTF was going on, and it turns out there’s a perfectly good explanation behind it. Unlike the other Great British Baking Show seasons that arrive following their initial airing in the United Kingdom, viewers on Netflix are basically watching the show alongside our British counterparts.
The first episode of Season 10 of The Great British Bake Off, or Baking Show as the US calls it, debuted on Tuesday August 27th on Channel 4 (not BBC) in the UK. Then, three days later, the episode debuted on Netflix on Friday. The rest of the season is scheduled to follow that same pattern. There will be 10 episodes in total, and one of the weeks prior to the finale will have a surprise double elimination, though the hosts are not giving any hints as to when that might happen.
Obviously, there are a lot of pros and cons that come with shifting a series from a binge model to a traditional weekly television model. The upshot of the former is it allows you to just completely immerse yourself in a show for a small period of time. It gives the viewer instant gratification and allows for a completely immerse experience. There’s nothing quite like just blowing through an entire season of a show on a Saturday.
On the other hand, there’s also nothing quite like stewing on a show for a week. Too often when people binge, they don’t stop to talk about what’s happening in between episodes. The best part about the television format is being able to stop and speculate on where things might be heading. That might be more important with a show like Mindhunter, which was also recently released, but there’s an element of fun there with reality television shows too. I want to talk about who I think is going to win, and I want that opinion to slowly evolve as I get more information throughout the season.
Regardless of where you stand on that issue, however, I think we can all agree Netflix giving us faster access to the episodes is great from a spoiler perspective. If you’re not the type of person to want to drag it out over 10 weeks, then you’re more than welcome to simply wait until they’ve all aired and then binge them all at once at that time. Because once they’re on the service, they’ll be on the service to stay.
