The New Season Of ‘The Great British Baking Show’ Is Worth Savoring

Last fall, The Great British Baking Show came to Netflix and quickly became a low key American obsession. We binged our way through bin-gate and quickly fell in love with the quirky British export. Never before had a reality competition show been so…nice.

When you get down to it, that’s really the appeal of The Great British Baking Show: its gentility. Instead of taking place in a sharply lit studio, this cooking competition show takes place in a pastel-accented tent in the middle of an English garden. The competitors all support each other and wish for the best. The judges are harsh, but empathetic. The notes that Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood give are meant to improve the bakers’ forms and not tear them down. It’s altogether lovely.

What’s not so nice is how difficult it is for Americans to see this charming British gem. In Britain, The Great British Baking Show is called The Great British Bake Off, and it is an annual cultural event. No spoilers, but the last season’s winner was called upon to bake Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday cake. Yes, the Queen — or one of her aides — watches this show. There have already been six seasons and the seventh is set for later this summer. We Yanks have only gotten a chance to watch three of these seasons, and this newest one aired in the UK last summer. That means that if you were waiting for a new season to drop on Netflix, it might be a while.

It might be a few months before you can binge-watch this latest season of The Great British Baking Show, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t savor it right now. Episode 2 airs tonight on PBS at 9 PM ET and it will be available to stream for free on the PBS app and on PBS.org tomorrow. Sure that means you will have to wait a week for the next installments, but trust us when we say that The Great British Bake Off is worth practicing patience for. This latest season might be the most delightful yet. The blend of competitors is top notch and they are all interesting and lovely. You’ve got “school swot” Ian, lovely Scottish lass Flora, former British officer Paul, hunky Tamal, sweet and shy Alvin, ambitious Ugne, and the absolutely lovable Nadiya (just to name a few).

The best thing, though, about watching new episodes week by week is that it means that you can’t burn through an entire season of The Great British Baking Show in one weekend. You have the whole summer to enjoy it. Oh! And there’s even better news because after tonight, you can look forward to not one, but two new episodes airing per week.

Tonight’s big challenge? Biscuits. You know, they’re what British people call cookies, but they aren’t really cookies because cookies are soft and gooey and biscuits are hard and often savory. The contestants will start off with a biscotti challenge, then a perplexing technical, until finally they have to build a box out of biscuits that will hold even more biscuits! Sound like fun? Well, it’s a delightful, delectable blast!

[Watch The Great British Baking Show on PBS]

[Photos courtesy Love Productions]