Netflix’s ‘Nailed It!’ Is America’s Debauched Answer To ‘The Great British Baking Show’

Netflix’s Nailed It! is joy incarnate. It is the very feeling of a belly laugh taking over your body magically transformed into a half hour cooking competition show. I can’t say anything more profound than that. Nailed It! is just about guaranteed to lift your spirits like nothing else on streaming.

Nailed It! borrows its name from an internet baking meme wherein amateurs try to “nail” instagram-worthy bakes by mirroring them, but more often than not, find themselves failing. While the official description makes it sound like it’s a straight-forward show where the amateurs take on the professionals, it’s actually not that at all. Three total amateurs attempt to recreate complicated bakes while the professionals laugh at them.

Does that sound cruel? Trust me when I say the show is too absurd to be truly cruel. Nailed It! is hosted by comedian Nicole Byer and famed chocolatier Jacques Torres. While the banter at the judges’ table is what takes the comedy over the edge, Nailed It! establishes its madcap tone with its bizarre rules — no one is eliminated after the first round — and silly flourishes. The person who wins that first round must wear a spangled chef’s hat and one of the ways an underdog can gain traction is by hitting a button to get Byer to nag the competition. The whole thing is gloriously entertaining.

What makes Nailed It! so good is that it understands the gulf between what we see on baking competition shows and what we are honestly capable of producing at home. Instead of bemoaning this discrepancy, Nailed It! revels in it. It’s one of the few shows that cops to how hard baking is.

In fact, Nailed It! reminded me of a debauched American twist on that most sterling of cooking shows, The Great British Baking Show. While that program is earnest and loving, full of serious-minded bakers doing their best, this one is mad and teasing, full of self-deprecating bakers also doing their best. What’s amazing is both The Great British Baking Show and Nailed It! share a sense of wit and a spirit of encouragement. That is, they’re both fun and they both make you want to bake. Nailed It! might be bonkers, but it’s not without expert tips.

The first season of Nailed It! is comprised of 6 half hour episodes and is now streaming on Netflix.

Stream Nailed It! on Netflix