‘The Great British Baking Show’ is (Thankfully) Back in a Bubble for 2021

We don’t yet know when exactly The Great British Baking Show Season 12 will land on Netflix, but we know it’s soon. We haven’t been introduced to this year’s crop of bakers, but we already know we’ll fall in love with them. All we really know about the new season of The Great British Baking Show is that judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith and hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas are back and that they once again quarantined for weeks in a bubble at Down Hall.

That means, yes, the “Bake Off Bubble” is back in 2021 and I for one am thrilled about it.

When COVID-19 hit last year, it didn’t just halt life as we knew it, but threw a wrench in television production schedules. How could shows keep everyone on set, from the star talent to the production assistants, safe from COVID? The Great British Baking Show was one of the first shows to figure out how to resume production by quarantining everyone together in a bubble for the duration of filming the entire season. Their chosen location? Down Hall Hotel Spa and Estate, located just outside of London.

Matt Lucas confirmed back in May that the production would once more enter the “bubble” and The Sun just gossiped that life in the bubble was anything but boring, with the top talent partying all night at the hotel bar with the bakers. So the Bake Off Bubble came back and I hope it becomes the norm. Besides keeping everyone in the production safe from illness, last year proved that the bubble helps with the overall chemistry of the show’s cast.

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The Great British Baking Show has weathered a number of challenges over the past few years. In 2017, the show switched networks in its native Great Britian shaking up the core cast. Prue Leith replaced Mary Berry as one of the judges and hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc were replaced by Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, who also has since left. While the show was as lovely as ever, the new team didn’t really seem to connect with each other or the bakers as much as the original quartet did. That is, until last year.

Because the judges, hosts, and bakers were all quarantining together, a sense of camaraderie oozed into the actual reality show itself. The bakers became best friends sooner, the judges were slightly less catty with their comments, and Noel Fielding stepped up and became more engaged than ever before. When some of the single parents won Star Baker, their kids came out to embrace them at the end of the episode!

If The Sun’s reports that this year’s “Bake Off Bubble,” complete with late-night carousing and a pop-up “indie festival”, are true, then it would seem that once again the experience of quarantining together bonded the show’s cast and crew. In my opinion, that’s a great thing as it foreshadows more fun and friendliness this season.

So, yeah, it sucks that we still live in a world where COVID-19 affects the way television is made, but in the case of The Great British Baking Show, the bubble has proven to be the rare precautionary measure that might actually make the show better than it was to begin with.

Watch The Great British Baking Show on Netflix