Great British Baking Show Power Rankings: The Finals
In the old days of this humble blog, I spent my autumns writing about both the NFL and The Great British Baking Show. And, back when I did start this blog, I was much, much, much more excited to talk GBBS than football. As soon as I was introduced to the show, it became clear to me that although baking is not athletics, it is, in this context, sports. There are winners and losers and triumphs and tribulations. There are magnificent feats of mastery that challenge our conception of what is possible.
What also struck me about GBBS is that, as with other seasons of other sports, the hierarchy within the show’s venerated Tent becomes clear, and in relatively short order. So, years before I even took my takes public, I found I was filtering most of my thoughts about GBBS through my perceptions of each season’s hierarchies. This process helped me consider the show more concretely, thus giving my hot baking takes a sense of direction. Once I noticed this, I realized that when my finest internets deigned to discuss the show, it was not through this lens, which meant I had organically stumbled upon a new way to discuss the show, one that I wanted to share with, if not the world, at least six to ten friends and associates.
In short, I realized that The Great British Baking Show needed Power Rankings. Just in case you are not familiar with concept of Power Rankings (this is, after all, supposedly a column covering the NFL), Power Rankings are a type of listicle in which the author ranks every team in a given sports league according to their whims. Theoretically, Power Rankings are meant to rank teams according to their quality, but in reality, every Power Rankings article you’ll ever come across is rooted in no more stringent a methodology than assessing a team’s record, the author’s priors, and the vibes. They are the perfect time-waster for bus commuters, bored dads, and distractable office workers. They contain just enough insight to be worth reading, but otherwise exist solely to make sports fans mad.
I managed to write a column of Great British Baking Show Power Rankings once a week, every week for three seasons. It was fun, but it was also work, and time-consuming work at that. I had to watch every episode at least twice to take notes, and GBBS episodes are hardly created equal in terms of interest (which is another thing that carries over from athletic sports, too: your entertainment is not guaranteed). The last season I covered for this blog more or less coincided with my first three months as a new parent, and writing weekly columns about both GBBS and the NFL under these conditions was completely unsustainable, so much so that I took an almost 2-year vacation from writing after that year’s Super Bowl.
When I came back, I chose the NFL, because it’s easier to write about and it brings (slightly) more readers to the site. But, now that Gross Football Lunch has become unbound, why shouldn’t I return to The Great British Baking Show Power Rankings? It’s my blog and I can write about whatever I want, considerations of marketability or planning or common sense be damned. If I can’t rank the bakers weekly, I can at least bring the gimmick back for this year’s Final, for old time’s sake.
What follows is a list of the three bakers competing in this year’s GBBS Final, ranked according to who I believe has the best chances of winning this year’s decorative cake plate of destiny or whatever, starting with my least likely to win baker and working up to most likely. The only methodology is that there isn’t a real methodology; this is all priors and vibes. If these rankings make you so mad you just have to take me to task in the comments or on the socials, then my work here is done, and done well. Let’s get to it!
3. Tom
What would the Bake-Off be without a steady stream of chaotic gay dudes who design their bakes with such grandiose ambition that they forget to answer the judges’ challenges? Tom is the latest and greatest iteration of this sturdy and beloved Tent archetype, a baker whose talent is so undeniable that it has brought him to the Finals despite his tendency to consider the parameters of each planned challenge a suggestion. It is all but impossible to imagine a more complete distillation of Tom’s gestalt than his Semi-Final Show Stopper, an immaculately conceived and executed tempered chocolate beehive that stole the spotlight from his relatively unimpressive macarons, which were the intended centerpiece of the challenge.
Tom’s situation is quite simple. He will either get his shit together in the Finals, or he will not. Victory will not be possible if his flavors are underwhelming or his designs get in the way of the judges’ parameters. With a sample size of nine episodes, it is much safer to assume he will keep being himself, and flash the same unrealized potential. I don’t mean to be this down on Tom, but he’s been a frustrating baker to watch all season. He’s this close to putting it all together, and he’s been this close to putting it all together, and he just hasn’t. Can he win? Sure he can! It’s just that in order to win, he has to stop being himself to some extent, and that’s simply not a safe bet.
2. Aaron
Aaron is a little bit harder to analyze through the lens of Tent archetypes, but only a little bit. His knack for flavor has been in evidence for the length of the season, and has helped him stick around through his Technical struggles more than once. The Flavor Master archetype has become something of endangered species on the show as the level of competition has increased, and Aaron has been baking well all around down the stretch of the season, but early on there weeks where I figured his time was coming to an end, and soon. It’s nice to see a baker improve and get hot over the course of the season, and I’m quite certain everyone else who remembers the Rise of Nadiya can agree.
But Aaron’s occasional misses, while largely quarantined in the first few weeks of the competition, do lead me to consider him a high-variance baker, and I’m concerned about how well he’ll hold up under the extra fine detail microscopes the judges break out for the Finals. We’ve all seen Finals where nobody really bakes to their potential before, and if you were to visit me from two days in the future to tell me that everyone struggles in this year’s Finals, I would be concerned that Aaron fell entirely flat. And of course, his work is cut out for him, because even if he bakes at his absolute best, he will still need to overcome…
1. Jasmine
What more is there to say about Jasmine that her track record hasn’t already made plain? I have seen each and every season of the show and I don’t believe there has ever been a baker in the Tent as dominant as Jasmine. Five Star Baker awards is unprecedented, and there was at least another week or two where it felt like the judges’ gave the award to someone else not because they baked better than Jasmine, but because they wanted to spice the proceedings up a bit. Even the best bakers in previous seasons struggled a little bit from time to time, and cast some doubt on their championship outlook. If Jasmine has put her place in the Finals in doubt at any point in the season, I must have missed it. She’s Max Verstappen, she’s the 1995-96 Chicago Bills, she’s the 1998 New York Yankees, and she’s the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Jasmine is inevitable.
That said, I maintain that the Bake-Off is a sport, and what is true in other sports is true in the Tent ,as well: that’s why they play the game. We watch the show to see great bakers bake beyond our wildest imaginations, but we also watch because we know the Tent is a pocket of the Chaos Realm made manifest on our world, and that any number of stupid things can go wrong once the bakers are on the clock. The fact Jasmine has been invulnerable to this so far does not mean she will remain so when it matters most.
NFL Confidence Pool – Week 10
Week 9 Correct Picks: 10/14 (0.714)
Season Total Correct Picks: 87/134 (0.649)
Week 9 Points: 73/105 (0.695)
Season Total Points: 733/1,069 (0.686)
Bye: Bengals, Chiefs, Cowboys, Titans
14 Points: Lions over Commanders
13 Points: Bills over Dolphins
12 Points: Colts* over Falcons
11 Points: Seahawks over Cardinals
10 Points: Broncos over Raiders
I didn’t knock Week 9 out of the park or anything, but I am grateful to have escaped such a chaotic week with only a couple of double-digit losses. With any luck, this batch of double-digit picks will all hit, and bring my season points average back above 0.700. These picks are high on division rivalries, but we know the Dolphins are not to be taken seriously, the Seahawks are legit, and the Raiders are awful, and with the Bengals and Titans out for the week, these are the juiciest mismatches left. I only wish I could bring myself to give the Colts 13 instead of 12, but alas, I cannot. The game is in Germany, the Falcons may be just good enough to gain power from the inherent chaos of international play, and last week reminded us that Daniel Jones is a constant threat to turn into himself.
9 Points: Buccaneers over Patriots
8 Points: Steelers over Chargers
7 Points: Rams over 49ers
6 Points: Packers over Eagles
You’ll notice that all eight teams represented in this group are respectable or better, which in turn means none of them are mismatches of any description, which in further means that none of them can command double digits. This Packers/Eagles game is the hardest to handicap of all of them; it’s all to easy to reduce the question of who wins to the question of which offense actually shows up. Lest you think you have what it takes to determine this advance, I must remind you that neither offense showing up is also an option. Pick whoever you want in this one, but assign with the greatest care.
The Patriots have yet to beat a non-division opponent that matters, which means I need to see them do so before I could consider picking them outright, which means that I can feel okay about giving the Bucs relatively big points. The Steelers don’t inspire much actual confidence, but Joe Alt is done for the year, and unfortunately that means the Chargers are, too. Even the veteran rest day Pittsburgh defense should clean up. If you’re willing to go big on any Rams/49ers matchup, you either haven’t seen many of their games or you suffered a recent and severe head injury. Take care of yourself and get it looked at.
5 Points: Panthers over Saints
4 Points: Bears over Giants
3 Points: Vikings over Ravens
2 Points: Browns over Jets
1 Point: Jaguars over Texans
Once again, I am taking the Vikings for my own personal reasons, and you needn’t follow me down this path. That said, my primary takeaway from last week’s Lions upset is that team health is important. The Vikings regained many key starters at important positions, headlined by right tackle Brian O’Neill and do-it-all edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkle, and the team played closer to last season’s lofty standards than I’ve seen all . You may take the Ravens if you wish, but I wouldn’t go higher than 7 or 8 points. If you’re looking to bump any of these other games up in the hope of avoiding bigger points on this week’s chaotic middle, you could go higher on the Bears and Panthers, but if your plan for the week involves trusting the Bears and Panthers, you’ve already fucked up. Best to take whatever Ls are coming, learn from your mistakes, and move on.
Enjoy the games, everyone!
Rob Writes About Whatever 