A little while back I noted my… irritation… with the otherwise really enjoyable Great British Baking Show show.

In sum, I felt that toward the end of seasons, the two judges sometimes -not always, mind you- play favorites and wind up dumping someone even if they perform well and should (IMHO, of course) stick around (you can read my ridiculous ramblings about that here).

The next episode after the one I mentioned above featured a very surprising elimination.

Now, the show has been over for a couple of weeks so I imagine most people have already seen the end results. However, if you have not, I WILL GET INTO SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPHS ABOUT WHO WON THIS SEASON’S BAKE-OFF.

So if you have yet to see the season and plan to, PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

So in the third from the last episode, which was the subject of the link I presented above, it was my feeling in that episode Giuseppe Dell’Anno, despite being a really consistently great baker for most of the show’s run, had an off day and Lizzie Acker, who was far more inconsistent in the show’s run, nonetheless had a really good day and it was my opinion, based on what I saw (obviously, I cannot actually taste their bakes so I have to take the judges’ opinions about how good -or not- they are), that Dell’Anno should have gotten the boot.

Instead, it was Lizzie Acker who got the boot despite having what appeared to be a very good baking day (or two) that episode.

Yes, she was more inconsistent and yes, if I were to have the two before me and had to pick which was overall the better baker I would go with Dell’Anno.

However, if we were to judge them just by what they did that episode, it sure did appear to me like the judges decided to go with the better overall baker and not the one that shined that particular episode.

Interestingly, the next episode featured (AGAIN, SPOILERS!) one of the two very favorite bakers, Jurgen Krauss get shockingly booted, but I suspect in his case the judges simply had no excuses. Mr. Krauss did well but the two “lesser” (I say this only in terms of overall performance across all episodes to date) bakers, Chigs Parmar and Crystelle Pereira, did exceedingly good while Giuseppe Dell’Anno bounced back from his not very good performance the week before.

In fact, of the remaining four, Ms. Pereira was likely the one most in jeopardy in the semi-final episode if one based their opinion on overall performance. However, she simply smashed the semi-final bakes and wound up being the week’s “Star Baker”. Giuseppe and Chigs appeared to do quite spectacularly during the early rounds as well so it fell on Jurgen, who did well (as usual) but not spectacular to be the odd man out.

Apparently, this was a controversial end result as many viewers felt Jurgen should stay but I had no problems with this end result. In fact, the way it went seemed to me the way it SHOULD have gone the previous week and when Dell’Anno was spared when, IMHO, he performed worse than Ms. Acker.

Anyho…

So going into the finale, we had Giuseppe Dell’Anno, Chigs Parmar, and Crystelle Pereira.

And as we moved along from the first two challenges, it seemed to me Crystelle Pereira, who was very much on the outside it seemed, I felt was doing the best.

The others, don’t get me wrong, were doing well but it seemed like heading into the final bake she was the one inching over the others.

However, one of her elements in the finale wound up being uncooked, a major problem.

At that point, I felt the finale’s champion would be Chigs Parmar, who was most consistent throughout. Mr. Dell’Anno wasn’t doing bad but didn’t seem to be quite as spectacular as the week before when he was saved and Jurgen was taken out.

So it was a HUGE surprise to me when Giuseppe Dell’Anno was crowned the finale’s winner.

Sigh.

Once again I felt like the judges decided to supplant their views of that week’s baking and look at the overall performance in order to crown the winner.

I cannot argue that over the course of the show’s season Mr. Dell’Anno was the overall best baker of those three that remained. Both Mr. Parmar and Ms. Pereira started decently but sputtered here and there. They really seemed to get their collective acts together as the show’s final episodes were made but the errors they exhibited earlier on seemed to weigh more on the judges’ opinions as we reached the finale.

Again, its something I’ve seen in the show and which bothers me because you would think the judges would base their opinions on that week’s bake, as they did when Jurgen was booted, but they simply do not as they go along and, as with other seasons here and there, I feel Mr. Dell’Anno’s win was not totally deserved.

At least not for what he did in the final week.

C’est la vie.