I've mixed entire seasons of Hell's Kitchen and I've mixed entire seasons of Master Chef. What has always interested me is how collaborative an environment Master Chef is - the cast lives in the same hotel for the duration, and they have a little hang-out room where they look up recipes and stuff, and none of it is filmed. Behind the scenes there's a ridiculous amount of camaraderie that Fox deliberately excises. Compare and contrast with Hell's Kitchen - those guys live in the same dorm and they hate each other. Master Chef has to play down how much everyone is just there to have a good time and make friends while Hell's Kitchen has to play down the fact that their contestants are fragging each other.

I feel like when you start with amateurs, who know they're amateurs, who have no interest in becoming professionals? You get a bunch of vacationers who are not going to let you ruin a good time. We had to reshoot a couple ceremonial beats on Master Chef once because none of the producers were clever enough to notice that all the contestants were wearing matching chef hats in solidarity with a contestant who had just been (kinda unfairly) eliminated. But I feel like when you start with the grasping influencer "professional" caste you get people who will stitch each other up for a pack of cigarettes.

From that perspective, Bake-off can't help but be nice. They shoot that thing Friday-Saturday-Sunday and then the normies go back home and practice. They're constantly reminded of normalcy, they can commiserate with the outside world, they have time to reflect. The stuff that makes it crap is entirely enforced by the producers - "Bakers, you have half an hour to make macaroons!" "Welcome to an un-airconditioned tent in July, let's temper chocolate!" "Yes it's raining absolute buckets but for some fucking reason you are all going to make toffee today because we're British and have no fucking idea how to work with the weather." "That's right, we've failed to give you blast chillers for another season, have fun making the ice cream we insist be done in three hours." If the British weren't a bunch of cheap shits that show would be so much better.

I am FPSing vicariously through you, warrior. Give 'em hell.