The Crown, Great British Bake Off, and a special guest
Oi lads it's a British double feature, plus our first guest James Hansen
Hello!
On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss The Crown season 4 (2020), a series about an antiquated British institution, and the Great British Bake Off season 11 (2020), a competition show that may also be an antiquating British institution?
P.S. If you are here from Taste, welcome!!! We love our culinary minded friends (clearly). Everyone else, check out the wonderful stories over at Taste!
Now for the show:
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01:27 Season 4 of The Crown, a Netflix series following the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, is about toxic girlboss Margaret Thatcher, the people’s princess Diana, and the growing obsoletion of the monarchy in a world that has already progressed past it.
Spanning the years 1979 to 1990, this highly anticipated season of The Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace makes clearer than ever the ornamentality of the royal family in this day and age. Politics and celebrity (as embodied by Thatcher and Diana, respectively) overpower whatever appearance of utility that the monarchy held.
The spectrum of Thatcher to Diana, most hated to most loved, also makes for an interesting dichotomy. Diana, played with exquisite vulnerability by Emma Corin, is oil to the royal family’s water. She serves as an example of what modern royalty could look like, but Prince Charles’s and Queen Elizabeth’s inability—or refusal—to understand her highlight the stiff impenetrability of the family, forcing those in their orbit to bend or break.
Meanwhile, Thatcher the Milk Snatcher is played with impeccable skill by Gillian Anderson, who nails all the physicality and intonations of the Iron Lady. There’s some complexity to the portrayal—is she, with her modest background and sense of conviction, preferable to the do-nothing royals?—but overall the show does depict her at appropriately ghoulish levels, scoffing at the common people and insisting that she’s just helping them help themselves through extreme austerity measures. The episode Fagan is a standout, going beyond the palace gates and Downing Street gates to showcase the miserable landscape that Thatcher has left the U.K.
Also: what a great show for WIGS.
Bonus: Pelin recommends watching Small Axe: Red, White, and Blue (out on December 4) and Meantime for more on the world that the Thatcher area created.
22:05 We have food writer and Eater London associate editor James Hansen on to talk about the Great British Bake Off (available for Americans on Netflix) and how it was maybe never meant to bear all the weight of 2020, just an idea!
Note: Spoilers for the episodes up to and including Patisserie Week, aka the episode before the finale, which will come out later this week!
Season 11 of everyone’s favorite baking competition show, which was filmed over six weeks in a COVID bubble this summer, shows that not even GBBO is immune from the pandemic. Per Eater’s Madeleine Davies:
Maybe the issue isn’t the show, at all, but rather proof of how hard this year has been. 2020 has been such a shit show that the The Great British Bake Off no longer works as visual valium.
[…]
So what’s next? … maybe we grow up and admit that the idealized world of Bake Off was never real to begin with and that we need to develop healthier, steadier coping mechanisms?
And here’s James writing for Eater London:
There has been a slow transition through the last few series from organic to manufactured; not just in terms of drama, but in terms of the very tasks set … Put this sense of confection against the slow dilution of the show’s coziness, and the result is a programme that has lost its mojo.
Damn okay!!!!
The Ringer has a pretty good five-point plan for “saving” Bake Off, most urgent of which is the edict “Paul Hollywood must be stopped.” Can’t disagree there!
Finally, we predict who will take the ultimate Star Baker title this week. Consensus is that it’ll be rosy-cheeked baking elf/twink Peter, although I’m not yet ruling out an underdog narrative with Laura.
Big thank you to James! Check out more of James’s work on Eater London (including his hilarious and smart GBBO coverage) and in his food media newsletter In Digestion.
Bonus links
This Lauren Oyler interview is so sharp and really worth a read.
Nothing else empty brain no think no read :(
(Seriously, though, always feel free to @ me if there’s something particularly good to read, watch, etc.)
Okay, thanks, all! Have a nice week! Make good decisions!
— Jenny
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Some credits:
Music: REEKAH
Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu
Special thanks: Dan Geneen