Great British Bake Off promises no "Mexican Week" debacles this year

Although it maintains (mostly rightly) its reputation as one of TV’s most gentle reality competitions, The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show does run into the occasional warm bain-marie of controversy from time to time. The show’s most recent season took an especially heavy amount of flak for its themed “Mexican Week”—not because there’s anything inherently wrong with pushing British bakers to explore Mexican cuisine, but because of the show’s handling of the idea. (Which is to say, dressing up presenters Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas in sombreros and ponchos and having them shake maracas while speaking in bad Mexican accents.)

But not this time around: Per Deadline, the show’s producers have nixed the idea of doing a “national” week on its upcoming 14th season entirely. Per producer Kieran Smith (talking to The Guardian in a pre-season piece), “We didn’t want to offend anyone but the world has changed and the joke fell flat. We’re not doing any national themes this year.” Smith promised the show would be going with more traditional weeks this time around: “We’re going very traditional. We’re doing all the regular weeks: Cakes, Biscuits, Bread, Patisserie, Chocolate, plus Party Cakes is a new theme.” (Judge Paul Hollywood added that the goal is to present “accessible” challenges to the bakers in the tent this year.)

Much of the focus on the piece, meanwhile, is on incoming co-host Allison Hammond, who’s replacing Lucas on the series. Judge Prue Leith, true to form, did not hold back on her preference for the new situation: “It’s such a relief,” she says. “Those three boys [referencing Fielding, Lucas, and Hollywood] together were like schoolkids. Always descending into hysterics about sausages or beavers.” That being said, Hammond is clearly having her own kind of fun on the show: “Prue pretends she doesn’t like the innuendo,” she asserts at one point “but she loves it really.”