Suggesting the network might be struggling to understand the appeal of its recently acquired Great British Bake Off—a show built on 12 pleasant people making stupidly elaborate cakes in a tent, while a couple of comedians make the most polite dick jokes you could possibly imagine—Channel 4 says it intends to give the beloved and massively popular cooking series “a modern and future facing” spin.
That’s from network CCO Jay Hunt, who just recently announced her decision to leave her post in September, not long after she helped negotiate the network’s extremely high-profile acquisition of GBBO from BBC 1. (The deal reportedly went for as much as $98 million.) The move prompted a massive overhaul of the show’s on-air talent, with judge Mary Berry and presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins departing the series, and only glowering bread man Paul Hollywood remaining behind.
Talking to BBC News, Hunt quashed rumors that Hollywood has been clashing with the show’s new talent, judge Prue Leith and comedians Sandi Toksvig and Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding. And while she didn’t make it clear what specific changes this “modern” version of the show might contain, Hunt did note a move away from the series’ classic light baking innuendo in favor of more “modern” and “surreal” comedy. “There are no soggy bottom jokes,” she said, which raises the question: What’s even the fucking point?
We’ll know more when the Channel 4 incarnation of the series arrives some time later this year.