For years, television viewers have seenchefs compete in creating culinary concoctions. These kitchen competitions come in a wide variety of flavors; one might see an unreasonably angry British fellow yelling from underneath his shock of perfectly coiffed, unseasonably blonde hair, or it might be a tender blue-eyed silver fox, flanked by a tender grandmother, softly critiquing pies and puddings. Sometimes, viewers are madeto watch a chef that couldn’t cookto save their life.
However, nothing could have prepared the modern viewer of competitive reality cooking shows for the wild and weird world ofNetflix’s 2022 releaseIs It Cake?In this new show, a group of bakers are called to a peculiar task. Put simply, the competitors attempt, through intricate constructions and a delicate frosting hand, to create cake replicas of random objects realistic enough to fool a panel of judges. The first season’s cakes were stunning, and fortunately, no one broke a tooth in the attempt.
However, fans ofIs It Cake?have developed a taste for sweet surprises, and in a potential season two, it would behoove showrunners to implement a few simple changes.
A Rules Rehash
Many bakers rose, and many bakers fell; in the end, onlyAndrew Fuller, an eccentric cake crafterwith a penchant for the horrific, could take home the $50,000 grand prize. While Fuller, who won the hearts of viewers with stories of world travel with his boyfriend, as well as a series of culinary creations that would make Michelangelo weep, was undoubtedly a deserving winner, the show’s competition structure left a little to be desired.
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Here’s where the problem lies. For the first few episodes, there are no eliminations. Each episode has an individual winner, who then gets to pick their competitors in subsequent episodes, and this structure remains when eliminations begin. While there is some strategy in choosing strong bakers in the hopes of eliminating them, the structure is ultimately unfair to those who achieved success in the earlier, non-elimination episodes.
The Mikey Day After Tomorrow
Is It Cake?was hosted byMikey Day(Saturday Night Live,The Tonight Show With Jay Leno), a charismatic goofus with a heart of gold, a pair of baby blues that would make Sinatra blush, and an over-reliance on cheap jokes. While Day performed adequately in his role forIs It Cake?season one, a potential season two shouldn’t feel attached to him as host. Even beloved, long-standing television hosts can be succeeded by worthy replacements. There’s no reason, barring a potentially eyebrow-raising contract between Mr. Day and Netflix, to letIs It Cake?get stale (pardon the pun).
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One potential host of the theoretical season two could be Nicole Byer(The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine). Already the host of another popular Netflix cooking reality show,Nailed It!,where amateur bakers attempt to replicate professional creations, her bubbly personality and quick-witted commentary would be the perfect backdrop toIs It Cake?Imagine the cherubic character actor, wielding whatever dangerously pointy, fondant-ready steel implement the crew provides, slashing into replica rubber duckies. All while revealing, rather than gore, a ganache, or similarly, wedging her weapon du jour into a leather-bound tome, the judges swore had a ribbon made of frosting atop it.
The Baker Behind the Cakes
Take a look at that shoe pictured above. Even after seeing the show, it’s still impossible for the untrained eye to see the fondant formations and crumbly constructions that make up this decoy desert. This is far from the only impossibly like-like creation baked onIs It Cake? For example, the winner, Andrew Fuller, made an entire replica suitcase, complete with travel stickers and bulging with frosted, hastily packed clothing.
However, the impressive efforts ofIs It Cake’scompetitors only serve to foment one question in the mind of viewers. When each episode is nearing its conclusion, and that week’s winner is forced to choose between two identical bags of money, one real, one cake… who made those last two cakes? The most impressive creations in the entire show are crafted by an unknown baker. A hypothetical season two would benefit from a final challenge against whoever it is in the back of the studio making those hyperrealistic baskets.
The bakers cooked, Mikey Day cut, and we all cried.Is It Cake?season one was somethingNetflixaudiences never knew they needed but now could never live without. If season two is going to measure up, it needs to deliver a whole new batch of tasty trickery. Without a slight shakeup of the ingredients or a full-fledged recipe change, viewers will soon lose their taste for fake cakes, which is a very strange sentence to write.
