After a triumphant finish with the right decision – in my opinion, made, the last ever BBC Great British Bake-Off winner was crowned! The programme is going to continue elsewhere but with three of the component parts missing… it won’t be the same, it can’t be the same, and I’m not sure I shall watch it. It might be different and better – although I can’t imagine how – but it certainly will be different. Even if the same format is kept, male and female judge bakers, a pair of presenters (either a well-known double act or two random people from other fields) and the three-part weekly competition in a tent – even if that all copies what has gone on for the last seven years, it won’t be the same.
Everything has to change, of course; the present series is very different from the original, and there is nothing worse than a programme, film series, book series, running out of steam and becoming stale and flabby. However, I think it is a great shame that this star programme has ended as it has. The BBC will no doubt put something together with the remains of the team, who knows what, cooking or something different, and I will certainly watch that and see how it goes!
The ending of the show has been disappointing – the way it has ended is disappointing, but it has made me think about things – shows, programmes, films, book series, going on too long. When I write my first Radwinter novel I had no intention of there being a sequel. I had been tempted to write sequels for some of my other novels, and indeed, the plot lines continued in my head long after I finished the writing! However, on finishing Radwinter in which a character follows his father’s family history, it seemed only half written – what about his mother’s side of the family? Then closer to himself, what about his parents? What happened to them to make them as they were? By this time, after three books, there had to be a fourth as a final dark secret was discovered, and the ongoing mystery of someone who had disappeared needed to be solved.
I am now nearing the end of the fifth story in this series, and I have a plot outlined for another… but at what point should I say, ‘enough!’ Will I recognise when it is time for my characters to carry on in their own imaginary world without me? I hope I do, before the stories become ‘stale and flabby’!
If you haven’t read my Radwinter sotries, or my other novels, here is a link – and please let me know what you think! Kindly criticism always welcome!
Filed under: Food, Radwinter Tagged: genealogical mystery, Radwinter, series, The Great British Bake-Off
