Rejoice! New Episodes of The Great British Baking Show Will Air Weekly on Netflix

For my fellow Americans who know the pure joy of watching The Great British Baking Show, either on PBS in the past or Netflix now, great news as arrived. New episodes of the series will be airing on Netflix on Fridays alongside the UK release (well, a few days afterwards—the new season premieres on the UK’s Channel 4 August 27th). Instead of waiting a year or more for a new collection to arrive and trying to avoid spoilers of who the final bakers or winner will be, we can keep up week to week and discuss the (lack of) drama as it happens together!

Like most, my experience with The Great British Baking Show (called the Great British Bake-Off in the UK, but “bake-off” is trademarked here in the States) thus far has been one of binge watching. There is really nothing cozier on chilly winter nights than to watch a tent full of amateur bakers gently competing with one another as (new) hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig walk around making jokes and helping out. The drama, in GBBS terms, comes only when judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith dab at a Victoria sponge and declare it possibly “overwerked” or “oonderbaked” (those are mostly from Paul). And who, of course, will earn a Hollywood Handshake??

Watching weekly will certainly be a change (will it inspire me to bake more in between and try out recipes from the show? Time will tell), but perhaps a welcome one. Netflix doesn’t often release things in that format, but it also signals how much Netflix is growing and changing into, essentially, a traditional cable company. But whatever it takes to bring me more GBBS, honestly.

If you haven’t watched The Great British Baking Show, let me recommend it as someone who does not usually watch either cooking or competition shows. It’s a very, very low-key series that is really beautifully constructed, extremely gentle, charming, and lacking in all of the cutthroat machinations that often define these kinds of series. It’s very sweet (no pun intended), and always makes you feel good watching it. Truly, it is a gift to soothe the weary TV-watcher’s soul.

The Great British Baking Show Collection 7 arrives on Netflix Friday, August 30th. H/T to Decider for alerting us to this exciting news.