GABS

I watched the first episode of  "The Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition"  yesterday. This show has been through a lot and you can see it in the current season.

It was first called " The American Baking Competition." It was hosted by Paul Hollywood and Marcela Valladolid and filmed in the States. Because Hollywood and Valladolid had an affair during the show Valladolid and Hollywood were out and the show was renamed "The Great American Baking Show." The re-branded show ran for 2 seasons until season 3 was pulled off the air because of allegations against one of the judges - Johnny Iuzzini. 

The current season (4) the "Holiday Edition" is now airing. Valladolid is still gone as is Iuzzzini, but Hollywood is back as a judge. It is now filmed in the UK (probably because of the affair the last time it was filmed in the States) and all the US contestants were flown to the UK. They try to poke fun with the different names of things from British-English to American-English and you can hear them using Metric instead of US units. It just doesn't have the same carefree and fun feel as the other seasons (minus 3) did. Even the British show that this was based off of: "The Great British Bake Off" - which Hollywood was also on - has completely changed. Maybe the show and its different versions (or at least some of the people involved with it) are cursed. 

I guess I'll have to skip these shows/versions and stick to other holiday cooking/baking shows like "Holiday Baking Championship" on Food Network - that show has run for 4 seasons now and still seems fun and carefree.