‘The Great British Baking Show’ Hot Take: Crystelle Deserved Star Baker This Week

The Great British Baking Show rocked fans’ expectations this week when the season’s frontrunner Jürgen Krauss was eliminated right before the show’s finale. Jürgen had dominated the competition all season long, with three Star Baker wins and the most consistently high average in the dreaded Technical Challenges. For weeks, it was assumed that the final would come down between Jürgen and Giuseppe Dell’Anno, another baker who had consistently dominated the competition. However the Semi-Finals of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix turned everyone’s expectations upside down. Jürgen was out and Crystelle Pereira — the baker with the fewest Star Baker wins of the quartet — won the week?

Do I think Jürgen’s elimination was handled well? No. Do I think there’s a rational argument for Jürgen’s elimination? Sure, especially if you go back and carefully listen to how the judges appraised each Signature and Showstopper Challenge. Do I think that Crystelle’s Star Baker win was earned? Absolutely.

Technically, I agree with Jürgen’s own take that there were “four Star Bakers” in the tent this week. Any one of them could have won the day and I would have been satisfied. But I do think Crystelle eked out the win with a really magnificent showing in both the Signature and Showstopper Challenges (which typically are weighed more in judging than the Technical). Crystelle pulled off magic in The Great British Baking Show Semi-Finals and that should be celebrated.

Last week I speculated on the remaining bakers’ chances to win The Great British Baking Show looking at the math of it all and the narratives this franchise loves so much. While I noted that Jürgen was mathematically considered the odds-on favorite, I was slightly skeptical that he would win it all. Giuseppe, Crystelle, and Chigs Parmar were all being slotted into “underdog” narratives of one form or another, especially with regards to the latter two. While it seemed mathematically unlikely that Crystelle would win the whole season, I noted that it wasn’t impossible:

Hear me out: If any of the guys fumbles under the stress of next week’s Semi-Finals, Crystelle has an opening provided she calms herself down and pulls it together. If there’s one thing Crystelle has that the other three remaining bakers don’t, it’s tenacity. If there’s a second thing, it’s truly innovative flavors. If Crystelle fights, she can make it to the finals. Then it’s just about wowing Paul and Prue with flavors they’ve never seen before. (And, uh, yeah, hoping one of the other three mess up.)

So Crystelle is the least likely to win, but that doesn’t mean she won’t. Miracles happen in The Great British Baking Show tent all the time…

It seems that no one explicitly fumbled in the Semi-Finals, but Crystelle was able to calm herself down and pull it all together. In fact, going into the tent, she seemed the least daunted, noting that if she was eliminated this week, she was proud to have made it so darn far. She made a conscious decision not to expect a win and to just have fun. Crystelle also wowed judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith with…guess what? Her flavors. So her tenacity and creativity won out.

Looking at each round carefully, you could say that Crystelle was tied for first place after the Signature and after the Technical, everyone was about equal. Crystelle and Chigs got ever so slightly better critiques on their Showstoppers than Jürgen and Giuseppe. (Prue didn’t like the look of Jürgen’s and Giuseppe’s entremets didn’t have the promised pine nut flavoring.) So it’s at this point, I think, you bring in the Technical Challenge scores. There, Crystelle edged out Chigs, who was in dead last. So if you look at it that way, and acknowledge she wowed Paul and Prue in her Signature and Showstopper, yeah, it makes sense!

I’m never going to be over losing Jürgen, but I don’t think that awful decision should blight what Crystelle has accomplished in the tent. All four of the semi-finalists deserved to move on to the finale. When it came down to the day — and these three specific bakes — Crystelle did enough to win the title of Star Baker.

Now the question is who will win The Great British Baking Show this year? Crystelle, Chigs, or Giuseppe?

Watch The Great British Baking Show on Netflix