Sorting Out ‘Great British Bake-Off’ Availability in the U.S. — More Twisted Than a Cruller!

So when did everything get so mismatched? We’re sorting out the confusion below… and at the risk of starting another Revolutionary War, let us just say this is perhaps the only time the British custom of calling TV seasons “series” makes things clearer.

Netflix’s “collections” are out of sync with the season numbers.

Log into Netflix these days, and you’ll find several “collections” of what the streamer calls The Great British Baking Show, starting with Collection 5 and going up to Collection 12 — or, come Friday, going up to Collection 13.

According to a handy chart compiled by Reality Blurred founder Andy Dehnart, Baking Show Collection 5 is actually Series 8, Collection 6 is Series 9, et cetera. For the collections currently on Netflix, you can add 3 to the Baking Show collection number to get the Bake Off series number. Baking Show’s Collection 13, therefore, is Bake Off Series 16.

But it wasn’t always that straightforward. Netflix previously streamed Series 5 as Collection 1, Series 4 as Collection 2, Series 6 as Collection 3, Series 7 as Collection 4, and Series 3 as “The Beginnings,” mind-bogglingly. And for a lot of that jumping around, it was our poor, federally-defunded PBS that’s the culprit.

PBS renamed the seasons first.

Before Netflix brought Bake Off to us Yanks, that honorable duty belonged to PBS. And it was actually PBS that started the tradition of mis-numbering Bake Off seasons, referring to Series 5 as Season 1, as Dehnart reported for Grub Street. Then, to make matters worse, PBS started airing the seasons out of order, too. PBS went back in time and made Series 4 into Season 2. Then it aired Series 6 and 7 as Seasons 3 and 4, respectively. And PBS did the time warp again and fashioned Series 3 into Season 5.

NBC News explains that PBS went back to the Bake Off archives and aired past seasons of the show because new seasons weren’t ready by the time PBS had programming gaps to fill.

Netflix then licensed the seasons from PBS and kept the numbering scheme, according to Dehnart, harebrained though that scheme may be. Except on Netflix, Season 3 wasn’t called Season 5 as it was on PBS but instead referred to as “The Beginnings,” even though GBBO had begun with Season 1… as, you know, TV shows tend to do.

Roku, at least, gets it right.

If there’s one beacon of hope, it’s Roku. In 2022, Roku acquired the first seven seasons of The Great British Baking Show, meaning American viewers could, at long last, see the first two seasons. And, as Telly Visions notes, Roku not only included special episodes never before seen in the U.S., but it listed each season by its original season number. Do wonders ever cease?

Oh, as for that Bake Off vs. Baking Show name switch? Turns out, Pillsbury has the trademark for the “bake-off” term. And as YouTuber Captain Disillusion pointed out, the Bake Off hosts have to rerecord their intros for the Baking Show edits, and post-production workers have to scrub all mentions of the phrase “Bake Off,” even from the all-coveted cake stand prize. That must be more frustrating than a soggy bottom.

The Great British Baking Show, Collection 13 Premiere, Friday, September 5, Netflix

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