Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Baking It’ On Peaco*ck, A Holiday Baking Spin-Off Of ‘Making It’, Hosted By Maya Rudolph And Andy Samberg (2024)

Three years ago, Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman started their feel-good crafting competitionMaking It.A great combination of crafting competition and funny interaction between theParks and Rec co-stars made the show a low-key hit. Now Poehler has produced a spin-off of the show, this time bringing a holiday baking competition into their barn. And this time, she’s recruited herSNL friends Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg to host.

BAKING IT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We zoom in on a snow globe. Amy Poehler, in herMaking It overalls, thanks her buddy Maya Rudolph for housesitting the barn for the holidays. Andy Samberg joins them. Then they insist on doing a competition there, singing “Baking It” to the tune ofMaking It.

The Gist:Baking It, if you didn’t realize this already, is a holiday baking spin-off ofMaking It, the craft competition Poehler hosts with Nick Offerman. Rudolph and Samberg are there to keep things moving and provide a lot of goofy laughs. But the hard work is being done by the eight pairs of contestants, competing for a $50,000 prize.

Each day, the teams will be given a quick-bake challenge, called “Short & Sweet”, and a dream bake challenge called “Pie In The Sky.” In the first episode, the Short & Sweet theme is “Eight Crazy Bites”, in honor of Hanukkah. The eight bites can be sweet or savory, but they need to tell the hosts and judges something about the bakers.

Who are the judges? Four opinionated grandmas: Nana Harriet, Grandma Anne, Gigi Sherri and Bubbe Norma. They are chatty, opinionated and love their grandkids. And they all are accomplished bakers.

For the Pie In The Sky challenge, the contestants are tasked to make a cake where the outside reflects the personality of one team member, and the inside says something about the other. We see results as varied as a cake made to look like a striped popcorn cup to an elaborate rose with gulab jamun on the inside.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?Making It‘s comedic vibe mixed withThe Great British Baking Show.

Our Take: That comedic vibe is really what makesBaking Itdistinctive fromTGBBS.It’s odd how the format has come full circle here, withMaking It adapting the format to crafts, and now bringing it back to baking. But without Rudolph and Samberg’s presence, along with the opinionated grannies, the show wouldn’t fly at all.

What kind of expertise do Rudolph and Samberg have with baking? We have no idea. For all we know, they’re both experts. But they’re there to be funny, and the interstitials where the two of them riff off each other are often the funniest parts of the episode. We definitely laughed at how Samberg describes Hanukkah: “We all get together seven times a year to complain and drink wine.” When Rudolph says that sounds fun, Samberg chimed in a line that was one of the funniest things he’s ever said: “Yeah… Yeah… It’s not.”

They have a good rapport with the contestants, and they do a good job of helping relieve some of the tension when they go to each station to talk with each team. Could there be less schtick and more views of the contestants succeeding or failing with their creations? Sure. But it could also be that most of the teams so nailed the round there was no real drama to generate.

For the team that got eliminated, the question came down to taste vs. presentation. It was a bit of a surprise which one won out.

Sex and Skin: Lots of food p*rn shots, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: The eliminated team gets a big hug from the opinionated grandmas; Nana Harriet complains about her handbag slipping off her shoulder as she walks to their station to hug them.

Sleeper Star: All four of the grannies make the competition all warm and fuzzy. But they also know what they’re talking about and make for pretty good judges.

Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you want a gentle, family-friendly baking show that’s pretty funny, thenBaking Itis a good choice to watch over the holidays. Rudolph and Samberg are on their A-game here, but the opinionated grannies are the show’s secret weapon.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

StreamBaking It On Peaco*ck