2010 was shaping up to be a golden year for baking on TV, as commissioners finally cottoned on to baking’s rise in popularity. Alas, following the disastrous showing for bakers in Mary Queen of Shops, The Great British Bake-Off, currently showing on BBC2, looks like another damp squib. "There was a moment three-quarters of the way through, when you expected the picture to topple forward and hit the floor as the cameraman finally gave up the will to live," wrote The Telegraph’s underwhelmed Iain Hollingshead.

"The other odd thing about The Great British Bake-Off, in which 10 home bakers were herded into a marquee to hand-mix their way to glory, was the humourlessness that pervaded the proceedings," noted an equally whelm-free Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. "It seemed to be a programme that had had the lightness deliberately beaten out of it." Hardly bodes well for the raft of bakery programmes still in the offing...