I'm making this review to fight against all of the "I hate this host" comments. Mikey Day is funny and, in my opinion, this show would be entirely unwatchable without his campy/quirky brand of humor and energy (which is also used to great effect on SNL). To be fair, a show about cakes impersonating other objects is already absurd, so might as well go all the way.
The things that can be improved...
1. Why are the non-baking contestants sitting on a bench for 8 hours? I hope they are just there for maybe 30 min to get some show material, not for an actual 8 hours. They should come up with a better way to pick the baking 3, or send the non-bakers home after they lose the opening cake-off. They can focus more on the craft (or the backgrounds of the contestants) instead of the peanut gallery comments if they are worried about not having enough material/interaction.
2. The judges need to get a little bit closer OR the lights need to be a little bit brighter OR they need to have a little bit more time to decide. It looks like they are just too far away to see any details. Maybe there can be more decoys if they are worried about the judges getting in too close and making it too easy. They are viewing them from a comical distance. I think even 5 feet closer would be a big improvement.
3. The button-press screen for the judges does not work well. The 3 judges rarely ever agree and the whole selection process, while decently suspenseful for TV, is chaotic and doesn't make sense. Maybe they could give each judge their own panel and they all vote separately. Then, they can go by whichever cake gets the fewest votes as the cake. For example, if all 3 judges pick it, that cake would lose against a case where none, one, or two of the judges picked it. They could escalate the prize money with the degree of deception ($5k if it fools one judge, $10k if it fools two judges etc).
4. The guy cheated in the very first episode? What up with that? They should either let all of the contestants decorate the decoys or none of them should get to do that. Since the whole premise is MAKING CAKES TO LOOK LIKE OTHER THINGS, I'm not real comfortable with making other things look more like cake instead. Yes, it *really* matters. More than anything.
The things that can be improved...
1. Why are the non-baking contestants sitting on a bench for 8 hours? I hope they are just there for maybe 30 min to get some show material, not for an actual 8 hours. They should come up with a better way to pick the baking 3, or send the non-bakers home after they lose the opening cake-off. They can focus more on the craft (or the backgrounds of the contestants) instead of the peanut gallery comments if they are worried about not having enough material/interaction.
2. The judges need to get a little bit closer OR the lights need to be a little bit brighter OR they need to have a little bit more time to decide. It looks like they are just too far away to see any details. Maybe there can be more decoys if they are worried about the judges getting in too close and making it too easy. They are viewing them from a comical distance. I think even 5 feet closer would be a big improvement.
3. The button-press screen for the judges does not work well. The 3 judges rarely ever agree and the whole selection process, while decently suspenseful for TV, is chaotic and doesn't make sense. Maybe they could give each judge their own panel and they all vote separately. Then, they can go by whichever cake gets the fewest votes as the cake. For example, if all 3 judges pick it, that cake would lose against a case where none, one, or two of the judges picked it. They could escalate the prize money with the degree of deception ($5k if it fools one judge, $10k if it fools two judges etc).
4. The guy cheated in the very first episode? What up with that? They should either let all of the contestants decorate the decoys or none of them should get to do that. Since the whole premise is MAKING CAKES TO LOOK LIKE OTHER THINGS, I'm not real comfortable with making other things look more like cake instead. Yes, it *really* matters. More than anything.