10 Unexpectedly Awesome Netflix TV Shows That Need Binge Watching
5. Nailed It!
Okay, this might raise a few eyebrows - but Nailed It! isn’t just another MasterChef/Bake Off style cookery competition.
Premiering in March 2018, the show was inspired by an online fad for terrible amateur bakers posting pictures of the godawful messes they’d created while trying to pursue baking perfection. That would be the key to the show’s unexpected success: it became ‘so bad it’s brilliant’ by showcasing the efforts of self-confessed terrible bakers and encouraging the judges - and the audience at home - to laugh with the competitors, not at them.
Run over 35 fast-paced minutes and a frenetic edit, the bakers would be allowed to hit a panic button if they ran into trouble, gaining assistance from the judges. Nailed It!’s host, comedian Nicole Byers, would also insert herself into the show by allowing the first round’s worst baker to hit a second panic button propelling her at the other two competitors to psych them out and distract them.
Nailed It!’s frenetic edit plays against reality show competition tradition by removing the usual contrived, staged drama, while choosing to play the show for laughs rather than baking excellence removes all pretension from the competition. And it is still a competition - the winner gets ten grand.
Refreshing, silly and so much fun to watch, Nailed It! is the antidote to and the antithesis of reality television as you know it.