The Netflix Highlight: “Nailed It! Holiday” Season 2
What’s up: Netflix’s “Nailed It! Holiday!” is a baking competition all about failure. Imagine one of those viral photo listicles of cake failures come to life. This special wintry season has fake snow and baked goods themed around the holidays.
In each episode, three amateur bakers (who often seem to have only baked once or twice before in their lives) try to make a professional-level baked good from a prompt in a short time window. For example, in this season, the bakers must create an intricate cake bust of Ebenezer Scrooge that spins around to reveal an angry face on one side and a happy face on the other. None of the bakers come close to accomplishing this. Each time the failed cakes are revealed, the hosts admirably laugh and act surprised at the failure, despite knowing what’s coming.
The season begins with a short, campy scene of host Nicole Byer hanging a sparkly ornament on a jutting screw in the set, while wearing evergreen-angelic garb. The co-host, Jacques Torres, enters the holiday-themed set wearing a Santa hat and a red robe. Stage manager/associate director Wes Bahr brings them a huge sack full of supposed fan mail.
“That’s a big ole sack!” Byer declares. She then reads the sweet messages for awhile. The bit concludes with her saying, “Happy ‘Nailed It!’ everyone!” and the season begins.
The main cast includes Nicole Byer, Jacques Torres and Wes Bahr. Guest hosts this season include Jason Mantzoukas and Maya Rudolph.
“Nailed It! Holiday!” runs six episodes of roughly 30 minutes each in the second season.
Sum-up: This show is ostensibly about baking. Before the contestants inevitably mess up, host Jacques does do a quick rundown for viewers of how to properly make the featured baked goods. But “Nailed It!” is actually a comedy at heart.
The guest hosts tend to be comedians, and the show lets them vamp and make jokes on the margins of the competition. Byer’s script has endearingly cringey puns, such as “Ho, ho, oh no!” When Maya Rudolph gets introduced, text onscreen explains that she’s “not related to the reindeer.” Solid holiday content.
Occasionally, the show awkwardly makes jokes about the nightmare world happening outside. One baking fail is called “a commentary on the state of our country,” while another is deemed an illustration for “global warming.” After this joke, the show cuts to footage of a glacier melting. For a sugary, zone-out show, these brief moments of existential despair certainly feel jarring.
Still, most of “Nailed It! Holiday!” sets a cheery mood. The show even found a Santa-looking contestant that sneaks sips of wine while baking. This exists as a perfect background to your winter drinking and seasonal activities.
Heads up: Once you’ve seen one episode of “Nailed It!” you’ve kind of seen them all. The show offers little in terms of surprise or variation. Each episode hurtles toward the conclusion of showing off baking disasters. Only watch when you need something mindless.
Close-up: The show also mines its own production failures for comedy.
During the first episode of the season, Nicole asks, “Jacques, are you excited about today?” Jacques responds, “I cannot wait ... no bad hamburgers!” Nicole and guest host Jason Mantzoukas burst out laughing. The camera shows the teleprompter. Jacques should have said “No bah humbugs.”
Nicole responds: “No bad hamburgers! So cute!”
The show then just starts this scene over with the hosts reading the canned jokes in the script. “No bah humbugs,” Jacques says. “Oh, Jacques is getting all Dickens on me,” Byer responds, supposedly off the cuff, but we know it’s part of the script because of the events that just transpired.
Allowing the show to embrace its own failures certainly makes it more charming.
You can watch a snippet from this moment here:
History: Television shows focused on food have been around for quite some time. “Cook’s Night Out” on BBC is often cited as one of the earliest cooking programs on television. It debuted in 1937. The French chef Marcel Boulestin hosted the 15-minute show, which lasted five episodes.
Comparable Show: The “Nailed It! Holiday!” series is like the “Great British Baking Show: Holiday” but louder and more American and with more exclamation points (literally if you look at the title). Both shows feature light-hearted baking competitions that embrace failure, although the failures in “Baking Show” become teachable moments, while the failure in “Nailed It!” is pure comedy.
The Characters And Money: The show leans into the ridiculous nature of winning money on a game show. When the show announces a winner, one of the hosts will shoot money (likely prop money) out of a gun at the winner. Presumably, the show writes a check afterward and doesn’t make the winner pick those bills up.
Bonus: This show earned an Emmy nomination in 2019 for Outstanding Competition Program. Jacques posted an Instagram video of him receiving word about the nomination. It looks pretty staged, but it’s still endearing. Watch:
“Nailed It! Holiday!” Season 2 Trailer:
1. Netflix has commissioned a pilot script for a prequel series to the 1974 movie “Chinatown,” with David Fincher and the movie’s original screenwriter, Robert Towne, collaborating on the script. If the pilot goes to series, the company hopes Fincher will direct some of the project, but details remain scarce about the agreement so far.
2. And to switch from a prequel to a sequel, Netflix will make a sequel series to “Vikings,” which originally aired on History. The new series will be called “Vikings: Valhalla” and takes place 100 years after the story of the first series concluded. I wonder how many years the show could time jump and still be credibly considered a sequel. Maybe “Vikings: Manhattan” about six buddies who drink coffee could be a future sequel series once Netflix loses “Friends,” but can’t legally do a “Friends” sequel.
And here are the shows and movies that joined Netflix this week:
Nov. 19
- “Iliza: Unveiled” (Netflix Original)
- “No hay tiempo para la verguenza” (Netflix Documentary)
Nov. 20
- “Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator” (Netflix Documentary)
- “Dream/Killer”
- “Lorena, la de pies ligeros” (Netflix Documentary)
Nov. 21
- “The Knight Before Christmas” (Netflix Film)
- “Mortel” (Netflix Original)
Nov. 22
- “Dino Girl Gauko” (Netflix Family)
- “Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings” (Netflix Original)
- “The Dragon Prince” (Season 3, Netflix Family)
- “High Seas” (Season 2, Netflix Original)
- “Meet the Adebanjos” (Seasons 1-3)
- “Mon frère” (Netflix Film)
- “Nailed It! Holiday!” (Season 2, Netflix Original)
- “Narcoworld: Dope Stories” (Netflix Original)
- “Nobody’s Looking” (Netflix Original)
- “Singapore Social” (Netflix Original)
- “Trolls: The Beat Goes On!” (Season 8, Netflix Family)
Nov. 23
- “End of Watch”
