Season three of the Harry Potter baking competition show dropped on HBO Max yesterday, and even though I had never watched season one or two, and even though I’m not that obsessed with Harry Potter, I had half a mind to jump in and watch and maybe write about it for this blog, as I do with all these other baking shows. I mean, it’s a baking competition show, and it’s got Duff Goldman, I figured — how bad could it be!

But I was already kind of on the fence about the whole Harry Potter theme. I am aware that as a Catholic Christian, maybe I shouldn’t even support this franchise; some people take issue with the Latin use and think the books are actually teaching young people to practice witchcraft. I dunno about that. I read the books before my conversion, and personally I think it’s a stretch to view the books as dangerous in any way. By modern standards, they’re actually quite wholesome. And I mean they celebrate Christmas at Hogwarts, so I think it’s pretty evident that in this world wizards, who are after all just people with special talent, can and should be Christians, that Christ died and rose for them as much as for everyone else. Just my opinion.

And plus, I do like to support J.K. Rowling, as everyone’s trying to cancel her because she stands up for women’s rights and women’s protection. I agree with her, and admire her courage; she’s no sellout, she’s out here bravely defending the truth, even at the cost her public image and a large chunk of her fandom.

And, of course, like most people of my generation, I enjoyed the HP books when they were first coming out. I discovered them shortly after Prisoner of Azkaban, quickly devoured the first three, and still remember the thrill when Goblet of Fire was released. It was like a holiday! It was the event of the year! Everyone everywhere was carrying around a copy! And that was the best book of them all.

One through three were excellent, four was peak, and then… five through seven went downhill in a serious way. It was like Rowling just kind of stopped editing, or her editing team stopped editing her, and it felt like those latter books were just raw rough drafts, feverish and messy and rushed and word-vomity. Don’t even get me started on that freaking epilogue. The corniest thing ever — just as bad as “Renesmee” from Twilight. Massively disappointing. This is what happens, I guess, when an author gets so successful that everyone’s willing to gobble up even their stupidest rough drafts of ideas, so long as they can get them to us ASAP. (This is one reason, btw, why I respect Patrick Rothfuss for simply not finishing the Kingkiller Chronicles, despite all the pressure. He realized he had written himself into a corner and couldn’t do the story justice, so, rather than churn out some subpar shit for money and clout, he just backed off. Hats off to you, sir (although I do regret never getting that third book).) What a shame. Harry Potter started so strong, and ended so weak.

But that fourth book! Oh man. The scene where Cedric Diggory dies — I reread that over and over and over. Not because I hated Cedric Diggory or anything — I just loved the delicious tragic romance of it, even as a young kid (my readers know how I love tragic romance!). So yeah, I do have my little loyalties to Harry Potter, because I did really love those early books.

Which brings me back to this competition show.

“Twenty-five years ago,” the hosts began the first episode of season three, “with the first film,” we were all introduced, he said, to the magical world of Harry Potter. — EXCUSE ME? WHAT? Don’t you mean twenty-nine years ago, in 1997 when Sorcerer’s Stone was published?! Did you forget that these were novels before they were movies? Are we just completely erasing the books from our collective memory?!

I never cared for the movie adaptations. I think I watched one or two of them, but only because I was with people who wanted to watch them — I’d never watch them on my own. Because the story already existed so beautifully in my head! I don’t need Hollywood’s vision of how that world looked to get in there and muck up my existing version! — I hate watching film adaptations of books that I’ve loved, for this reason (and this is why I’m not planning on watching the new East of Eden adaptation).

Admittedly I’m a bit conflicted on this issue, though, because there are few great books that I discovered by watching the movie first (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges; Ring by Koji Suzuki; Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert; Ritual by David Pinner…). So it’s not that I’m opposed to film adaptations of books in general. I think I just don’t like the extreme popularity of the Harry Potter movies, and the way they have all but erased the books, which are far, far superior, from the public consciousness.

So, right from the get-go, I was turned off by this competition show, because it was all about the movies and not the books. The first challenge was to create a showpiece based on a memorable moment from the first film. Why not the first book?

And that’s the other thing: “a showpiece.” They call this show Wizards of Baking, but it’s only like 5-10% about baking, and the remaining 90-95% about a combination of the HP movies, and sculpture.

I have said it before and will say it again: I don’t care about edible sculpture. This is not a baking show. This is a show about sculptors creating amazing 3D art in a medium that just happens to technically be edible. But who the heck is going to eat a whole train made out of just rice krispie treats coated in fondant? Who’s going to eat a pile of brown fondant greased up with Crisco? What’s even the point?? I do not care for nor understand this aspect of “baking” shows. I am here to see delicious and beautiful food. If you want to build a sculpture, just do that. The “tasting element” (which phrase alone informs us that the main part of this challenge is not about tasting) of this showpiece challenge was like an afterthought. I don’t care how skilled you are at modeling clay. I am here for cake and desserts. This was just a huge disappointment.

It was cool to see Priya and Chris from Spring Baking again — however, these were the only two contestants that I recognized. Which brings me to my third issue with the show. Apparently, all of these contestants had been on the show in previous seasons. So they never bothered to introduce them to us. It was all about the four teams, not the individuals. How am I supposed to connect with them? How am I supposed to care who wins? A baking competition show, in order to be compelling, needs to be about the human contestants. And each season should stand on its own as a competition. It shouldn’t be a continuation of some saga from the previous seasons. That’s not how baking competition shows work.

So this show is a major flop, in my book. Call it something else, maybe, but don’t market it as a baking competition show.

And please, let’s stop trying to erase the books. I’m afraid Rowling’s original beautiful work is just going to get buried deeper and deeper beneath all these screen adaptations — have you guys heard about this new TV series that’s coming next month?! For f’s sake! Can we stop remaking shit that doesn’t need to be remade?! It hasn’t been that long since the first series of films! Good grief! Shameless! Can anyone in Hollywood have a single original idea for once?!

Not to mention the absolutely embarrassing attempt to be “inclusive” by making exactly one character Black in an otherwise all-white cast — and the villain at that!! The shady one! The asshole! What a thoughtless, cringey, embarrassing move! I’m all for including actors of color, I think that’d be super cool — a Black Hermione would have been awesome, right? And/or like any other professor — but why Snape?! Were they even thinking, when they made that call?! That’s just blatantly racist! And literally everyone else around him is white. Oof, it’s such a bad look. Hollywood really just needs to quit. Let’s put Harry Potter to rest, can we? Let’s stop layering fresh shit on top of what was once a beautiful work of art.

So, in conclusion, I turned off the episode halfway through, and will not be discussing it any further. Rant over.