Netflix’s ‘Is It Cake?’ Is a Masterpiece of Stupidity (And I Love It)

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.

This week:

• WeCrashed, the 497th tech scam show this month.
• An absolutely perfect show we have discovered. No notes.
• An absolutely perfect show that was canceled. Many notes.
• Lady Gaga wins an award, and it is perfect.
• Gabrielle Union speaks against Disney, and is perfect.

I Present to You Is It Cake?, the Next Television Masterpiece

This week, like every week lately, was overwhelming. We’re humans. We feel deeply. We need to unwind. And, as we all know, watching TV is self-care.

You can keep your meditations, your healthy snacks, and your argument that exercising helps clear the mind. None of that holds a candle to eating a bag of chips in the corner of your couch while watching several hours of television. You can trust me on this. Few experts are as experienced in this particular practice.

As a leading mind in this field, I can tell you there are different levels to unwinding. Sometimes, catching up on the Oscar-nominated drama you missed hits the spot. Fulfilling. Cultured. Yay! Sometimes you need something more formulaic, like a good episode of Law & Order: SVU. There are times when you need a good distraction, for example a Real Housewives or a Bachelor. And other times you need to watch something so mind-numbingly dumb that it hypnotizes you into turning your brain off completely. Allow me, then, to recommend the new Netflix series, Is It Cake?

Several times an episode, the series asks the question, “Is it cake?”

Two bowling balls appear identical, but one, inexplicably, is a baked dessert. Time to cut into both and ask, “Is it cake?”

Panelists are brought on to judge. There are several cheeseburgers on pedestals. One is not beef. It is cake. How do we learn which it is? We cut into them all and ask each time, “Is it cake?”

Often, these judges are in disbelief. “Wait, one of these is cake?!!!?” Yes. That is literally what this show is. We ask, “Is it cake,” until we cut into the one that is.

There is something so refreshing, perhaps even inspired, about something as pure and base-level as this. Nothing is overcomplicated. There is no loftier commentary or ambition here.

There was simply a viral meme recently, in which talented bakers made everyday objects that looked like the real thing, only to blow people’s minds when it was revealed that it was actually cake. It played on the element of surprise, as well as, perhaps, people’s lingering trust issues. “That’s a shoe. What is that person doing using a knife to cut into that shoe? What! It’s not a shoe!? It’s cake!? Wow.”

Someone thought, let’s make a show about this. And that’s what we have. We have Is This Cake? I will watch every episode.

I Can’t Believe My Best Friends Are Gone

I have been in mourning all week. Only now do I feel strong enough to break my silence and speak on this heartbreak, pain, and extreme injustice.

If you haven’t heard, we lost one of the best among us this week. Pour out some lemonade, because Netflix has canceled The Baby-Sitters Club after two seasons. I am bereft.

This was a perfect show. This is me right now to every person who was involved in making it:

Inspired by Ann M. Martin’s popular book series, it brilliantly filled a niche that’s long been ignored: “stories about preteen girls that don’t oversexualize or infantilize them,” as Vulture’s Kathryn Vanarendonk wrote.

Vanarendonk interviewed The Baby-Sitters Club showrunner Rachel Shukert about the cancellation, what it means to have Netflix say “this is a series we don’t want to make more of,” and why people responded to the series in the first place. “It seems like girls are expected to go straight from Doc McStuffins to Euphoria,” she says.

Short of new episodes of the series—the fact that we never got a Mallory episode is a crime—this interview is the best way for fans to process the news. Read it here.

Let’s All Cry With Lady Gaga

We have been writing about the 2022 awards season for what seems like three years, which does not make sense according to the laws of space and time but does feel accurate. Maybe it has to do with this daylight saving time drama everyone keeps debating, which I refuse to understand or have an opinion about.

In any case, it’s almost done! One of the last precursor ceremonies before Sunday’s Oscars took place this week, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the only group with enough taste to give Lady Gaga the trophy for Best Actress. (Still not over her Oscar snub.)

It turns out that, from an entertainment perspective, it’s a brilliant move to give Lady Gaga an award. Her speech was sensational. It was everything you wanted it to be. She mentioned that she was Italian roughly 93 times, as if on a dare, as well as, at one point, bringing up meatballs.

But it was also quite emotional, with a lovely tribute to the strong women in her life, and also contained this line, which I loved: “These women taught me how to have big feelings in a man’s world, and that having big feelings is beautiful.” Representation for the Big Feelings Community! Watch the speech here. It’s lovely.

Gabrielle Union Gets It

Actress and producer Gabrielle Union, who stars in Disney+’s Cheaper By the Dozen and is stepmother to a trans child, might have seemed to be in an impossible position when she was asked about the Disney “Don’t Say Gay” bill controversy at the red carpet for the film. But her response, in my opinion, was perfect.

“Somebody asked me, ‘Are you disappointed?’ I’m disappointed when my order isn’t right at In-N-Out,” she said. “I don’t even think that’s a word that you could use for something like this, where children’s lives are literally hanging in the balance. We need to own that if you truly are taking stands against hate and oppression, you should not fund hate and oppression. Period. The damage is done.”

What to watch this week:

Life & Beth: Amy Schumer’s semi-autobiographical show will have you seeing her in a new light. (Fri. on Hulu)

American Song Contest: Kelly Clarkson hosting a TV series is my Bat-Signal. (Mon. on NBC)

Atlanta: It feels like we’ve lived seven lifetimes since this show last aired. It’s finally back. (Thurs. on FX)

What to skip this week:

Deep Water: I could have sworn that erotic thrillers were supposed to be erotic and/or thrilling. (Fri. on Hulu)

WeCrashed: I think we could all use a little Jared Leto break. (Fri. on Apple TV+)