It may not have felt as vital or soothing as last year’s series, but this was a corking final, with a Mad Hatter’s tea party Showstopper and disasters for all the finalists

• Warning: this article contains spoilers

Was this a vintage year for The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4)? I’m not sure it will go down as an all-time great, though it was a good, reliable series. It was, however, a strong finale, with strong contestants who were, as we were often reminded, the most evenly matched in Bake Off history. Perfectionist Giuseppe, aesthete Crystelle and self-taught lockdown prodigy Chigs had all shaken the hand of Paul Hollywood twice, and were all crowned star baker twice. It was impossible to tell who was going to win.

In a series where being put in a Covid bubble meant a reduction in the talent available, it was the failures that stood out

• This article contains spoilers

This year needed The Great British Bake Off like never before, and The Great British Bake Off delivered. The programme has always been comfort food but, at times this year, it almost transcended television. It felt like a hug. It felt like medicine.

I have a theory about this. The context of this year’s series – with all the participants agreeing to abandon their loved ones and bubble up in a hotel – meant that the talent pool was smaller than usual. And this meant that the contestants weren’t quite as good as usual. And this meant that we got to witness more mistakes than usual. This wasn’t a demonstration of wall-to-wall technical wizardry by any means. Instead, what we got this year was a presentation of well-meaning but flawed humanity. And that’s what we’ve all been crying out for.