'The Great Pottery Throw Down' Season 5 Is Its Best Season Yet

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and on television, that holds true for virtually any format that can capture viewers in the overwhelming morass of endless entertainment options. However, there are few like The Great British Baking Show, which may be the leader in spawning would-be contenders with good-feeling reality competitions from the endless cookery-themed, like Baking Impossible, Baker's Dozen, and Flour Power to the crafting variations, like The Big Flower Fight, Making It, and Love Production's own The Great British Sewing Bee.

But, somehow improbably, The Great Pottery Throw Down has risen head and shoulders above the rest. Unlike all the others, it focuses on a less familiar craft. Food is a necessity for life; it's an extremely rare human who has never even attempted to boil water. Clothing is essential in society; nearly everyone has at least tried to sew a button at some point in their lives, drawn a picture in school, or constructed something with paper, or tried to make flowers look lovely in a vase. But no one needs to throw clay on a wheel to own a pot or a cup, forcing the show to work harder to engage the viewer in the inner workings of ceramics.

It's not just a challenging craft to sell; it's also one that does not easily fit the "Great British" format. Bread, clothing, and even flower arranging can be structured into timed exercises. Not so with clay, which viewers quickly learn has a mind of its own and requires frequent long gaps of nothing as creations stop to dry for days at a time. The lack of clear guidance over the process can lead to unfortunate disasters that are no fault of the contestant. The firing process is an uncontrollable force, even with a professional kilnsperson at the helm.