Eight million viewers of The Great British Bake Off might have been forgiven for asking questions about dates on Tuesday night.
Nothing to do with the dried fruit used in the showstopper round, though. More a case of, "Why the hell are they doing a Halloween special two weeks before the big day?"
Even if the thinking was that we might want to try the recipes at home it was still a week too early. What are they doing next Tuesday? Mince pies and chocolate logs for Christmas?
Still, Channel 4 's casual attitude to the calendar was in keeping with the general "sod it, that'll do" feel that this spooky special had to it.
It was almost as if someone at the production team's morning ideas meeting had said, "I suppose we could always do Halloween" and, one lunchtime trip to Wilko later, the tent was ready.
A few orange and black balloons here, the odd plastic witch’s broom or £1 cobweb spray there.
Admittedly, at one point I did think they had pushed the boat out with a giant inflated pumpkin. Then I realised Paul Hollywood had simply overdone it on the orange fake tan again.
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I'm even willing to bet that those three life-sized plastic skeletons were merely on loan from Noel Fielding 's dressing room for the day.
At least the bakers got into the spirit of things with their makeup and costumes. Special mention to (the eventual winner, surely?) Janusz and the increasingly pleased-with-himself Sandro.
As for the hosts and judges, full marks to Noel for his skeleton bodysuit, to Prue for her massive orange and black chunky necklace and to Matt Lucas for coming as Uncle Fester*.
Paul, meanwhile, was dressed in jeans and a blue shirt. Come on, Paul. Play the game, mate. Even Simon Cowell wore plastic Dracula teeth once on The X Factor.
Obviously, they were less scary than his actual teeth – but, hey, at least he made the effort.
*Yes, I did think twice about doing that baldie Uncle Fester line. But then I remembered Matt was perfectly happy stereotyping Mexicans the other week, so I figured he wouldn’t mind the banter.
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