a thread for Taskmaster

series 18 starts today so it seems like it's time for a thread for my favorite tv show that is very difficult to explain in an appealing way to other americans

if you haven't heard of it though, here's the gist: each season/series has five comedians/comic actors competing against each other across 10 episodes. to get points, they have to do a variety of useless, trivial contests. these contests are judged by the titular taskmaster (greg davies) who mocks their stupid choices and assigns points completely subjectively. he also mocks alex horne, his lackey, who actually runs the contests (and who is the creator of the show). you can watch all of it on youtube.

reasons i love it: it's 100% about the laughs. it is silly but there is a strong streak of acidic humor through the whole thing. as an american, i rarely have any preconceived notions about the contestants as celebrities, so it's fun to form opinions about them and see how they behave - you do get attached to certain contestants.

there are some weaker series here and there (including the most recent series 17 and the earlier series 6) but most of them are good. i think a classic recommendation for a starting point is series 7, though series 4 has two great british bake-off hosts (mel and noel) and i also loved series 16.

List of my favourite seasons, based on a quick scan of the wikipedia page:

5: Aisling Bea, Bob Mortimer, Mark Watson, Nish Kumar & Sally Phillips
2: Doc Brown, Joe Wilkinson, Jon Richardson, Katherine Ryan & Richard Osman
7: James Acaster, Jessica Knappett, Kerry Godliman, Phil Wang & Rhod Gilbert
11: Charlotte Ritchie, Jamali Maddix, Lee Mack, Mike Wozniak & Sarah Kendall

Taskmaster NZ:
2: David Correos, Guy Montgomery, Laura Daniel, Matt Heath & Urzila Carlson

those are good recommendations. joe wilkinson is definitely one of my favorite contestants

i tried to watch one of the spinoff taskmasters and it was too weird to see other people running the show. i'm kind of curious to try and see the cursed american version that brought alex horne over, it must be awful

I cannot in good conscience recommend Taskmaster Portugal - the episodes are fucking 90 minutes long and they're way too chummy - but if anyone does fancy it, there's an online community that has written subtitles for most episodes, and one season has W*ndson L*sboa, a Brazilian influencer who has done a lot of great work standing up to the racists and is also a personal friend.

Went to see Mike Wozniak at the Greenwich comedy festival on Thursday (headliner Harry Hill) purely off the back of my girlfriend's Taskmaster crush on him, and he was incredibly good.

His secret farting task may remain the single funniest moment of the whole series. Ok, maybe I had a crush on him too.

Just watched first ep of the new season - seems to have potential! Jack Dee the ne plus ultra of the "checked out fiftysomething" competitor archetype.

I recently watched the first season (fine, series) and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then started series 5 bc people on the internet seem to think that's one of the best ones, but found myself missing the contestants from series 1. But maybe I'll warm up to them.

That's your classic Taskmaster arc right there

it does, i think, suffer a bit from having the good contestants on whilst it was finding its feet.

I only started watching this a couple of years ago and only recently entered the Covid years (have watched the newer series in tandem tho). Tbh by season 9 I was a bit bored of it but that may have come from watching so much in a relatively short space of time (my partner is still as enthusiastic about it as ever tho). If we'd actually binged it during the Covid years that would've been a real mood-lifter.

As a two series per year show that started nine years ago you can see over time how they've recognised the need for a more diverse set of contestants. It's a bit of a shame they went with five contestants and not six in that respect.

The series that Ed Gamble won was one of the hardest to watch as he got so repeatedly wound up and you could see at times how uncomfortable it made Jo Brand and Rose Matafeo in particular.

The series that Liza Tarbuck won (6) is a fave tho. The seventh is where I started to have no real knowledge of two or three of the contestants (obviously due to ignoring almost all UK comedy of the last ten years). Of the latest series Jack Dee is the only one I know. There are still some older Mock The Week type comedians you'd think might have shown up on it by now but haven't.

took me a few tries to get into this show, series 7 was the one that finally clicked, where I realised it was as much about the in-studio joking(*) as the tasks. I've gone back and seen all or most of the other series now.

(*) 'banter' is verboten.

The biggest laughs are often the studio post-mortems, agreed.

I found the series with Lou Sanders/Iain Stirling/Sian Gibson/Paul Sinha hard to watch. Suspect they'd each all have been fine on another series with different people around them, but there wasn't a real Taskmastery feel to the whole thing.

Sorry for excluding Joe Thomas from the last list before hitting send. He was also awkward and I liked his awkwardness but in an awkward series it didn't stand out much

it does, i think, suffer a bit from having the good contestants on whilst it was finding its feet.

This is one of the reasons the Champion of Champions is a good idea, and I'm hoping they'll do a few Champion of Champion of Champions specials as well.

I found the series with Lou Sanders/Iain Stirling/Sian Gibson/Paul Sinha hard to watch.

Because she's so awful and Paul Sinha was so obviously ill, right? I actually really enjoyed Joe Thomas's awkward shtick. It made a nice low-key contrast to shouty people like eg Ed Gamble (even though I also enjoyed Ed Gamble on this show).

Yeah, I liked Joe and also think Ian's shouty hypercompetitiveness would have been fun against better competition, but everything just felt stilted and awkward. Paul clearly wasn't up to it and yeah, Lou's just awful.

my wife really hated Paul Sinha in that season, for reasons I still don't entirely understand; I liked the whole thing well enough, not as great as 7 ofc but miles ahead of 6.

I'm in the middle of rewatching s8, it feels like a midlevel series to me. it's mostly defined by Iain and Lou being very competitive and having uncomfortable group tasks where they're both trying to run things and end up arguing. Paul is low-energy but fine. I like Sian and Joe, they are cute and fun.
the task in s8e1 where Alex is on one railroad bridge and the contestants are on the other and they have to try and sneak up on him is the task that I would most like to do IRL. I'm not saying I'd be good at it but it looked really fun. like acting out metal gear solid.

His secret farting task may remain the single funniest moment of the whole series.

seconded.

in my rewatch i just finished s9, and while i don't think it's necessarily the best season, it might be the one i recommend people start with. it has the classic range of contestants: the high-strung try-hard (ed gamble), the one tries to play it cool but is also actually a try-hard (rose matafeo), the one who's in the middle of making an effort and having fun (katy wix), the one who doesn't give a shit but pulls off some occasional coups (jo brand), and the total incompetent (david baddiel). plus there are some really great tasks through the season.

not sure how i feel about the newest season yet. rosie jones has won me over with her prize tasks - the coffin was very funny. jones and dee is a very good team for the team tasks because she keeps making him break from his grumpy old man character. andy zaltzman is a little annoying but he's had some good quips. baba and emma sidi seem fine but unremarkable so far. the pub quiz task was one of the better group tasks they've had in a while.

Baba's not the funniest guy or the best task doer, but he's very likeable. Emma's kind of nothingy.

Emma's decision that if she kisses the other contestants on their hands that counts as cheating was great.

Maybe it was just because I needed a release of tension after watching Threads earlier in the week, but I laughed like an absolute idiot at Taskmaster last night. Except for Rosie's children's TV puppet, which just made me ill.

The joke at the top of their news segment and then Greg Davies' tying it together with an allusion to a certain blond-haired media personality was pretty funny though.

The tasks themselves have been especially good the last few eps

taskmaster kids starts next Friday

binge watching this from the very beginning. it's exactly the kind of show i could see my parents recommending to me, which would've led me to never watch it.

the current cast has grown on me. rosie jones and jack dee are my favorites.

Rosie Jones is great, she's everywhere around here these days.

Andy Zaltman calling Daniel Kitson on the phone is def the closest that guy will ever come to Taskmaster. Reminds me of an ancient nabisco post about seeing some news report with a punk holding up Pink Flag to the camera and how 99% of viewers would have no reference to notice that but 1% would be going apeshit.

the email address on alex's suit-back advertising board appeared to hint at the initials for the next lot of contestants

FEG . JM . MB . RR . SM @ alexhornemedia . com

Hell of a comeback for Barrymore. Also nice to see Rowland Rivron in work.

If Junior Taskmaster is half as good as Junior Bakeoff, it will truly be the balm we all need.

Because nobody gets voted off!

xxposts yep, that checks out with a list I've seen. One of those people, urgh, no thanks.

junior taskmaster ep 1 was very cute. they did a good job of finding kids with personality who weren't too cute. i'm ambivalent about rose as taskmaster but mike wozniak makes a great alex.

do people really call their kids laser?

was assuming that was a name chosen by the kid

I like all the contestants now. Andy's smugness has become endearing, the initially boring Emma is actually a really good egg and a great sport, and Babatunde might be the most affable man alive.

Rhod Gilbert’s repeated use of that Greg Davies photo, task be damned, is pure gold.

Watching series 14 and seeing them in a closed, deserted Gatwick is quite jarring now (filmed in 2021?)

Yeah that was eerie. Enjoyed it though.

i think his name is Lan x...

season 8 has been a rough watch. it's the first season where the overall energy of the contestants is missing the mark.

Paul Sinha is clearly very ill in that season.

Ok, after hearing Andy Zaltzman on Off Menu I start watching season 18, and it's excellent.

New Years Treat mainly served to reinforce my crush Hannah Fry.

*on

i didn't think anybody really came out of NYT looking particularly good

I liked David James's anecdote about being gifted a stuffed puffin by Hermann Hreiðarsson

I love how it was lost on Greg because he neither knows nor cares about football.

I found James endearingly odd - I don't really care about football either so wouldn't know if this is an established persona.

I'm sure I watched a show years ago where he found out he was, by definition, a psychopath

So what season should I watch after 18? I've only really seen some of the one James Acaster is in, bc he's very funny.

I couldn't finish the acaster season because Rhod Gilbert is bad. gave up during episode 2. series 4 and 5 are good imo.

Rhod Gilbert possibly the best ever contestant!

if you're not going to be exhaustive, maybe work backwards selectively and do s16 next? it has several delightful insane contestants and one you'll probably recognize from bake-off

Rhod Gilbert is bad is absolutely crazy. easy top 5 favorite contestant for me.

big 90s Regional Bloke energy in first episode, maybe he got better

he can be annoying but he's also responsible for multiple classic TM moments

Oh, Rhod Gilbert is all time gold. If you've not seen any, the Bob Mortimer series is just brilliant as well. Season 2 is also great fun.

the bob mortimer series is great. my wife (American) had never heard of him but loved him and pointed out it was very sweet how all the other guests (and hosts) clearly worshipped him.

Really curious to hear what NA makes of Taskmaster Junior

I found Rhod Gilbert totally off-putting btw, but he played his role and the season was amazing.

i think i posted upthread about taskmaster junior but i liked it. wasn't totally sold on rose as taskmaster but the kids were cute and mike was good. mostly i like it because my 10-year-old always wants to watch taskmaster with me and then i have to fast-forward whenever someone brings in, say, a ceramic dildo for the prize task. so it's nice to have a guaranteed clean alternative to watch with her. though we're still watching regular taskmaster too.

New lineup dropped:

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/news/8208/taskmaster-series-19-line-up/

can i be first to say "who?"?

Fatiha El-Ghorri is a pretty famous stand up; Jason Mantzoukas is a LA alt comedy fixture and has been on many TV shows; Matthew Baynton is from Ghosts. I don't know the other two.

Mantzoukas being on excites me because it provides precedent for Paul F Tompkins to give it a go (which he has said he would like to).

oh, actually, my favourite from Ghosts

Fatiha has been on enough things also. she's the one i know most even if the others are actually bigger names.

Rosie Ramsay does a podcast and some TV shows with her husband Chris who was on s13. Not familiar with Stevie Martin but hey, 4/5 ain't bad.

it mentions Starstruck for stevie martin, which was rose matefeo's romcom thing on bbc3 which i watched all of but...

yeah but I looked it up and she was in one ep

Yeah, I think she may be the "mate of people who've done it before", she appears to be pals with Ed and Nish:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/may/20/stevie-martin-i-auditioned-for-ed-gamble-and-nish-kumar-clout-monkey-barrel-edinburgh

She's an Avalon up-and-comer. That's the most reliable way to get on Taskmaster.

(Which is obviously not to suggest she's not funny, btw.)

now the party's over

oh wow mantzoukas is unexpected. he's very funny, and while he hasn't really had a big starring role, he's been a regular on many big sitcoms (brooklyn 99, the good place) and is a cohost of a long-running and very popular podcast (how did this get made)

I do hate his podcast alas, but he can be funny in other contexts.

I didn't think Americans were allowed on this show.

there have been a couple (katherine ryan and desiree burch are the ones i can think of) but they have been expats who are permanently living and working in the UK

oh and they had mae martin who is canadian

Kathryn Ryan is also Canadian
Alex and Greg were on Seth Myers and said that Mantzoukas reached out to ask to be on the show

Katherine Ryan also has Irish citizenship, but yeah, her whole career's been UK. I'm always fascinated by which actual Americans get into the panel-show/quiz circuit over there. Rich Hall is one of few I can think of who had a full-fledged US career and then just somehow crossed over to bigger UK success, as opposed to building the whole career there (like, say, Reginald D. Hunter). There was a moment some years ago when it felt like both Michelle Wolf and Chelsea Peretti were getting heavily placed on things, which felt weird.

Anyway this makes me realize they 100% need HENNING WEHN on Taskmaster

(If you take "being on QI" as the Everest of UK panel acceptance, I think there's basically ... a lot of Rich Hall, one-offs from Greg Proops and Michelle Wolf, and then Carrie Fisher and Jerry Springer who don't really count)

Opening it up to U.S. improv people seems like it could be a Pandora's box, but on the other hand this could be Mantzoukas' ultimate destiny.

It's also possible that this is their next go at an American version? Get some proper Americans on the UK version and see if any of them can increase the US audience to the point that a new US version is worth doing?

I suspect Rich Hall's success over here may be due to living here (his wife's from Liverpool, I think). Rob Delaney also fairly prominent over here, if not on the panel show circuit. Doug Stanhope used to turn up on Charlie Brooker's shows.

I can't see it as a particularly lucrative reason to move to the UK from the US as a comedian, but the work can be there if you're here anyway, I guess.

Do they put the eps on youtube as a new season is airing?

yes

Sweet, that will be something to look forward to. I'm currently watching series 9, and maybe I'm just distracted but I'm not finding it as gripping as the others I've watched (18, 5, and 7 - all hits).

I genuinely feel like every season is or ends up being golden, except for the one before last, which was a fucking grind in my experience. But even the series with Liza Tarbuck, which has a couple of absolute deadweight contestants, also has the cake-sitting task, which is unforgettable genius. My partner and I often talk about the whitewashing power of Tasky - there might be a comedian on there who you HATE in the wild, but somehow the format and their response to it redeems them. This did not happen with Russell Howard for me, but absolutely did for Rhod Gilbert, who I was never a fan of, but is HILARIOUS in his Taskmaster series.

So that's three Ghosts stars so far, am I right?

My partner and I often talk about the whitewashing power of Tasky - there might be a comedian on there who you HATE in the wild, but somehow the format and their response to it redeems them.

Yup, Ardal O'Hanlon and the dreaded Baddiel for me. Mate of mine who worked for Deliveroo gave something to Russel Howard and he didn't tip, which if you watch his eps feels very in character.

Fuckin hate Howard. Joyless, humourless, witless.

Every task: "I'm a bloke, I'll try and football my way out of this, and if that doesn't work I'll just be lumpen and disinterested".

> So that's three Ghosts stars so far, am I right?

Charlotte, Lolly, Katie and Kiell. were they part of the horrible histories crowd or were they ghosts-only?

Horrible Histories...
Katy Wix - 10 episodes, 2009-2011
Kiell Smith-Bynoe - 4 episodes, 2021-2022

but also
David Baddiel - 15 episodes, 2009-2011
Steve Pemberton - 9 episodes, 2012-2013

Oh god yeah, Charlotte - how could I forget her? My kid's absolute favourite contestant (and I think hers might be my favourite series). Katy Wix was great, too.

Jessica Knappett was also in Ghosts, though maybe just one episode?

Yes she just had a guest spot.

Ah yeah, she's the baddie isn't she?

God, it's almost trite to say it aloud, but Ghosts was so brilliant, just an absolute A+, "nailed it" piece of work.

yes

not in real life tho afaict

xpost yeah it was great

I remember her role, but won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, wasn't sure how long her role lasted for.

Yeah, Ghosts is just magnificent telly.

Bumped into Charlotte Ritchie whilst we were both campaigning for Corbyn in Essex on that dreaded December day in 2019 - exchanged a few words with her and she seemed very lovely and normal.

I don't think I ever saw the last season of Ghosts, it got suddenly hard to access in the U.S.

were they trying to get you to watch the US version

i'm watching taskmaster australia s2. haven't watched s1 but i have also tried one episode of taskmaster new zealand. i wish the foreign adaptations felt more willing to fuck with the taskmaster/taskmasters assistant relationship. say what you will about taskmaster junior but it did feel like rose and mike are following their own personalities instead of trying to imitate greg and alex. anyways it's fine to watch while there's no new UK taskmaster. i do like lloyd langford a lot.

i'm also slowly rewatching taskmaster s14 with my daughter. it's actually a very good season, there isn't one standout contestant but it's a nice mix of generally likeable/funny people.

Fern and Munya were my favourites that season, a really strong one!

I finished S14 the day before yesterday as my first season (Fern Brady is the only contestant I've seen listed that I'm really familiar with), started S7 yesterday because it was ranked 1 or 2 but... not feeling the first two episodes as much.

The Danish Taskmaster is fairly rubbish, every season there's one popstar who is painfully unfunny and one person who has watched the British version and therefore knows all the ways to cheat on the tasks, and they also try to copy the Greg-Alex relationship, but then they did one of those 'make something for these people' tasks, and it was a couple celebrating their 60th wedding day, and popstar Tobias Rahim wrote a fairly stunning song about their love, and the Taskmaster started crying, and the relationship never really recovered from that. So that was fun.

s14 also has some great tasks, love the one where john kearns is sabotaging the group task (poorly) and dara o'briain gets so mad at him that his entire head turns red

I'm tempted to watch New Zealand just for the accents. Almost done with series 16 and it's a good one, Lucy's surreal stories for the prize tasks alone...

I think Danielle Walker's song from s1e08 is my favourite Taskmaster Australia moment but the Lloyd/Anne relationship all series was golden.

started S7 yesterday because it was ranked 1 or 2 but... not feeling the first two episodes as much.

s7 v strong iirc - acaster! knappett!! godliman!!! Phil Wang's omnipresent wang!!!! Rhod Gilbert's constant bullying of the Taskmaster!!!!!!

I enjoy both Taskmaster Aus and NZ, despite the NZ Taskmaster himself being just unbearably tedious. But Paul, the assistant, is a delight. And TM NZ led me to Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, a show which is exactly my jam.

acaster!

He's the biggest block to enjoyment so far. Really don't like him, the rest of the cast are okay.

That's absolute crazy talk milo.

Watched some of Taskmaster NZ, the taskmaster is just too polite and forgiving, New Zealand as a culture perhaps just too kind for this show concept.

I think Acaster's appeal could easily be a purely Anglo thing. Maybe Americans wouldn't get his whiney, uptight schtick.

His new special, with the hecklers, is pretty great, btw.

Well the Europeans I've talked to all love him, can't speak for Americans.

James Acaster is amazing, and so funny as a stand-up as well as just a presence on TV/podcasts etc. Also his appearance on Great British Bake Off makes me laugh just thinking about it.

I'm a big fan.

But also understand that "Kettering" might not be a universally identifiable concept, hence Milo's coolness towards that series.

But I think it's one of the first I watched, at a point where Tasky was comfort-viewing during the pandemic, and I have very fond memories of it.

I'm a big Acaster fan and I also recommend his new special on Max, it's great.

james acaster is not funny. i'm english btw.

he's not the main problem with that season though imo, as discussed before.

james acaster is not funny. i'm english btw.

Wrong on the first point, my condolences on the second.

I can't watch James Acaster without thinking of Tom Stourton's yuppie in this Mike Leigh spoof

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyaBH3myuyI

sorry, that should have been

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Tp_3UHPOE

Switched to season 5, not a fan of glassless Greg. It's like seeing your dad without a beard.

Belatedly: I (extremely American) find Acaster hilarious, but was surprised that the Taskmaster setting wasn't great for him — fake-aggrieved humor doesn't really work in a context that's already purposefully aggravating. His thing shines on, like, "Would I Lie to You," seems weird here

Honestly come to think of it his thing would work better for being the actual Taskmaster rather than a contestant

Acaster co-hosts a thing called Hypothetical if you have access to that.

Is that good? Josh Widdicombe not my fave...

it hasn't been on for a while but i remember it being watchable, mostly for acaster

In Taskmaster-adjacent media, the Lucy Beaumont episode of Off Menu must be the funniest one I've heard (and Sam Campbell is a close second). Lucy & Sam made a podcast together that's delightful too, her brain is really a wonder. You can feel the joy that she brings to other comedians who truly don't know what will come out of her mouth.

after watching S14, S7 and half of S5 women are the MVPs and sad men (John Kearns, Mark Watson) come second

Taskmaster-adjacent question: has anybody here ever tried to play No More Jockeys with others?

yes it's very fun

Great game to play while camping.

NMJ really won me over to Mark Watson.

I tried series 14, but for some reason everything felt slightly grating instead of delightful. I thought I might just be burned out after watching six other seasons, but no, I switched to series 15 and it once again has the sauce.

I'm watching the nightly more4 repeats which is series 2, well before the jump to ch4 and it's a nice mix of like a secret club whilst also having big names (murray, chowdry, gorman, becket, pascoe)

it's also old enough that I've forgotten it all

Trying to pick another season - S4 gets high marks but I've seen Hugh Dennis and Noel Fielding in other things and couldn't stand them so I think it's either 9 or 12 next.

I loved s4 and didn't think they were obnoxious, although they could have been. Haven't seen 12 but 9 is great too.

12 is ok but 9 is one of the all time classic casts.

Enjoying everyone cheering each other on in S12

Ok Taskmaster NZ S2 is winning me over. It's still a bit uncanny because the format is such a carbon copy, but I like Paul Williams' idiot act, and the contestants are great.

The David Correos diss track is immense.

I’m curious about how Tim Key ended up in Mickey 17

lol yes

i've been watching taskmaster NZ s2, it's pretty good. jeremy wells sucks and his scoring makes no sense (not in a fun way, just in a frustrating way). but yeah i like paul as taskmaster's assistant, he's got his own spin on it, he's a lot more difficult/obstructive than alex. the contestants are all decent to good but i fucking love david correos, he is insane. just watched the one last night where it took him an hour and 23 minutes to get out of the caravan to eat the grape and he is losing it, good stuff. unfortunately i have been watching the series with my 10-year-old daughter, unfortunate bc it is often very filthy.

Haha, yes David is a true star. An innocent soul, and I love how much everyone else loves and marvels at him.

I watched NZ s4 after that and its a great lineup as well, esp Ray and Karen O'Leary (no relation). Bubba on that series is the rare example of what its like for someone to be put on the show who has never heard of nor seen it.

Now I'm on s1 and that's great as well so far, especially with Paul's brother poking at his persona.

And that's led me to Guy Williams' incredible work on New Zealand today, leading to tracking down Mr. Succulent Chinese Meal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t6rJFC53a4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLmvq3Ba1s

Still no date for the next UK season, am I wrong in thinking it was usually at least announced by this time?

Jason Mantzoukas has said it'll be on YouTube May 1st, and since that's a Thursday it sounds right.

Australia season 4 is two episodes old, I hadn't realized.

I checked out Australia out of curious but couldn't get into the Taskmaster/assistant, Paul brings so much to NZ. I'm sure it's fine once you get into it, maybe after I watch all of the existing UK and NZ series, lol.

Is Taskmaster NZ on Channel 4 or can I find it easily on YouTube?

it (and Au) has been shown on Ch4 (or one of those) in the dead of night. so it should be on All4.

Dave has just finished showing 1-5 and CoC, series 5 being the classic Bob/Sally series (although that's really downplaying the others who were generally great - Bea / Mortimer / Watson / Kumar / Phillips).

now e4 has just finished s13 (similarly great and also disgusting - O'Hanlon / Christie / Ramsey / Love / Duker) and is now on S14, the covid years (Ó Briain / Brady / Kearns / Chawawa / Millican)

i've not bothered with the repeats before, but they are fun, and i've forgotten a lot of the minor tasks

it (and Au) has been shown on Ch4 (or one of those) in the dead of night. so it should be on All4.

thanks Koogs!

We've watched each UK series twice now, as my kid loves the show and watches it every Friday with tea, before bedtime. It stands up!

All4 list NZ 1-3 and Swe 1-2 but no Au

NZ is on Youtube (not as it airs, but s1-4 are there).

(AU too)

The series that aren't on Channel 4's app are all blocked on YouTube to people in the UK though

Posting on a forum to ask if you can find something easily on YouTube is surely harder than directly checking if you can find the thing easily on YouTube.

they are trailing the new taskmaster series

dara has just won the 4extra repeats, new series is Boyle / Graham / Eclair / Smith-Bynoe / Martin, which i don't remember as a classic but...

Frankie Boyle was surprisingly good in that one, thought he'd be a dick about it but he lands the best lines in the studio portion.

That one's def in my top 5

Jenny Eclair, who I’d never been much fussed by, was great value that season. Isn’t it the one with the potatoes being dropped into the hat?

I went to a recording for that season!

Jenny Eclair on the canal boat makes me giggle just thinking about it.

http://www.polygon.com/tv/512159/taskmaster-series-19-alex-horne-greg-davies-interview-jason-mantzoukas-american-fans

I only know him from being Rafi on The League and then The Good Place where he was kind of also Rafi. Hard to imagine him just being himself.

Very shouty and apt to describe things as BANANAS. Though maybe that's mostly his bad movie podcast, How Did This Get Made, which I stopped listening to when I realised how frequently they got confused over very simple plot points. He's been fine guesting on other stuff.

Do wish Paul F Tompkins had gotten the gig instead but hey Mantzoukas volunteered and TM ppl said yes, can't really argue with that.

I'm a little afraid of Mantzoukas energy on Taskmaster, but still excited to watch a new season as it airs.

Just re-watched series 7 with my wife (who hadn't seen it), and man every episode is an iconic classic, especially toward the end.

I've never seen this show and not quite sure I understand the premise, but with Jason Mantzoukas on board I'm going to watch the hell out of it.

He looked so happy to be there. It was really very sweet. Also I was not aware that you were allowed to bring your own tools along.

i am rewatching s7 AGAIN with my daughter and i am coming to the controversial take that rhod gilbert might be one of the best contestants ever

Great first ep. Loving all the contestants .

Rhod Gilbert is absolutely one of, if not THE best. I love him.

xpost

Rhod rubbed me the wrong way a little bit the first time, but I had a profound appreciation for him on my re-watch, def agree. The Acaster/Gilbert dynamic needs both of them.

semi-randomly binged S9 last week. it was mostly terrific, with a episode or 2 lull perhaps. can i say that i admire Rose Matafeo?

was crying with laughter during pealympics

Poor Matthew Baynton just looked so cold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkxv6a2k5uw

toast of london vibes!

Watching the nz one with david correos and yeah it's very good. I keep on getting distracted by jeremy wells' (the taskmaster's) head though, it's incredible. I feel like I could carve it out of wood in about five chisel strokes.

I also got distracted working out how high the balcony would have to be for a brussels sprout to take 1.8 seconds to fall. It would be about 16 metres. Clearly it's not 16 metres so that 1.8 seconds is bullshit. (Sorry. Working out how high something it based on how long something takes to fall is one of my favourite things in life.)

if one of the payoffs for this season isn't Jason Mantzoukas getting on top of the Taskmaster house roof, i'm going to be disappointed.

HAhahahah yes. I love his energy, he's clearly aiming for Best-of-all-time TM contestant in the most upbeat and fearless manner.

Crucially he's not looking for a Taskmaster bump in Assembly Rooms ticket sales.

Haven't seen ep2 yet but I'm assuming that Mantzoukas, as a TM fan, is fully aware that they will not let anyone one that roof and that it's therefore safe to keep asking.

See ep 2

We've just watched the first episode of the new series (very much enjoying Alex correcting Jason's Americanisms), and it's looking like a good one if Fatiha would just get into it a bit more. Pealympics was loads of fun, classic Taskmaster highs and lows all round.

I haven't been able to catch up on the new eps because we're watching s13, and my wife doesn't want to have to remember more than 5 British people at a time. But s13 is fantastic, swiftly becoming one of my favorites.

Yes, KILLER cast. Sophie Duker! Judy Love! Bridget Christie! Even Ardal O'Hanlon was a dream!

This cast is great, Fatiha was right on the line of seeming genuinely angry to be there for the first couple but it's settled into a good bit.

it's a GREAT season

Fatiha was great this week, really appreciating her now. Feels like a classic series.

Another pretty great episode I thought. Love how baroque the tasks are getting.

Yeah, they're all great. Going to miss this lot when they're gone, but already anticipating a Robins/Zaltzman/Baynton champion of champions bit of telly gold.

Sam Campbell won S16 as well. not exactly a diverse CoC.

e4xtra repeats have just finished S17: McNally / Robins / Mohammed / Willan / Pemberton and they were mostly good entertaining, apart from the first. and next up is S18 Zaltzman / Aléshé / Sidi / Dee / Jones which might be a bit too recent to enjoy.

this season has been a stone cold classic. i really hope this gets more US comics involved going forward because Mantzoukas has easily established himself as one of the all-time great contestants.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKMutzEsFP5/?hl=en

The Jason B-roll must be hundreds of hours long

it's not taskmaster related, but for those who want a fantastic gateway in the Mantzoukas-verse, i cannot recommend this enough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwi_kE0gy94

I want Jason's painting

Mantzoukas is the best. He's pretty funny here (recently), too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ0WNAd5264

The cast is great but I'm not always feeling the magic this season. A lot is being made of how chaotic this group is, but some of the tasks are so rife with extra rules designed to short-circuit their brains and create a general chaos-scape, it doesn't leave a lot of room for creativity. The campfire task was a good balance, but the other ones in this ep didn't really work for me. We went back to season 5 (I've seen it, my wife hasn't) and it was like a breath of fresh air.

I started this show from the beginning a few months ago — we're on S8 now — thanks to this thread, and S5 is definitely a high point (put in relief by S6 being basically the only true dud I've seen so far) in terms of a good and balanced cast. Also Sally Phillips is extremely surprisingly unhinged

She's so great (read that she was going through a divorce and lived very close to the Taskmaster house, so it was a welcome outlet).

I've skipped around but want to watch S8 next, since it comes in between two classics.

for non-interesting reasons we watched S9 after starting S8, and yeah 7 and 9 are classic. S8 is a lot more low-key but still pretty good

i'm really into the new series. i don't know that it's the "most unhinged cast ever" or whatever but it's a likeable crew. i agree the tasks are getting a lot more ornate but that seems to be a necessary response to people coming in having seen previous series, or people like jason who are clearly scholars of taskmaster. they've got to come up with things they haven't done before but also close loopholes.

I've skipped around but want to watch S8 next, since it comes in between two classics.

i feel like there are haters of s8, there are some strong personalities in that cast that turn some people off (iain and lou), but i like it. it also has the task that i would most like to do myself (the one in episode 1 at the trainyard with alex on the bridge).

Paul in the phone box in that episode is just amazingly funny.

Bayton comes a little close to the 'middle aged white guy who takes it too seriously and smugly wins too often' archetype at times, but otherwise a very solid lineup.

Feel like Stevie Martin is the weak link - almost as unfunny as all-time worst contestant Josh Widdicombe.

(actually Iain Stirling might run Widdicombe close)

Martin seems ok to me. I'm with you on Widdicombe hate but Rob Beckett is worse.

Beckett's likeable performance on Last One Laughing has led me to retrospectively reassess his oeuvre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ei-z3iUp14

Stevie fits into the 'not particularly funny but very likeable' category for me.

I like her a lot on this. She's enthusiastic and happy to be ridiculous, which is what you want.

Easy target, but Russell Howard much worse than any of the aforementioned.

Yeah, Stevie is very likeable and funny. Russell Howard and Joanne McNally easily my least favourites. I also remain completely impervious to the appeal of Judi Love.

Oh yeah Russel Howard, he's terrible. Get him and Beckett mixed up a lot tbh.

A friend of mine who worked for Deliveroo for a spell brought something to Howard's apartment once. He did not tip.

Bayton comes a little close to the 'middle aged white guy who takes it too seriously and smugly wins too often' archetype at times,

I think he's the opposite of smug here, he literally threw the last task, in part because he didn't want to be seen as that guy imo.

I wasn't sure about Judi Love at first but she added so much to the group dynamic, you could tell everyone was dying laughing at her justifications and bullshitting.

Baynton does have a hall of fame task outfit. i have zero complaints about the contestants so far this year - i think they did a really good job of getting a diverse group to bounce off each other. and the studio segments have been great! mantzoukas and stevie lying down pretending to be star gazing high schoolers, the repeated callbacks to stevie's annoying song in the last ep...

Yeah, Baynton doesn't seem smug to me at all. But I am quite a sucker for disarmingly charming intelligent folk with a bit of mischief.

Jason and Stevie are top-tier teaming.

i'm still a bit behind but so far the joy of baynton to me is that he seems competent and capable and willing to put in effort but often still somehow manages to end up falling flat on his face

Aww

https://www.reddit.com/r/taskmaster/comments/1l2bc0g/alex_meets_a_100yearold_taskmaster_contestant/

Easy target, but Russell Howard much worse than any of the aforementioned.

a million times this.

TM is magical in how it gets me to reconsider comedians on the tedious panel show circuit, and see their true magic - even Rob Beckett! But now Russell Howard. What a charisma- and laugh-vacuum he be.

I have no idea how Russell Howard got where he is and how he has stayed there. Him, Paddy McGuinness and Micky Flanagan just baffle me.

how was rosie stopping the water coming out of the bucket? that hole was huge.

been a couple of good end tasks lately. the blowing task and the tennis-ball-and-spoons...

the safe combination task though, the hidden clue seemed very obvious

My favourite final tasks of the show are ones you could imagine playing yourself with your nephews and nieces at Christmas.

Flicking around for something to watch the other night I ended up streaming an episode of the The Horne Section and it was very much Not Good. Possibly I chanced upon a bad episode, but it did make me think of how I like TM almost despite Alex? Obv he devises and writes it all and so has ultimately been responsible for some of the best telly of the last 10 years. But I remember it took me a long time to watch TM because I couldn't get past the pre-task banter between Greg Davies and AH - it made me wonder what kind of public school fagging experience he was trying to get over? I have a similar reaction to watching him on No More Jockeys, even though, again it is in itself a great game. I think possibly he is one of those creative geniuses who maybe just shouldn't be on camera himself?

Yeah, I find the Horne Section unwatchable, but I absolutely love Alex's commitment to allowing contestants to completely humiliate him. I suspect the intro bantz have gotten more extreme as the years have gone by as the original master and minion distinction has grown legs and they've run fairly far with it.

I don't mind the Greg and Alex banter at all. It's just that the skillset for Taskmaster isn't the same as for writing fiction.

watching Community, series 6, episode 4 and there's Jason Mantzoukas as the director of Karate Kid with Alison Brie and Ken Jeong. he looks a LOT like nish in 2015...

In 2019 they went to a Halloween party dressed as each other:

https://i.ibb.co/4Zkg5JmG/nishzoukas.jpg

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4242872/mediaviewer/rm3596541441/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk