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

It's got a little bit of that series 6 thing where there were great tasks that didn't result in anything particularly memorable. Maisie and Reece are all-time panickers for any sort of problem-solving task. But I'm still enjoying this one much more.

Been re-watching series 11 with my wife and enjoying that way more than I did the first time around. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but I remembered it as more of a slow burn until the last group of eps, and it's actually pretty great from the jump.

I may have ruptured some internal organs laughing at the discussion of corkscrew penises.

Ania, Phil and Sanjeev give such good Taskmaster. Sanjeev in particular is absolute gold. A whole new cerebral approach to giving zero fucks, rather than just petulantly giving zero fucks.

Phil saying "no the other end, with the arms" is the highlight of the show for many series now.

The ducks task highlights Sanjeev perfectly.

Greg is absolutely right about Phil. He's the closest thing to Tommy Cooper available to the younger generation.

I was disappointed with the winner of this series. I did not think it was deserved.

Ha, I couldn't believe it, but it is a hilarious result for this series. Listed to the podcast on the way to work today, which was good stuff. Great episode though.

finished episode 7 - just trying to force myself to finish this series at this point. the heist task had all the potential of being great and ended up being a complete turd with this set of contestants.

Yes, out of the possible outcomes of the end of this series, that was very much not what I expected, or wanted.

it was mildly annoying. I don't really care who wins the season except that it means that she'll be back for champion of champions instead of someone more amusing.

she didn't even seem to know what was going on about 50% of the time

christmas celeb version had a couple of people who will, no doubt, make me think less of them (martin lewis, i am looking at you).

the 4extra repeats have stopped after dara's season

The worst part about being in the UK last week was not being able to watch Taskmaster on youtube.

Maisie was not my favorite, but I enjoyed that final.

i saw Paul F. Tompkins had a guest appearance on the podcast - praying that's a sign he's on the upcoming season.

ok - wow that was a genuinely shit end to the series

Paul F Tompkins has been on the Taskmaster podcast before. This time around I'd wager he was on because he was in London to appear in a couple of Thrilling Adventure Hour shows and Richard Herring's podcast. As you might guess from these close tabs I'm keeping I'm also a fan and would love for him to be on, but I worry that absent a live action sitcom regular spot or some film roles* he'll be viewed as TM podcast material, not TM proper material.

* besides There Will Be Blood

I don't think it's about fame, although he's plenty well-known and assume he'll do it at some point just because he really wants it. I don't think it will be the next series or two though.

Well, re: that plenty well known, partially this is me thinking about Tompkins on Threedom describing the Richard Herring interview as a pretty awkward experience because he felt few people in the room even had any idea who he was. Taskmaster is a very mainstream show here in the UK and if you're not into US alt comedy, I think you're less likely to know PFT than Mantzoukas (whom ppl might recognise from The Good Place or The League) or next season contestant Kumail Nanjiani (who's had film roles). The most high profile stuff PFT has in that context is voiceover work.

I'm very into UK comedy and had never heard of Ania until this season (and Phil is fairly unknown to a lot of people - the mainstream UK TV comedy pool is smaller than the net cast by Taskmaster) If a cast member works well, I don't think their history really matters that much

I am distinguishing between UK and US contestants here.

Yeah, but I'm saying that it doesn't really matter where they're from, we've had relatively unknown Australians and relatively unknown UK comedians and it tends not to matter very much. Perhaps I'm not grasping something, if so, I apologise.

Well, the idea is that Channel 4 and the show have an interest in pushing for local talent (including aussies and yanks who live here), good for the industry and helps with the four quadrant-ing to have an up and coming gen z person in there. That is not so much the case with US talent, I'd have thought. Perhaps I am being overly cynical though and tbc nothing would make me happier than to be wrong, PFT would be amazing on the show.

I’m US and don’t know 95% of the contestants unless they were on some Mighty Boosh/Garth Marenghi related thing.

As long as they seem like a good fit for the show that’s all I care about.

From the UK and I'd rather see Mr Peanutbutter than someone I only know from a small handful of episodes of Community, Parks & Rec and The Good Place (irrespective of how great he turned out).

Tried to get tix for the Chicago live show, 2 min after the presale email went out, but they were all gone. Bots, probably? This is why I don't go to big concerts (one of the reasons, anyway).

whoa this is the first I'm hearing of this

Regular tickets go on sale tomorrow, yeah?

Yeah, I'll try again.

hadn't heard about this either! will definitely try to get tix tomorrow

failed to get tickets, oh well

I don't think anybody got tickets!

The Champion of Champions that was on last night was a real joy to watch. New Year's Treat looks like it'll be fun as well.

so funny, the full version of the prize task is great too

The prize task was all-time.

lol seeing a youtube video titled "Uncut Prize Task" and its 25 minutes long has me very excited to watch

Sam Campbell is so funny

He seems to have aged about 20 years since the last time he was on.

I'm no great aficionado of the game, but I really enjoyed the No More Jockeys Christmas Special.

Haven't watched CoC yet, we're watching s18 first and then my wife will actually be caught up on all of UK TM, whoa.

Kumail Nanjiani AND Armando Iannucci?!?!

New Year's Treat was a bit meh, but Rose Ayling Ellis and Sam Ryder were game.

Ok CoC was a classic, I've listened to Sam's song at least 3x. Highly recommend the unedited prize task + outtakes on YouTube.

the cloning section of the song really got me on repeated viewings

I did start worrying if Sam was ok sometime in that extended video, he's got a great poker face

Belatedly just finished S20 and really loved it, genuinely one of my all time favourite teams of contestants.

He's just a man called Greg, He's just a man called Greg, He's just a man called Greg, He's just a man called Greg...

just getting back into this and season 12 has been an absolute treat so far. the 100th episode "something elegant that starts with a G" prize task is an absolute highlight.

i was overly proud of myself for recognizing jessica knappett in the new wuthering heights when she's only in one scene, never in focus, and has maybe one line

Ha, nice. The official channel started uploading the most recent NZ series, I saw half of it on a bootleg feed and it was great. Jack Ansett is like Acaster's evil cousin, Jackie van Beek's wig collection, etc.

I was thinking of going to see Wuthering Heights just because of the Knappett.

ha i would not go see it for that reason, she is barely in it. the movie is a mess and i don't know if could really recommend it to anyone but i was entertained.