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

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.