Taskmaster

[Dapple]

53 minutes ago, Gabe said:

..lobbing toilet rolls...

 

LeBron James

[Gabe]

50 minutes ago, pledge said:

 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taskmaster_(TV_series)#Cast and the NYT rows.

 

It includes the 2023 NYT if people do/dont want to know that.

Hmm, I can't say that anybody on either the New Year show or the next series makes me keen to watch it.

[Festoon]

I think the last and next to last series have been really good.

[Made of Ghosts]

A full non-comedian series would be fine as long as they lean more towards “get the thing in the thing without doing the thing” tasks and away from the “do something funny within this framework” tasks (which generally aren’t as good anyway)

[Fry Crayola]

4 hours ago, Gabe said:

Hmm, I can't say that anybody on either the New Year show or the next series makes me keen to watch it.

 

Perhaps you're particularly put off by certain people, but I've never felt Taskmaster to be a show which depends on being familiar with the contestants.

 

Otherwise I'd not love Taskmaster NZ so much. Series 2 of that is one of the best of any.

[spork]

I don’t think I’ve ever disliked someone after watching them on Taskmaster, even if I knew of them and didn’t like them much before hand.

[chris on the moon]

Someone on the podcast (sorry I forgot who) said Munya was like Buzz Lightyear. In toy story one before he realised he was just a toy.

[Don Wiskerando]

I would like to see either Paul Foot or Tony Law on a series soon.   Having said that I can't believe that neither have been approached so maybe they just don't want to do it.    

 

How about John Shuttleworth?

[wev]

I'd like to see Daniel Sloss but not sure if it's his kind of thing

[Gabe]

5 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

Perhaps you're particularly put off by certain people, but I've never felt Taskmaster to be a show which depends on being familiar with the contestants.

 

Otherwise I'd not love Taskmaster NZ so much. Series 2 of that is one of the best of any.

That's fair comment, yes, though I don't feel I need to be familiar with the contestants especially, more that they have a lot of the staple C4 comedians and I don't really like (or watch) them in the various C4 panel shows they all appear in either.

 

I've actually spent the evening watching series 11 (binged 7 episodes!) and it's been okay, but there's a real lack of energy amongst them all. I mean, it's doing something right for me to keep watching (admittedly it's been mainly as background) but compared to series 14 there's nobody that really shines in the studio segments and the lack of an audience really leaves if feeling quite flat. I may go back and watch some of the other series though.

[Mike1812]

I'm watching through these from the start. It's been really good so far but I'm up to the Nish Kumar series and he's really irritating me. I'll stick with it though, I love Bob Mortimer. 

[Kryptonian]

39 minutes ago, Mike1812 said:

I'm watching through these from the start. It's been really good so far but I'm up to the Nish Kumar series and he's really irritating me. I'll stick with it though, I love Bob Mortimer. 

I didn’t like Nish as to me he came across as trying to be funny and wacky (don’t know if he’s like this in whatever he normally does) whereas most others seem more natural.

[polygon_monkey]

Season 5 is one of the all time best IMO. Bubbly fuck and the final songs (both Nish moments) are some of the best Taskmaster moments.

[Gabe]

I finished watching series 11 and it just didn't land for me. Charlotte Ritchie was awful throughout - absolutely no studio presence or personality, even though Greg kept trying to inject some with the whole 'daytime kid's presenter career' stuff.

 

Wozniak was a bit eccentric, but didn't really say much; Mack was quite restrained and Kendall was okay. Maddix was the main star for me, but overall it was a bit meh. I do think the lack of live audience didn't help, there was little atmosphere in the studio and I think a lot of people need that to gee themselves up.

 

Not sure which series I'll pick next.

[Fry Crayola]

The few series without a live audience definitely have their issues because of it. Without an audience to play up to, there's a lot less energy in the room. 

[glb]

On 07/12/2022 at 22:57, wev said:

I'd like to see Daniel Sloss but not sure if it's his kind of thing

 

Think that would depend on his headspace. Was gutted when he postponed his last tour as we had tickets, but totally understandable once I read his reasoning. Of the panel show regulars, would like to see Adam Buxton, Richard Ayoade, Stephen Mangan and Isy Suttie given a whirl (non of them have been on, right? Previously had a brain fart forgetting Jon Richardson had appeared)

 

Wonder what the time commitment is for contestants? Looks like they bang out the tasks over a few days, but at different times judging by Kerry Godliman having snow for tasks when the others didn't. The studio bits are filmed in blocks over a week or so, but even if its a max of two weeks, that's a lot out the calendar for most comedians unless the appearance fee is generous and they feel appearing on the show is a good fit for their career.

[Gabe]

I imagine they work around everybody's schedules for the filming for that reason, and they are all done at different times (except for for team tasks, obviously).

 

 

[PK]

Just caught up with the latest series and I think it might be one of the best ones? Absolutely perfect selection of contestants, Fearn and John were so wonderfully bizarre without it seeming forced. John had me in stitches more than I think any guest has. His twitter is good value as well

 

Spoiler

 

 

Even Munya was quite endearing in how completely lame he was, like a school kid trying to be cool but who you know deep down has a heart of gold. It came as absolutely no surprise to read that he was head boy at a catholic school 

 

By the end it definitely had the quality that all the best series of this show had when they finished - I'm thinking series 4 & 5, and TMNZ series 2 - a sort of warm contentment but also a fair bit of sadness that you can't just watch the same little group faffing about and lightly taking the piss out of each other for about another 2 or 3 series. Great stuff

 

[Fry Crayola]

I think John's "you haven't seen mine yet", from the prize task in the last episode, was one of the most perfectly timed and delivered lines ever in the show. I keep thinking about it. 

[Gabe]

One thing I'd be interested to know is how they decide what tasks to show for each 'week'? Does Greg see and pre-score them all, so they can then rearrange and manipulate the order to make each 'week' more competitive (and allow for different winners)? Or is the marking all done there and then with no pre-knowledge? I like to think it's the latter, but equally I think having everybody win at least one episode (since it moved to 10 episodes per series, at least) makes for better TV and I probably requires a little bit of help.

[Fry Crayola]

I'm interested to know that too, particularly with this series where in one episode,

 

Spoiler

Dara won every task.

 

I imagine it's not an easy job because as well as maintaining some sort of jeopardy in the scoring (albeit a minor aspect), you also have to weigh up the entertainment value of each task. No sense putting the best five in a single episode and leaving the rest of the series a bit flatter.

[wev]

I reckon the production crew have a guess on how the scores will pan out for each task and build episodes accordingly but that Greg's actual scoring is done as he see's them. Or at least I'd like to think how it's done, he definitely seems to sometimes take into account studio comments in his summaries

[Gabe]

Yeah, I want to believe that his reactions and scoring are all made in the moment. I suppose a lot of the tasks are easy to score because they have measurable outcomes, but the prize task and final task could potentially change everything if the same person won them both, which would give each episode a bit of unpredictability for all involved.

[Made of Ghosts]

It's typically the case that every contestant wins at least one episode, right? So that would imply a bit of fiddling. And I've always assumed they film more tasks than are used just because you can't know which ones are going to work. But there are occasional comments from the contestants that seem to imply the order is set ahead of time. Like that time Lee Mack still had banana on his hands from the last task.

[drob4]

7 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

I think John's "you haven't seen mine yet", from the prize task in the last episode, was one of the most perfectly timed and delivered lines ever in the show. I keep thinking about it. 

Anyone who liked John Kearns in Taskmaster should search for the show ‘Lasties’ on BBC Sounds. 15 mins episodes of him and Tim Key talking nonsense in a pub.

[glb]

Apparently none of the following won an episode: Aisling Bea, Joe Wilkinson, Judi Love, Nish Kumar, Phil Wang, Romesh Ranganathan, and Sara Pascoe.

 

Aisling Bea and Romesh Ranganathan lost episodes on a tiebreak.

 

Think they film more tasks than is necessary then edit together to get the best flow, dropping the tasks that don’t work as well. I’d assume Greg’s reaction to the tasks is genuine to get a better spontaneity on stage, but can’t find reference to his level of involvement beyond what we already know.

[Fry Crayola]

They do film more tasks than are shown. Alex has noted before that there's a bubble wrap popping task they tried in several early stages but it just never delivered anything interesting. Plus all the tiebreak tasks which didn't get used - I imagine some of those were potential candidates for full on tasks if anyone did something extraordinary.

 

I imagine that not knowing which tasks are even going to make the cut makes things a little more interesting for the contestants too. 

[Festoon]

There was a memtion of an aubregine task in the last series that we never saw.

[Sidewaysbob]

Also the final task is a live one, so that would make  "fixing" the result difficult for a particular contestant.

They'd have to be way ahead to guarantee the final round has no bearing on the result.

[pledge]

Which it quite often does. A number are still subjective though so Greg could still 'fix it'. I don't think it matters though - the show is in the British panel show format where the winner doesn't really matter. Some tasks have unlimited points, some Greg arbitrarily reduces down the highest award.