Taskmaster- just me?

[anonacfr]

To me this is the ultimate comfort TV.
Every season I miss the previous year's contestants and then end up loving it all over again.
This year the less well-known candidates (to me as well) have already won me over. And Dara O'Briain is like the exasperated yet optimistic supervising the chaos.
The question group task at the end of last episode had me crying.

The recent "burst 99 red balloons" (after choosing your weapon and location like Cluedo) where poor old Munya was covering his ears while trying to burst balloons, then admitted that he's got a phobia about balloons...
Everyone else seemed to have ear defenders and goggles but he didn't?

I think they asked him if he wanted them and he said no.

Sarah and the hand task. Pure genius.

Dara was not happy with the bells and straws/sticks task and John came across as so hapless not understanding which letter was being represented. I thought it was so funny to watch, but I would have been so annoyed if someone didn’t know what was going on. 😂

My OH didn’t know why the extra stage was called a Knappett. He thought that was its official name. He has watched every episode, some more than once and not picked up on that reasoning at all! He’s going to be watching models walking down a catwalk, thinking it’s a Knappett now.

I kind of love that a) they renamed the projecting part of the stage "the Knappett", b) they've never explained the use of "the Knappett" explicitly.
That is one of the most cracker moments in any episode, when Jess falls off the stage with her eyes wide open and Greg leaps up going, audibly, "Shit!"

DH and I are starting to think that John has been given a secret season-long task to sabotage his teammates. But then again Dara managed that all by himself this time.

Loved that Munya found his own hand in one guess by figuring out the laser thing, and Sarah found it just by thinking her hand would look funny in a wanking gesture.

I’ve got a slightly deformed finger, so my hand would be a bit easier to spot.

on the podcast today, Ed and Richard were saying that Sarah had just been trying to be funny with a wanking position for her hand. Seemed less likely to me that a woman would do that - I thought she was just trying to be different and unusual when she had the photo done, but nothing specific!! But obviously other people think that too so I must be wrong.

I didn't quite get the laser thing or the buying guesses to use up a wall, as I missed part of the show that showed only some had seen those instructions.

The bell task seemed like it would have had so many other easy solutions to finding a code - it wasn't really developing a language or anything, which could have been quite a funny task - maybe some kind of competition to develop a private language between two team-mates that the opposition couldn't then guess might have been more 'language' rather than just a code. But the obvious thing would have been just to use the text message letter system that they were almost doing, but ringing 1/2/3 times for the letters. That's what I was thinking they were doing at the time, and it was suggested on the podcast too, so must have occured to lots of people. I don't know why John was so confused by whatever system it was!!

I think they have ordered the tasks to allow Sarah to sneak ahead in the end - last week Dara referred to her on the podcast as the assassin or something, so that's my suspicion!

The tail task could have been much more creative if they'd marked it based on allure as well as speed.

But I am enjoying this series. I know series 15 has been filmed and the studio bits filmed too, so hopefully that will be early spring, and I'm guessing there will be a new years special soon too, and maybe they'll be starting to film CofC 3, though they can't really do too much in case that reveals the winners of series 14 and 15.

on the podcast today, Ed and Richard were saying that Sarah had just been trying to be funny with a wanking position for her hand. Seemed less likely to me that a woman would do that - I thought she was just trying to be different and unusual when she had the photo done, but nothing specific!! But obviously other people think that too so I must be wrong.

She said on the show that she did it because she thought a wanking gensture would be funny.

Have you not heard any of her comedy? Or... her on the show? She is not shy of the dirty joke.

No I didn't really know of her that much before the show. I'm discovering all kinds of new comedians on Taskmaster! I missed her saying that on the show - my reception kind of cuts in and out, so I don't always follow everything.

but yes I have seen her on the show, and not surprised at the 'dirty joke' aspect of it -but it just seemed a very male joke

I think (was only half watching) that Sarah said she was going to use a different gesture, because everyone else would just put their hand down flat, so she was going to be different. She then (being Sarah 😃) chose a wanking gesture, but she did just want a different, stand out gesture too.

I find Sarah Millican (and Angela Barnes) a bit tedious with their laddish humour, talking cocks, wanking, periods, farting. It used to be quite shocking when women were using male type humour but it’s not that funny any more. I enjoyed Desiree Burch, Judi Love and Daisy Mae Cooper, although Mel Giedroyc with the sausage in the fingers of the glove and Liza Tarbuck with the hopping and Alex and the cake had me roaring.

I liked Desiree but hadn't heard of her at all before the show. I was less keen on both Judi and Daisy, and also didn't know of them before, so have no idea how their Taskmaster personas compared to their real ones or what their comedy styles are. I still enjoyed watching them though. I also liked Bridget and Morgana for female comedians. And Sally Phillips. Didn't know any of them. I only know the people who tend to be on panel shows, like Alan Davies, VCM, Dara, Jo brand, etc., so almost every series, at least four of the people are new to me! One of my favourites was Mike Wozniak.

Laddish humour does get a bit old quickly, though, and someone like Sarah is funny enough that she doesn't need to rely on it really

On the podcast, both Ed and Richard said that they'd have put their middle fingers up for the photo, which would have been easy to spot!

I wonder when Alex asked for viewers to send in photos of their hands, and how he did it without the constestant suspecting what their photos would be used for - unless the hands task was a fair while after their photos were taken (which it might have been, given that Dara had forgotten whether he was wearing a ring, or which hand had be photographed!)

It's really interesting to see how contestants are different in taskmaster than you expect. (assuming you'd heard of them at all before...) But is their Taskmaster persona the real one or not?
I missed the Xmas New year specials so have only just caught up with them, and really surprised at Claudia Winkleman who was quite sharp and sweary and not at all the fluff bunny she seems to me.

Comedians are usually running pre-scripted and planned routines or well-practised patter on TV or at shows. In Taskmaster they're dealing with unplanned situations with whatever resources they have. Lots of the comedians who have been on have said they've learned more about themselves from doing it than in the rest of their lives put together. And Greg has a sort of evil-therapist side where he has a knack of zeroing in on the way you work and describing it. Usually unflatteringly.

evil-therapist vibe is a good way of describing him! Especially with the little notes he takes during the tasks and the comments he writes.

although they do have some narratives that they seem to create by the editing.

Fern said on her podcast that she's not very happy with the 'tired/can't be bothered' narrative that they seem to be suggesting for her, as she says that she was actually so excited that she wasn't sleeping, so that's why she was tired. She also said that she cringed a lot watching it back as she thought her autism came across much more than she wanted it to, but i'm not sure I'd have picked up on that if she hadn't said so. She approaches things in an unusual way, sometimes, but then again a lot of comedians seem to be very out-of-the-box thinkers! It's an interesting show for showing up different ways of thinking, because none of them really see what anyone else has done until afterwards, so it's quite an exposing thing to do and takes guts. Think there have been a couple of ND contestants. Mostly I think the different ways of approaching the tasks have to do with how much TM they've watched before, and whether they know about hidden hints or tricks, whether they know they can use loopholes, sometimes physical strength or height, knowledge of Greg's interests and likes, etc.

although they do have some narratives that they seem to create by the editing It does seem that they try to give everyone a winning episode. And if the person is never, ever going to win like John Kearns, they give them a task like the sabtotage one.

Definitely agree about the ND contestants!

For the Mike Wozniak fans, he plays Brian in Man Down- fantastically uptight character. Great series written by Greg Davies and Ed Gamble ( who cameos in it a few times).

The. British comedy scene is quite incestuous when you get down to it. Not that I really care, but I do suspect a little bit of chicanery behind the scenes for Ed to win his series.

My favourites have been Joe Wilkinson( I will watch literally anything he's in), Doc Brown, Kerry Godliman ( 'laminator!). James Acaster, Liza Tarbuck and Morgana Robinson .

Least faves: Sophie Duker, Alan Davies ( I just can't stop thinking about all the threads on here when he's mentioned as being a generally rude man) and Victoria Coren Mitchell( who I think is fabulous but was miscast for this imo)

Still great watching though.

Interesting, i'm less keen on several of your favourites, like Kerry Godliman and James Acaster. I did like Morgana though. And Mel Giedroyc - wish Sue P would do it too! - and I liked VCM too. I read a tweet where she mentioned being neurodiverse too, but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else so I don't know in what way, or if it affected her on this. She didn't quite fit in the general vibe as she's not a comedian, more a presenter, but at the same time, she had some good tasks - I think she just didn't understand Greg very well or the prize tasks, and kind of got off on the wrong foot as a result of that, whcih affected scoring of everything. Mike W was great. I liked Sally Phillips too, and Desiree and Guz and Chris Ramsay. And Bridget was just delightfully weird! (and it was funny watching how irritated Alex got by her). I like Sarah M too as well as Dara. I think she will probably win. I would like some of the earlier series to have had ten episodes, as some of the best competitors were in them and we didn't get to see enough of them! I think one of my favourite tasks ever is the create your own real life computer game.

Agree very much about the incestuous comedy scene though - when you listen to them talk on the podcast afterwards etc, so many of them know each other really well!! There is a slightly separation between the stand up group and the panel show group, though many do both I guess.

I've just rewatched series 7 and I actually think it's my favourite now.

Rhod Gilbert being hilariously creepy and matter of fact.

It's brilliant.
Fern's metal bikini thing over her lycra suit looks very uncomfortable, though.
John Kearns has been very funny.

I'm currently watching S5 so have just seen Sally Phillips shagging a water cooler and filming Alex's birth 😂 Plus Bob Mortimer.

The latest episode was so funny, one of the best of the series. I was crying with laughter at the “Snort, raspberry, whistle” task 🤣