Taskmaster #2 Are you a child of divorce?

[The Devils Arse]

I'm really struggling to enjoy this series, which is a bit of a strange feeling because I've been hoping that Steve Pemberton or Reece Shearsmith would one day be on Taskmaster.

It feels as if there is no rapport between the contestants, they just don't seem to give across a feeling of being comfortable with each other.

I think John is a problem. He seems very invested in trying to work the task out and look for the catch, rather than just getting on with it.

 

[adviseplz]

Plus he’s wildly competitive and v pedantic so I think we’re going to see that play out a lot in the series which should make for entertaining viewing.

The show has been running for ages, not sure how you can’t expect people, esp in the industry, to have not seen it?

 

[Scarecrowboat]

I listened to John's podcast with Elis James.

I don't know any of these people nor have I listened to the pod before.

As a fan of their podcast, John played Taskmaster exactly as I would have expected him to. He is hyper competitive, very heavy on preparing for things and has often had times where his bad showmanship makes him look very childish and petty.

I thought he came across fine on the show, but he was clearly in it to win it and had studied the show in depth before his tasks. Which ultimately made him a little too boring and smug.

 

[Madeofeyes]

John is a good friend of Alex’s (they have an YouTube channel together) and a big TM fan. He has spoken publicly about giving up drinking in the last year and I think this is why he’s now finally a contestant when people have been asking for him on the show for ages.

 

[StephenTJackson]

Having a contestant like John who is clearly a massive fan, has watched the show and really wants to win can be very annoying, but it's working with John because he isn't a twat about it.

And you know every time he comes up with the clever way around, he is genuinely terrified he's missed something and is gonna get disqualified. And I just like how it's being played out in the studio, building the tension, because at some point in the series I'm hoping there is gonna be a pay off, after a long pause and John thinking he's done a good job, Alex is actually gonna say "but" and he's gonna get disqualified from a task.

 

[Ursaarctosarctos]

John is so irritating and smug , and the way he keeps winning and will probably win the series is annoying, too. I feel like Greg and Alex really like Joanne and I don't get it.

I wish they'd get more non comedians on the show. I feel like we have too many contestants who are trying way too hard to be funny.

I also wish channel 4 would bring out more of the worldwide taskmaster series. I couldn't get into the NZ series but I liked the Swedish ones I saw.

 

[orangehead]

Spoilery bit first Emma Sidi is best mates with Rose Matafeo and is in her show and had a small part in ghosts, but I don’t know why, I just get bad vibes from her so I’m not thrilled by that. However Bridget Christie massively changed my view of her when she was on so maybe I’d be proved wrong!

Unspoilery bit- I’m looking forward to seeing Lloyd on TM Aus especially having been in the Edinburgh shows and also I think having a couple on the same series will be an interesting dynamic.

Isn’t it funny how you can just change your opinion on people like that! I really didn’t like Nick Mohammed before this series. I groaned when I heard he was going to be on. I’d only seen him on 8 out of 10 cats does countdown and I fast forwarded all his parts he was so unfunny and irritating and he’s my favourite! He’s hilarious!

 

[Jelly Bean]

This is the leaked line-up, according to cookd & bombed:

Spoiler: Series 18 line up

Andy Zaltzman
Babatunde Aléshé
Emma Sidi
Jack Dee
Rosie Jones

I’ve only heard of two of them, and I cannot abide one of those, so given how dull this series has been when I like 3/5 of the contestants, I might not bother with the next one.

I've only not heard of the middle person. Would love the 4th one to be true but the excitement about that is almost cancelled out by the bottom one. I wondered when they would turn up.

 

[invisobelt]

I think that it was still fine as it was on the New Years Treat episode and not on a full series. You can play around with things with a one-off that you can't easily do on a regular series of TM. And maybe they don't do it again with a kid, but I don't blame them for trying. He wasn't bad at all by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[ButtonDownTheHutches]

I’ve found with John that he seems to look arrogant when others mess up the tasks and his video hasn’t been shown yet. It’s as if he’s sitting thinking “well I know I’ve nailed it so I’m clearly better than you and I’m winning!” I just want him to relax and enjoy it, not be all about the win. I stopped watching this week’s when I realised he’d won as I just didn’t care.

John might ‘win’, but Sophie’s the outright winner for me; she’s made this series watchable. Nick is watchable too, I admire Steve’s cleverness, and I don’t care if I never see the other two on anything ever again.

 

[forgotmyacc]

My issue with Rosie isn't that I don't find her funny, I frequently do, but I'm really fucking impatient and it takes her too long to get the punchline out. Simple as that, and I'm aware that she can't help it, and that it makes me a bit of a cunt, but I do question if quick fire comedy is the best use of her talents.

As a side note, my daughter absolutely loves her Edie Eckhart books.

No, I'm with you.

I want to sit down, relax and watch something on tv that will give me a laugh a minute. What I don't want is to struggle to understand someone, strain to hear them and wait and wait and wait for the punchline.

If that makes me a horrible person so be it.

( same kind of thing with love Island at the moment. Two Welsh people and one girl from Liverpool with really strong accents. Im struggling to understand them and I can't be arsed trying to figure out what they are saying )

 

[November_again]

Having a contestant like John who is clearly a massive fan, has watched the show and really wants to win can be very annoying, but it's working with John because he isn't a twat about it.

And you know every time he comes up with the clever way around, he is genuinely terrified he's missed something and is gonna get disqualified. And I just like how it's being played out in the studio, building the tension, because at some point in the series I'm hoping there is gonna be a pay off, after a long pause and John thinking he's done a good job, Alex is actually gonna say "but" and he's gonna get disqualified from a task.

I don't mind competent contestants who find loopholes in general but it's just too frequent in John's case imho. When it's every second task, I just groan because it has very little entertainment value to me. I felt the same about Mae. Even in the creative egg task, I just felt like I was watching a lesser version of Ed's chickpea movie.
Someone who got the perfect balance was Dara to me. Lots of lateral thinking but then there were tasks where he just fully leaned into his role as an entertainer and went for the joke instead of the points.
I'm dreading the day when a task like the "find the ducks" one in 13x01 becomes just 5 people drawing ducks on paper instead of 5 contestants going crazy in a room looking for them.

 

[mee43]

I wish we had more of Paul Choudury on TV, I think he’s hilarious. He was great as a guest on the off menu podcast too
I enjoyed the Taskmasterclass more than the whole of the last series!

 

[ButtonDownTheHutches]

I've actually never watched Taskmaster before until the series 17.
I then went back and picked a random series to watch and it happened to be series 7.
FANTASTIC piece of television. I loled and loled all the way through

You absolutely MUST watch series 5!

And if you don’t want to watch the whole of series 5, then at the very least watch episode 8. And if you don’t want to watch the whole of episode 8, then just watch the Rosalind song task.
It might just be the best thing that ever happened.

 

[Jelly Bean]

I hate to say it but for some reason Alex is really irritating me this series.
His pretending to be Greg's subservient bitch just isn't funny any more.

And Joanne's pouting and sucking in her cheeks

 

[runningbutnotinfluencing]

I’m not a RJ fan and have thought the recent series quite a bit more miss than hit - but I’ll still give the next one a go.
I don’t understand people saying they won’t watch it just because of someone on the lineup.
There are still four others competing and undertaking tasks…

 

[Madeofeyes]

I went to the last ep of series 14 so Munya, Dara, John Kearns, Fern Brady and Sarah Millican. and then the most recent champion of champions also with Dara.
All studio stuff is in the TV studios at Pinewood so they make all the staging etc look like a theatre.

 

[Jelly Bean]

One thing I'm so pleased about with TM, they never went down recruiting celebrity Youtubers route. It could have been so easy.

 

[Toffee finger]

Just watched it and enjoyed. Really looking forward to the rest of the season. Sophie in the team task and with Gary was brilliant!

I’m halfway through the first episode and wanted to know where I recognised Sophie from. I asked my husband if he knew her and he asked me to clarify which of the contestants I meant so I said “the older woman”. I then googled her and found out she’s 36! I would have had mid to late 40s easily. And out of curiosity I also looked up Joanne and she’s 40 which feels right.

36?! In the words of Chris Ramsey - No Way!

 

[nbt]

Just catching up on last nights and I love that Nick is wearing a Diamond Dogs jumper. I love even more that you can buy it for £25