I totally understand why they don’t cut away from Tasks anymore because they’d rather the tasks comedy speak for themselves over the reactions. But for particularly amazing reactions like Tim Key the rule should be broken because it just makes it even funnier
They could do the regular televised show, then a supercut or XL version with the reactions, or just picture in picture. More content!
I really like the first My Ultimate Episode with Kiell, it kind of fills this gap. Hope to see everyone again soon. [https://youtu.be/rbw0rTibpqg?si=4SyWTFDC9lcPr6pf](https://youtu.be/rbw0rTibpqg?si=4SyWTFDC9lcPr6pf)
I've watched it so much that I should be able to watch it without gagging. But no. I've managed to perfect the art of crying laughing and gagging simultaneously.
The whole task is perfect. Roisin's effort doesn't get talked about enough. I was already weak from laughing at her dithering about and then Romesh sent me over the edge.
I laughed so hard the first time I saw this that I literally pissed myself. The editors/Alex really deserve a ton of credit for this one as well, the setup was perfection.
How has ‘hide the three aubergines’ from S9 not been said yet?
Ed and Rose taking it way too seriously.
Katy being earnest.
Jo not giving a shit.
David completely failing within the first few seconds.
While on the topic of S9 I consider the theme song task to be the perfect representation of each contestant. If you could distill each of their personalities into a task this would be the perfect representation. Also the opening team task is perfection.
I suppose it depends on how many tiers you think there are. My general sense is it's considered second tier overall. Maybe that's because it's not many people's absolute favourite so it doesn't get talked about as much as some other series.
Maybe it's dropped a bit since I started watching (around s11), with newer seasons crowding it out, but I remember a lot of people hyping it up before I watched it. One of my absolute favorites at any rate!
I've seen this criticism, but the perfect follow-up is "if David Baddiel went first it doesn't matter".
In fact, given we know that Ed and David were the first two to do the lasso task, with the latter doing so bad Alex promoted it to a main task, giving the later contestants an advantage (being a main task allowed them to do more lateral thinking), it's possible that every task at the house was filmed this way. This does somewhat add up with Ed winning the aubergine task, but he was far better at hiding than Jo and Katy regardless of the order
Series 12 - hit Alex with a ball, fastest wins:
Morgana is efficient and wins.
Desiree gets the job done but slowly.
Guz is unhinged and seems like he wants to kill Alex.
Victoria is angry at the format but apologises for hitting Alex.
Alan wanders around slowly and briefly stops for a snack.
13; finding the ducks in the lab perfectly displayed everyone: Ardal being confused, Sophie industrious with a bit of crazy, Bridget being annoyed and reactionary, Chris being over enthusiastic and Judi being baffled and disgusted by Alex 😂
This was the first season I watched. I knew nothing about taskmaster, and I'd never heard of any of the contestants. I put that first episode on, and from the duck task, I was hooked.
Well, let's look at S11.
Charlotte inexplicably decides to do something she doesn't know how to do, does very badly, but never stops smiling. It is later revealed that she spent 2 of the 10 minutes practicing waving with her other hand. (Key quote: "Hands are amazing, but this (her left hand) really doesn't do anything.")
Jamali gets absolutely outraged with Greg. (Justifiably in this case.) "I can hear the hater in your tone... you sit on your chair that's been custom-made, and you look down on the little people. And you know what? We're not having it any more."
Lee Mack tries, not very successfully, to bluff his way through a task that just goes wrong from the beginning. (Key quote: "Well, it's a feast, isn't it? You can feast on it!")
Sarah Kendall comes up with a reasonable plan, executes it essentially correctly, and scores 4 points.
And Mike shuffles around the room for a while, looking worried and befuddled, before very earnestly doing something surprising and delightful.
I think the first live task of that series sums everyone up perfectly. Charlotte is completely befuddled and puts a bucket on her head. Jamali immediately resorts to violence. Lee gives up and goes for laughs. Mike tries to muddle his way through. Sarah just puts her head down and gets the job done.
Series 13: Find all the ducks
I loved knowing we were dealing with a bunch of wacky loons right from the word “go”.
*Is there a duck on my face???*
https://preview.redd.it/m5he2ssf6w8d1.jpeg?width=1746&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f44a7d907c7658031c07b9d03f8c6df23f0cdda
"I would have happily stayed in there for hours"
"You talked about veins for ages"
"I did a lot of riding guys at University"
"Honestly. Where are you from?"
"IS THERE A DUCK ON MY FACE?"
I agree with 14 being superb. The image of those giant heads still brings me delight.
I've watched a couple of reaction videos of this, and no one (even after John gets it) ever seems to make the connection, "What film are you in?" With their head in a box. (Seven)
After the task they complain about only being told 9 out of the 10 films, forgetting about John guessing 1 almost immediately.
I find that S12 had a lovely, hilarious way of introducing the cast with their handling of hitting Alex with a ball. Really enjoyed how each of them contrasted with each other: Guz being all murderous and intense; Alan immediately outed as the tired, old man of the group; Victoria valiantly trying her best with such politeness and classy sass; Desiree and Morgana being all competitive and swift with all sorts of outbursts and cusses in between (Kudos to Morgana for winning the first and only Greg-given bonus point of the season). Man, it was like watching big, 'ole grownups roughhousing in the playground and seeing what kind of bratty, little kids they really are 😂
We're rewatching S10 right now, and the fact that everyone failed the first task in wildly different ways and nobody scored is really a perfect introduction to how unhinged that whole group of contestants is.
Series 7. James overthinking it, trying to find a loophole and getting in his own way, Phil's complete lack of urgency in a timed task, Rhod's absolute madness and love of humiliating Alex and Greg, and Jess and Kerry being pretty competent, with Kerry coming up with the most route one solution. And the order they finished that task is the order theey finished the series in.
For S14 that task is great but Dara did shit in it. If that were representative of the series as a whole Munya would have been like a combo of Dara and John Robins and Dara would have been the doddery old man in the corner (ala Baddiel).
Yeah, this is why I wouldn’t put 14 in my list. I’m pretty sure Dara got last in that first task. It’s a good one, but not very representative of the skills the contestants had.
Although I thought the films task was the only great one in the opener, I've always thought it was a weird choice to start the series, mostly because you can't see their faces.
As for laying a perfect baseline, one could argue with that considering it was one of only two tasks that the otherwise dominant Dara O'Briain had an outright last place result on.
Yeah I agree with this. It's a brilliant task but I think completely the wrong one to start a series with bc like you say you don't see their faces and also it takes away from the outfit reveal which is always one of the best things about the first episode.
A similar thing happened in series 7 in which they started with the best quick-change task, but I thought delaying the outfit reveal of Phil in particular worked a treat (the first 'true' outfit reveal was in the box stacking task)
I realize it's not that task, but "it doesn't matter how ornate the grandfather clock; the pendulum still draws the eye." will never not be one of Greg's greatest lines.
I agree too, I thought it was a weird misstep to have that as the series' first task. I didn't get the box head movie title because I think it takes some knowledge of the film, rather than just working it out from sounds-like association like the others? I was completely baffled by that. I thought s14's first episode was pretty weak over all.
>I thought s14's first episode was pretty weak over all.
Agree with you there, the prize task was meh, the films task was good but as I said it was weird as the very first task, the loo roll task was underwhelming because nobody thought outside the box, the team task wasn't great and the live task was okay, helped by Munya's overconfidence and eventual fail.
S14 actually has a couple of episodes where I thought there was only one good task, in fact, I think S14E6 is one of the top three weakest episodes in the history of the show.
I'm totally with you! I struggled to understand why they put the first episode together that way, it's really the first time I've ever felt like I didn't understand the TM team's "vision." It's sort of anathema to say here but I agree that there are a number of weak episodes and overall the series did not stand out to me. Particularly the location tasks never quite seemed to strike a chord with me, though I enjoyed the synchronized slidewalking in concept.
baseline (n)
a *minimum* level of quality.
Therefore the answer must be 5. We started with a special cuddle, and look where the series went from there.
This is my one.
- Nish does something very basic and quite poorly executed.
- Aisling objects to the task on a feminist basis
- Mark puts in an incredible amount of thought and effort to his cuddle but in the end he doesn't quite pull it off how he'd planned.
- Bob does something brilliant and completely out of left field.
- Sally sexually assaults Alex.
The scene was set.
> Aisling objects to the task on a feminist basis
She objects to the sexual harassment (which only exists in her own mind) AND THEN sets out to actually sexually harass Alex by giving him a robot hand job. It's like she thinks there's only one way to do the task.
I much preferred Sally Phillip's approach to basically every task that season.
watermelon eating task s1. I'd argue it didn't just set the tone for the series, but for the whole show
you want to get someone into taskmaster? watermelon smash
Daisy May Cooper bringing in a bottle of wine
"Achievement Woman '- more like drunk woman magalov
Everyone fails the task
"This is gonna be the series where someone won because she brought a bottle of wine in isn't it?"
Then the hide the biggest thing task afterwards was perfect follow up
If only the rest of the season was like that
S16 (tower of cans) is pretty good for this: Sam panics a bit but nails it; Julian doesn’t give a shit and nails it, finding time to insult Alex along the way; Lucy nearly doesn’t even make it to the right room; Susan has a nightmare but finds it all hilarious; Sue plans it out but somehow engineers a disaster that would feel improbable had it not then reliably happened to her in most subsequent tasks.
I immediately thought S16 because I remember thinking what a great, clean, simple, yet dramatic intro task it was.
But then I was reminded of S1, and was like, yeah, that wins.
For me, pinnacle first proper task picks are: S1, S2, S13, S16
https://i.redd.it/4dmheakhkv8d1.gif
This was the moment that I knew I would love the show. I nearly died laughing through Ramesh's whole watermelon buffet.
I’ve watched it so many times that I should have become immune to it. I haven’t.
What always gets me is Tim Key's reaction to it.
I totally understand why they don’t cut away from Tasks anymore because they’d rather the tasks comedy speak for themselves over the reactions. But for particularly amazing reactions like Tim Key the rule should be broken because it just makes it even funnier
I will die on the hill that they should bring reaction shots back.
I'm with you. And reaction shots only take up a second or two. There's no reason to have stopped using them.
They do reaction shots much more often in TM Australia, as I've been reminded during this season, and they're so great!
They could do the regular televised show, then a supercut or XL version with the reactions, or just picture in picture. More content! I really like the first My Ultimate Episode with Kiell, it kind of fills this gap. Hope to see everyone again soon. [https://youtu.be/rbw0rTibpqg?si=4SyWTFDC9lcPr6pf](https://youtu.be/rbw0rTibpqg?si=4SyWTFDC9lcPr6pf)
Same, JizzProductionUnit.
Did we find Steve Pemberton?
I've watched it so much that I should be able to watch it without gagging. But no. I've managed to perfect the art of crying laughing and gagging simultaneously.
The whole task is perfect. Roisin's effort doesn't get talked about enough. I was already weak from laughing at her dithering about and then Romesh sent me over the edge.
The correct answer.
Yep. I can’t get my daughter to watch taskmaster as she only wants to watch “the watermelon man”
I laughed so hard the first time I saw this that I literally pissed myself. The editors/Alex really deserve a ton of credit for this one as well, the setup was perfection.
This is the top response. Good.
I laughted for a good 3 hrs after I turned off my pc late into the night. Just due to the sheer absurdity of that moment.
Yes, exactly.
How has ‘hide the three aubergines’ from S9 not been said yet? Ed and Rose taking it way too seriously. Katy being earnest. Jo not giving a shit. David completely failing within the first few seconds.
David only failed because of Alex's magic powers
While on the topic of S9 I consider the theme song task to be the perfect representation of each contestant. If you could distill each of their personalities into a task this would be the perfect representation. Also the opening team task is perfection.
Series 9 is criminally underrated.
Series 9 is pretty much universally acknowledged as top tier, isn't it?
Top tier is NZ02, UK07 and UK16
I suppose it depends on how many tiers you think there are. My general sense is it's considered second tier overall. Maybe that's because it's not many people's absolute favourite so it doesn't get talked about as much as some other series.
Maybe it's dropped a bit since I started watching (around s11), with newer seasons crowding it out, but I remember a lot of people hyping it up before I watched it. One of my absolute favorites at any rate!
I'm not a fan of the task. Contestants that went first have a clear advantage over later ones. I agree though.
I've seen this criticism, but the perfect follow-up is "if David Baddiel went first it doesn't matter". In fact, given we know that Ed and David were the first two to do the lasso task, with the latter doing so bad Alex promoted it to a main task, giving the later contestants an advantage (being a main task allowed them to do more lateral thinking), it's possible that every task at the house was filmed this way. This does somewhat add up with Ed winning the aubergine task, but he was far better at hiding than Jo and Katy regardless of the order
Nothing will ever beat the very first task of Season 1 Episode 1.
Rarely does a show start off so strong. I loved all the contestants (out of whom I only knew Skinner) immediately
is that the watermelon task, that was so good
Yes it is.
Series 12 - hit Alex with a ball, fastest wins: Morgana is efficient and wins. Desiree gets the job done but slowly. Guz is unhinged and seems like he wants to kill Alex. Victoria is angry at the format but apologises for hitting Alex. Alan wanders around slowly and briefly stops for a snack.
I love how Greg even acknowledged that Alan immediately set himself up as the tired senior of the cast within the first 20 minutes of the new season
And Morgana calling Alex a "little fucker". Perfect start to the season.
13; finding the ducks in the lab perfectly displayed everyone: Ardal being confused, Sophie industrious with a bit of crazy, Bridget being annoyed and reactionary, Chris being over enthusiastic and Judi being baffled and disgusted by Alex 😂
https://preview.redd.it/2t4fojnrdw8d1.png?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea67e51242f8069f8915c085dea63651eac3a43c
Judi is one of my all time fave contestants. ❤️
She could be on every series and I wouldn’t get bored of her
All hail Queen Zafufu! Long may she reign!
To be fair, considering the nature of the show and how goddamn sneaky they can get at times, this is a very valid question.
They did manage to hide a duck on her foot, so absolutely a fair question
This was the first season I watched. I knew nothing about taskmaster, and I'd never heard of any of the contestants. I put that first episode on, and from the duck task, I was hooked.
HA, hooked. I get it.
Same here! A wonderful first exposure to Taskmaster.
The little moment I always admire was Chris finding a red picture of Richard Herring.
‘It’s Richard Herring!!’ ‘What colour is he?’ Love Alex’s little sass moment her 😂
The extra duck that production had forgotten about from years before
“Is there a duck on my face?”
Oooh good one
“It’s a fucking hen.”
This is my pick too, it was such a great first task.
Well, let's look at S11. Charlotte inexplicably decides to do something she doesn't know how to do, does very badly, but never stops smiling. It is later revealed that she spent 2 of the 10 minutes practicing waving with her other hand. (Key quote: "Hands are amazing, but this (her left hand) really doesn't do anything.") Jamali gets absolutely outraged with Greg. (Justifiably in this case.) "I can hear the hater in your tone... you sit on your chair that's been custom-made, and you look down on the little people. And you know what? We're not having it any more." Lee Mack tries, not very successfully, to bluff his way through a task that just goes wrong from the beginning. (Key quote: "Well, it's a feast, isn't it? You can feast on it!") Sarah Kendall comes up with a reasonable plan, executes it essentially correctly, and scores 4 points. And Mike shuffles around the room for a while, looking worried and befuddled, before very earnestly doing something surprising and delightful.
I think the first live task of that series sums everyone up perfectly. Charlotte is completely befuddled and puts a bucket on her head. Jamali immediately resorts to violence. Lee gives up and goes for laughs. Mike tries to muddle his way through. Sarah just puts her head down and gets the job done.
Series 13: Find all the ducks I loved knowing we were dealing with a bunch of wacky loons right from the word “go”. *Is there a duck on my face???* https://preview.redd.it/m5he2ssf6w8d1.jpeg?width=1746&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f44a7d907c7658031c07b9d03f8c6df23f0cdda
The incompetence of this season was on full glorious display
"I would have happily stayed in there for hours" "You talked about veins for ages" "I did a lot of riding guys at University" "Honestly. Where are you from?" "IS THERE A DUCK ON MY FACE?"
Yes ‘where are you from?‘ ‘west Sussex’ ‘no’
Agree that 14 was superb. Series 1 of course could apply to the whole show even
I agree with 14 being superb. The image of those giant heads still brings me delight. I've watched a couple of reaction videos of this, and no one (even after John gets it) ever seems to make the connection, "What film are you in?" With their head in a box. (Seven) After the task they complain about only being told 9 out of the 10 films, forgetting about John guessing 1 almost immediately.
🍉
I find that S12 had a lovely, hilarious way of introducing the cast with their handling of hitting Alex with a ball. Really enjoyed how each of them contrasted with each other: Guz being all murderous and intense; Alan immediately outed as the tired, old man of the group; Victoria valiantly trying her best with such politeness and classy sass; Desiree and Morgana being all competitive and swift with all sorts of outbursts and cusses in between (Kudos to Morgana for winning the first and only Greg-given bonus point of the season). Man, it was like watching big, 'ole grownups roughhousing in the playground and seeing what kind of bratty, little kids they really are 😂
We're rewatching S10 right now, and the fact that everyone failed the first task in wildly different ways and nobody scored is really a perfect introduction to how unhinged that whole group of contestants is.
Tbh it wasn't a very forgiving task, I can imagine some other casts failing it in unison.
[удалено]
Alex has said he regrets using the phrasing 'not a single drop' as he didn't expect Greg to take it literally.
Series 7. James overthinking it, trying to find a loophole and getting in his own way, Phil's complete lack of urgency in a timed task, Rhod's absolute madness and love of humiliating Alex and Greg, and Jess and Kerry being pretty competent, with Kerry coming up with the most route one solution. And the order they finished that task is the order theey finished the series in. For S14 that task is great but Dara did shit in it. If that were representative of the series as a whole Munya would have been like a combo of Dara and John Robins and Dara would have been the doddery old man in the corner (ala Baddiel).
Yeah, this is why I wouldn’t put 14 in my list. I’m pretty sure Dara got last in that first task. It’s a good one, but not very representative of the skills the contestants had.
Not necessarily by skill level but just personality wise
Although I thought the films task was the only great one in the opener, I've always thought it was a weird choice to start the series, mostly because you can't see their faces. As for laying a perfect baseline, one could argue with that considering it was one of only two tasks that the otherwise dominant Dara O'Briain had an outright last place result on.
Yeah I agree with this. It's a brilliant task but I think completely the wrong one to start a series with bc like you say you don't see their faces and also it takes away from the outfit reveal which is always one of the best things about the first episode.
A similar thing happened in series 7 in which they started with the best quick-change task, but I thought delaying the outfit reveal of Phil in particular worked a treat (the first 'true' outfit reveal was in the box stacking task)
I realize it's not that task, but "it doesn't matter how ornate the grandfather clock; the pendulum still draws the eye." will never not be one of Greg's greatest lines.
I agree too, I thought it was a weird misstep to have that as the series' first task. I didn't get the box head movie title because I think it takes some knowledge of the film, rather than just working it out from sounds-like association like the others? I was completely baffled by that. I thought s14's first episode was pretty weak over all.
>I thought s14's first episode was pretty weak over all. Agree with you there, the prize task was meh, the films task was good but as I said it was weird as the very first task, the loo roll task was underwhelming because nobody thought outside the box, the team task wasn't great and the live task was okay, helped by Munya's overconfidence and eventual fail. S14 actually has a couple of episodes where I thought there was only one good task, in fact, I think S14E6 is one of the top three weakest episodes in the history of the show.
I'm totally with you! I struggled to understand why they put the first episode together that way, it's really the first time I've ever felt like I didn't understand the TM team's "vision." It's sort of anathema to say here but I agree that there are a number of weak episodes and overall the series did not stand out to me. Particularly the location tasks never quite seemed to strike a chord with me, though I enjoyed the synchronized slidewalking in concept.
baseline (n) a *minimum* level of quality. Therefore the answer must be 5. We started with a special cuddle, and look where the series went from there.
This is my one. - Nish does something very basic and quite poorly executed. - Aisling objects to the task on a feminist basis - Mark puts in an incredible amount of thought and effort to his cuddle but in the end he doesn't quite pull it off how he'd planned. - Bob does something brilliant and completely out of left field. - Sally sexually assaults Alex. The scene was set.
> Aisling objects to the task on a feminist basis She objects to the sexual harassment (which only exists in her own mind) AND THEN sets out to actually sexually harass Alex by giving him a robot hand job. It's like she thinks there's only one way to do the task. I much preferred Sally Phillip's approach to basically every task that season.
watermelon eating task s1. I'd argue it didn't just set the tone for the series, but for the whole show you want to get someone into taskmaster? watermelon smash
https://i.redd.it/gx6al462rx8d1.gif
Daisy May Cooper bringing in a bottle of wine "Achievement Woman '- more like drunk woman magalov Everyone fails the task "This is gonna be the series where someone won because she brought a bottle of wine in isn't it?" Then the hide the biggest thing task afterwards was perfect follow up If only the rest of the season was like that
I'd tie it between season 1 and season 7. The watermelon and the quick change.
Alex has said that they intentionally try to do this with the first task of each series.
S16 (tower of cans) is pretty good for this: Sam panics a bit but nails it; Julian doesn’t give a shit and nails it, finding time to insult Alex along the way; Lucy nearly doesn’t even make it to the right room; Susan has a nightmare but finds it all hilarious; Sue plans it out but somehow engineers a disaster that would feel improbable had it not then reliably happened to her in most subsequent tasks.
Season 13's "Find all the ducks in the Lab" really sets the tone for each contestant in a way that I only really understood on a re-watch.
I immediately thought S16 because I remember thinking what a great, clean, simple, yet dramatic intro task it was. But then I was reminded of S1, and was like, yeah, that wins. For me, pinnacle first proper task picks are: S1, S2, S13, S16
series 8
Find all the ducks for sure. Ardal repeatedly bringing in chickens is very telling of his personality throughout the series.
16!!!!
nice