Taskmaster (Greg Davies sets some comedians daft challenges!)

Basq

Game #8 of 'No More Jockeys' is out.. mentioned this here last week but it's the closest you'll get to the fun of Taskmaster at the minute.. trust me on this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WqkA93kStw

"Little Alex Horne", Tim "Task Consultant" Key and Mark "Cheeky Texts" Watson are great fun on it.

It pays to watch from starts as lots of references to games of past (Penelope Pitstop etc).

FunLover18

Basq wrote: »

Game #8 of 'No More Jockeys' is out.. mentioned this here last week but it's the closest you'll get to the fun of Taskmaster at the minute.. trust me on this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WqkA93kStw

"Little Alex Horne", Tim "Task Consultant" Key and Mark "Cheeky Texts" Watson are great fun on it.

It pays to watch from starts as lots of references to games of past (Penelope Pitstop etc).

Really enjoyed No More Jockeys, thanks for the recommendation!

Meanwhile The CW have axed the show after showing one episode. Typical Americans don't know a good thing when they see it.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

FunLover18 wrote: »

Really enjoyed No More Jockeys, thanks for the recommendation!

Meanwhile The CW have axed the show after showing one episode. Typical Americans don't know a good thing when they see it.

Not surprised it didn't translate - the masses over there just don't get that quality type of humour at all.

siblers

Rewatching season 4 (Noel Fielding) and its so good, tasks are brilliant and the contestants are great, even Lolly is a lot funnier than I remembered

Very high calibre of contestant too (in terms of popularity) compared to recent seasons. I wonder why they don't have as well known guests anymore

Vic_08

FunLover18 wrote: »

Meanwhile The CW have axed the show after showing one episode. Typical Americans don't know a good thing when they see it.

Can't imagine a worse fit for a Brit comedy than CW, hardly gels with it's usual teen angst and superhero output. I wouldn't expect any of the main US networks would be the right fit for a US version of Taskmaster never mind airing the original.*

The networks propensity for cancelling shows after minimal airings is patheticly stupid, their ratings obsession has seen so many decent prospects kicked to the curb because they are only interested in chasing the next mega hit.

siblers wrote: »

Rewatching season 4 (Noel Fielding) and its so good, tasks are brilliant and the contestants are great, even Lolly is a lot funnier than I remembered

Very high calibre of contestant too (in terms of popularity) compared to recent seasons. I wonder why they don't have as well known guests anymore

Like them or not David Baddiel and Jo Brand from season 9 were two of the biggest names that have appeared on the show.

Personally I don't think that having big names makes much difference, more often than not it has been people that havent looked like particularly good candidates that have been the best anyway.


*Yes, I know one was made, that Comedy Central cancelled an Americanised version after 1 season is a good indicator that it wasn't a good fit for the US.

Penn

Vic_08 wrote: »

*Yes, I know one was made, that Comedy Central cancelled an Americanised version after 1 season is a good indicator that it wasn't a good fit for the US.

It was really badly made though. Each episode was less than half an hour meaning you only got very quick prize task with little banter, maybe two quick tasks and very short stage task. One of the contestants was an actor (not even a comedy-based actor) and another was a record producer or something. And Reggie Watts was just bland as host. Ron Funches was quite good on it as was Kate Berlant.

I think it's a show that could have done well in the US, but they did almost everything wrong in making their own version to the point where after two failed attempts now (US version and starting with Series 8 of the UK version), it's just never going to happen now.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Watched the first two No More Jockeys last night. Absolutely fantastic. I can see this becoming a game I'll be playing with my mates quite often.

Penn

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

Watched the first two No More Jockeys last night. Absolutely fantastic. I can see this becoming a game I'll be playing with my mates quite often.

It only gets better as it goes on too. This morning's episode was brilliant.

Basq

Yes, more people should be watching. Perfect entertainment at the minute.

Going to try and start a game of it in one of our office social Zoom calls.

Basq

This week's No More Jockey's is out and it's a belter!

Two words:

Donald Duck

Penn

Basq wrote: »

This week's No More Jockey's is out and it's a belter!

Two words:

Donald Duck

The games are getting as intense as Joe Wilkinson's potato throw...

expectationlost

FunLover18 wrote: »

Meanwhile The CW have axed the show after showing one episode. Typical Americans don't know a good thing when they see it.

how do they think a new import will get huge ratings on its first ep? did they promote it? can they not leave it for a week or 2?



anyway they've put it all up on their streaming service now.

Toto Wolfcastle

They’re screening the first two episodes this week in London for reaction audio.

siblers

Rewatching season 6. Liza Tarbuck must be the worst contestant ever, she's incredibly dull. It's probably the worst season in terms of chemistry between the contestants

Greg was also ridiculously biased towards her, constantly giving her 5 points.

I've been watching a YouTuber called rich rants watching taskmaster. I get a kick out of seeing someone else watch it for the first time and reacting to all my favourite bits like Joe Wilkinson and the potato.

Exclamation Marc

siblers wrote: »

Rewatching season 6. Liza Tarbuck must be the worst contestant ever, she's incredibly dull. It's probably the worst season in terms of chemistry between the contestants

Greg was also ridiculously biased towards her, constantly giving her 5 points.

I don't know. The contestants have generally been wonderful but there are a handful who were brutal. I'd include Lolly Adefope, and Al Murray in that bracket. Russell Howard and Alice Levine were very meh but more irrelevant than 'bad'.

But Tarbuck, Adefope and Murray were pure muck.

Mr Crispy

Russell Howard has been my least favourite contestant by far, but partly because I just don't like the guy generally. There have been a few others that I thought were humdrum, but none offensively so.

Dodge

David Baddiel, by some distance, was my least favourite. I’d say Jo Brand was next

They’re the only two I can remember as being unusually annoying

Penn

siblers wrote: »

Rewatching season 6. Liza Tarbuck must be the worst contestant ever, she's incredibly dull. It's probably the worst season in terms of chemistry between the contestants

Greg was also ridiculously biased towards her, constantly giving her 5 points.

She was a bit hit and miss, but out of everyone that season she was the most creative and manic. I think she only consistently scored highly because the rest were mostly awful. In another series she probably would have been mid-table.

krissovo

siblers wrote: »

Rewatching season 6. Liza Tarbuck must be the worst contestant ever, she's incredibly dull. It's probably the worst season in terms of chemistry between the contestants

Greg was also ridiculously biased towards her, constantly giving her 5 points.

I enjoyed Liza Tarbuk in the series, I think the worst contestant is very harsh for her. It could be that I am of a similar age to her and you are a young pup

ArmaniJeanss

Dodge wrote: »

David Baddiel, by some distance, was my least favourite. I’d say Jo Brand was next

They’re the only two I can remember as being unusually annoying

I honestly wouldn't mind if David Baddiel was in every series, thought he was by far the best of the 'befuddled old man' characters they've had. Jo and him on the same team was for team-tasks was inspired.
But just shows that everyone has a different opinion.

Lolly was poor.

Paul Sinha just didn't work for me at all, though health issues may have been a factor. But probably more that comedy just isn't his main gig.

Penn

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

I honestly wouldn't mind if David Baddiel was in every series, thought he was by far the best of the 'befuddled old man' characters they've had. Jo and him on the same team was for team-tasks was inspired.
But just shows that everyone has a different opinion.

Lolly was poor.

Paul Sinha just didn't work for me at all, though health issues may have been a factor. But probably more that comedy just isn't his main gig.

I thought Paul was kinda funny in some of the prize bits, in terms of having a story behind his choices. Other than that he was unintentionally funny for how badly he f*cked most tasks up. I liked him more than Richard Osman, but that's not saying much.

Lolly Adefope, Richard Osman, Asim Chaudry, Russell Howard and Tim Vine were among the worst for me. I was excited for Tim Vine but he was very disappointing (aside from the task with the hook of course).

dulpit

Do we know when new series will be on Channel 4? Looking forward to being able to watch it in HD again...

Zaph

krissovo wrote: »

I enjoyed Liza Tarbuk in the series, I think the worst contestant is very harsh for her. It could be that I am of a similar age to her and you are a young pup

I'm of a similar age to her as well and I thought she was a complete pain in the arse. That she could stand out as being so annoying in probably the weakest line-up to date is some achievement. In fact it's a toss up between her and Tim Vine, who was also on that series, as to who I'd rate as the worst contestant.

The biggest disappointments for me to date have been Richard Osman and Dave Gorman. Both are very intelligent and so I expected a lot of invention from them in the tasks, but they didn't really manage that at all.

I saw the other day that Alex Horne rates Roisin Conaty as the worst contestant to date. Not that she wasn't entertaining, but rather that she was just so spectacularly bad at the tasks.

Penn

Zaph wrote: »

I saw the other day that Alex Horne rates Roisin Conaty as the worst contestant to date. Not that she wasn't entertaining, but rather that she was just so spectacularly bad at the tasks.

Yeah she seemed to genuinely be trying, but failing miserably (as opposed to those who don't care or purposefully go as weird/funny as possible). The dichotomy between her performance and Romesh/Tim in the very first task (the melon buffet) set the stage for the entire show.

ArmaniJeanss

I read on Digital Spy that they are doing the audience laughter stuff for episodes 3 to 10 today and tomorrow.

i.e., all the tasks are completed, and the studio stuff has been done.
This is just an audio recording in front of a (socially distanced) audience at a cinema in London to be able to splice natural audience reaction into the broadcast rather than a canned laughter track.
So there might be a bit of post-production editing after that, and should be ready to go quite soon.

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2100519/taskmaster-on-dave/p107

Poster of post #2663 was there for eps 1 & 2, and thought it was great.
Post #2668 clarifies the audience process.

siblers

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

I honestly wouldn't mind if David Baddiel was in every series, thought he was by far the best of the 'befuddled old man' characters they've had. Jo and him on the same team was for team-tasks was inspired.
But just shows that everyone has a different opinion.

Lolly was poor.

Paul Sinha just didn't work for me at all, though health issues may have been a factor. But probably more that comedy just isn't his main gig.

Oh forgot about the Sinha man, he was easily the worst. His logic in a lot of tasks was pretty bad and he had no creativity.

At least Liza was quite intelligent but a bit boring


I warmed to Russell Howard a small bit, he's a bit too OTT but he did give the tasks a good go, Alice Levine wasn't as annoying as I remember.

Tim Vine and Asim Chaudry were grand, there's been worse

Wheety

siblers wrote: »

Rewatching season 6. Liza Tarbuck must be the worst contestant ever, she's incredibly dull. It's probably the worst season in terms of chemistry between the contestants

Greg was also ridiculously biased towards her, constantly giving her 5 points.

She gets a pass from me for snapping at Russell Howard, in the live challenge when he was moaning, "Call your f*cking agent". This was after a prerecorded task where he had phoned his agent for help

Wheety

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Paul Sinha just didn't work for me at all, though health issues may have been a factor. But probably more that comedy just isn't his main gig.

While The Chase is his main gig now, he is a stand up comedian too

Penn

siblers wrote: »

Oh forgot about the Sinha man, he was easily the worst. His logic in a lot of tasks was pretty bad and he had no creativity.

At least Liza was quite intelligent but a bit boring


I warmed to Russell Howard a small bit, he's a bit too OTT but he did give the tasks a good go, Alice Levine wasn't as annoying as I remember.

Tim Vine and Asim Chaudry were grand, there's been worse

I think the issue with Series 6 as a whole was, any of the contestants in any other series would have been grand. But just the combination of them all together, plus that series having some of the most boring tasks, just meant they all kinda came off worse than they might have been otherwise.

I think it was only for Liza going a bit further outside the box in some of her tasks, whether out of creativity or just not giving a f*ck, that gave her the edge over others. There were no standouts like Rhod Gilbert or Bob Mortimer, no true creatives like Noel Fielding or James Acaster and no hapless idiots like Paul Chaudry or David Baddiel. They were all just middle of the road contestants and all came off worse as a result imo.