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The Taskmaster Podcast

Started by Old Thrashbarg, August 05, 2021, 08:49:34 PM

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Old Thrashbarg

There's been a bit of discussion about this before in the last couple of Taskmaster current series threads, but with them covering older episodes while the actual show is between series, it makes sense to separate this.

I don't think it's a particularly great podcast, but at the very least it serves as a nice piece of background noise to remind me of some of the less well remembered moments. And you also get the occasional interesting bit of information from the guest/Ed/Alex.

The guest this week was Phil Wang and he was asked about his recurring joke during the prize tasks about him haggling when buying his item, only to end up paying the original price. I'd assumed this was just a joke he'd used previously and, whilst it was funny the first time, it was pretty brazen and lazy to keep doing it. On the podcast he revealed that it was a genuine thing that happened whilst buying the item for the first prize task of the series. And he told it at that point with no intention of repeating it. But then when he didn't have anything to say for a subsequent prize he thought he'd try it again, to see what the reaction would be for the audience hearing it repeated. But of course, it was a different studio audience because whichever episode it was was recorded on a different day to the first. So it got another good reaction from them and an eye-roll from Greg. And then he carried it on when there was a new audience because he found it amusing that they'd react well, Greg would look annoyed when the story started, but the audience wouldn't know why.

Not the most groundbreaking revelation, but enough that I'll pay more attention to the reactions and reconsider the worth of those bits whenever I rewatch series 7 again.

Captain Z

I should love the podcast but just can't get into it. I think an hour is too long - it takes Ed two minutes of pointless exposition before the intro jingle is even played, then 20 minutes of introducing the guest, and you're well into the second half hour before even getting to the first 'proper' task of the show. He also has a bad habit of dragging threads of discussion long past the point they should have stopped.

I echo the appreciation of the Alex Horne episode(s?) I caught, and would be open to recommendations of other good ones.

I'll listen to the ones with Alex on as I get a bit of insight into one of my comedy highlights of the last decade. But it's often just two people talking through an episode of something that neither of them were on.

I'd be interested in an edit/transcript of all the interesting stuff like the Phil Wang bit that Old Thrashbarg mentioned. But I have zero interest in how Scroobius Pip would have scored the contestants on the New Years special.

I find the Avalon, career-focused version of Ed Gamble incredibly irritating too. I used to love Peacock and Gamble, and he was a first-class club comic/MC after he stopped working with Ian as much. But nowadays he's completely unremarkable and almost unbearably smug.

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on August 05, 2021, 10:35:47 PMBut nowadays he's completely unremarkable and almost unbearably smug.

I think the same, noticeable when going on about being a 'foodie' on the Off Menu podcast.

This podcast is like a lot of others, quality completely dependant on the guest, but also really liked the Alex Horne and Tim Key ones.

BeardFaceMan

Yeah Gamble treats Taskmaster like it's a reality show, he's incredibly boring. And he sounds genuinely upset if someone doesn't give him 5 points at the end of the podcast. Can only listen to these now if there's a good guest, and it usually goes downhill when they start talking about the episode anyway, especially if it was someone that wasn't involved with the episode. Or worse, a 'superfan'.

tinglingoxbow

I remember the Doc Brown one being pretty entertaining, because he clearly didn't enjoy being on Taskmaster and could barely remember most of what happened in his series. The idea of someone not enjoying the experience seemed just shocking to Ed.

But yeah, arguing about who deserves 5 points and where and things like that, which Ed loves to do, seems completely antithesis to the core idea of Taskmaster, I think. It's not a game show or competition with real defined rules, for a lot of the tasks the real main aim is to amuse Greg. That element of chaos is what really makes the show work.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: tinglingoxbow on August 06, 2021, 10:21:44 AM
I remember the Doc Brown one being pretty entertaining, because he clearly didn't enjoy being on Taskmaster and could barely remember most of what happened in his series. The idea of someone not enjoying the experience seemed just shocking to Ed.

But yeah, arguing about who deserves 5 points and where and things like that, which Ed loves to do, seems completely antithesis to the core idea of Taskmaster, I think. It's not a game show or competition with real defined rules, for a lot of the tasks the real main aim is to amuse Greg. That element of chaos is what really makes the show work.

I think that element of the show has been more or less forgotten as time has gone on, especially with the prize tasks. The contestants now seem to be playing it like a gameshow or a competition rather than buying into the conceit of the show and trying to please Greg. You don't get many moments like Dave Gorman getting all that Wem shit for him, or Rob Beckett getting him a little footstool any more.

The Crumb

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on August 06, 2021, 11:44:02 AM
I think that element of the show has been more or less forgotten as time has gone on, especially with the prize tasks. The contestants now seem to be playing it like a gameshow or a competition rather than buying into the conceit of the show and trying to please Greg. You don't get many moments like Dave Gorman getting all that Wem shit for him, or Rob Beckett getting him a little footstool any more.

That task was specifically buying a present for Greg though wasn't it? Paul Chowdhry taking the opportunity to make Greg awkward about his love life really tickled me.

BeardFaceMan

Yeah, Rhod Gilberts prize tasks are probably a better example, although intended to get the opposite reaction. You used to get a lot of people asking things like 'would Greg like this?' in the filmed tasks too, that doesn't happen as much either. You see Greg at the type writer in the credits, I think people have forgotten that's its supposed to be him thinking up the tasks and Alex then has to create and supervise the tasks while people compete for Greg's glory, that's the conceit of the show, but then people like Gamble disregard all that and just treat it as a straight competition.

Virgo76

I enjoy the podcast. Works well in tandem with rewatching the old series.

BeardFaceMan

It's a superfan episode this week, gonna have to give that a miss.

Small Man Big Horse

I like the podcast when the show's airing but just can't get in to the ones covering old episodes, it'd probably work better if I rewatched them but I've no urge to do that as they're mostly still too fresh in my memory.

I do wish they'd get someone in from the New Zealand show though, I'm not expecting them to cover every episode but it'd be great if they got one person from each season at least.

Virgo76

Very slightly off subject, but when is the new Taskmaster series coming on?
A few outlets say it'll be back in September.
Does anyone know any more than that?

Virgo76

I've always said Iain Stirling is the only Taskmaster contestant I've seriously disliked. I always thought he seemed annoyingly overcompetitive.
But I've  revised my opinion after hearing him interviewed on the podcast. He came across very well. He apparently got very upset in the studio on one episode.

Quote from: Virgo76 on August 18, 2021, 02:56:49 PM
I've always said Iain Stirling is the only Taskmaster contestant I've seriously disliked. I always thought he seemed annoyingly overcompetitive.
But I've  revised my opinion after hearing him interviewed on the podcast. He came across very well. He apparently got very upset in the studio on one episode.

Having rewatched it recently, that series is an absolute gem and Iain is considerably less annoying and more entertaining than I'd remembered.

Old Thrashbarg

I'm currently halfway through rewatching series 8 and whilst he's still very annoyingly overcompetitive, he's not as bad as I remembered. Especially after the team task in which he's a complete dick to Lou, when he seems to reign it in quite a lot.

And yeah, I agree that it's a much better series than I previously gave it credit for.

bobloblaw

Quote from: Virgo76 on August 13, 2021, 06:23:51 AM
Very slightly off subject, but when is the new Taskmaster series coming on?
A few outlets say it'll be back in September.
Does anyone know any more than that?

it'll be September, probably around the time Bake Off comes back - they like to line up the big-hitters in the same week

holyzombiejesus

Is Taskmaster a big hitter? Apart from this place, my wife and I are the only people I know who watch it.

Virgo76

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on August 21, 2021, 08:26:47 PM
Is Taskmaster a big hitter? Apart from this place, my wife and I are the only people I know who watch it.

Taskmaster scored about 1.7 million viewers when it made its Channel 4 debut last October. The Great British Bake Off averaged about 10 million per episode for its last series.
The Taskmaster podcast (which has just finished its current run) is usually towards the lower end of the UK's top 100 most listened to podcasts.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on August 21, 2021, 08:26:47 PM
Is Taskmaster a big hitter? Apart from this place, my wife and I are the only people I know who watch it.

The wikipedia page* has the ratings for each episode, the last season started off with 3,438,000 and ended with 2,518,000, so even though it pretty much lost a million that's a high rating for Channel 4 these days** and pretty much double what it was getting on Dave at its best.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taskmaster_(TV_series)#Series_11_(2021)

** https://www.thinkbox.tv/research/barb-data/top-programmes-report/?tag=CH4

Virgo76


MigraineBoy

I'm also in the camp that enjoys this podcast when it's in tandem with new episodes.  However when it comes to the other eps of the podcast I'd prefer if they didn't go episode by episode, task by task and instead let the guest give an overview of their experience, etc.

olliebean

Quote from: Virgo76 on August 22, 2021, 11:34:34 AM
Got my figures from https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2020/10/16/47124/taskmaster_wins_1.7million_viewers_for_channel_4
But Horse's figures for Taskmaster look more reliable so listen to him!

The lower figures are overnights, the higher include timeshifted viewing so are more complete.

Probably not the right thread for this, but the series 13 studio records are happening in September. So I guess we'll discover the lineup in the next few weeks.

amateur

Quote from: MigraineBoy on August 22, 2021, 05:35:17 PM
I'm also in the camp that enjoys this podcast when it's in tandem with new episodes.  However when it comes to the other eps of the podcast I'd prefer if they didn't go episode by episode, task by task and instead let the guest give an overview of their experience, etc.

They've got a format and they're sticking with it, it's not particularly creative which is a shame given how much creativity goes into the programme itself. Means Gamble and the guest can rattle through, they know where it's going.

I listened to this when it had previous contestants on, and the Horne episodes, but have zero interest in any episode where it's two people who weren't on that show talking about it.

As discussed before it's a weird beast to have such in depth discussions about who should or shouldn't have got points, when that's not really important to theshow itself. It's not sports, lads.

BeardFaceMan

People like Gamble or Herring are entirely the wrong kind of person for the show. You want a bit of competitiveness to make it more fun but when you have people there purely to win, it shows, it sucks all the fun out of it. They couldn't have picked a more boring person for this podcast, what should be a joyous reflection of some very funny moments is instead an itv2 reality show aftershow, he's so fucking dry and serious about it all.

amateur

Probably doesn't need a podcast, this show. Not everything needs a podcast.

Virgo76

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on August 23, 2021, 08:29:02 AM
People like Gamble or Herring are entirely the wrong kind of person for the show. You want a bit of competitiveness to make it more fun but when you have people there purely to win, it shows, it sucks all the fun out of it. They couldn't have picked a more boring person for this podcast, what should be a joyous reflection of some very funny moments is instead an itv2 reality show aftershow, he's so fucking dry and serious about it all.

A bit harsh. Plenty of humour in the episodes I've heard.
And Richard Herring has never hosted it.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Virgo76 on August 23, 2021, 09:09:51 AM
A bit harsh. Plenty of humour in the episodes I've heard.
And Richard Herring has never hosted it.

If you find Ed Gamble funny, then sure, go for it. And I wasn't talking about Herring hosting the podcast, I was talking about him being on the show, hence me using the word 'show' instead of 'podcast'. Hope that clears that up.

Quote from: amateur on August 23, 2021, 08:34:31 AM
Probably doesn't need a podcast, this show. Not everything needs a podcast.

Doing it over lockdown, it would have been nice to get all the contestants from a series back for a group chat for an hour about the whole series, that would be plenty. Or have a decent host.

tinglingoxbow

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on August 23, 2021, 09:13:22 AM
And I wasn't talking about Herring hosting the podcast, I was talking about him being on the show, hence me using the word 'show' instead of 'podcast'.

To be fair to the producers, I think they were expecting to get the combative, childish, and pedantic stage-Herring of TMWRNJ and on-stage RHLSTP, rather than the route-one straight down the middle performance of (probably) real-Herring.