Taskmaster series 12

[Ambient Sheep]

The Greg and Alex interviews are pretty much non-spoilery, and very very good.

The VCM interview was so horrifically spoilery I stopped reading halfway through.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I think this series will live or die by how much screen time Victoria Coren Mitchell gets 

Because she'll be really good, or really bad?

[Ambient Sheep]

FWIW the announcement just popped up on Instagram too.  Like the Twitter one, but with more photos:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTmN5a-seGp

[BeardFaceMan]

Are they not doing the little video interviews this year or do they go up once the series starts?

[AsparagusTrevor]

Are they not doing the little video interviews this year or do they go up once the series starts?

Last time they staggered them after the series started, if I remember right.

[MigraineBoy]

New promo pics just released showing Victoria Coren Mitchell & Alan Davies are together for the team tasks & elsewhere they're using that dome in the garden that was 1st seen in the New Years Special.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

This starts tonight. Bumping this thread so that people don't start posting about it in the series 13 thread by mistake.

Pre-broadcast thoughts: I'm not wild about the lineup (while at the same I'm grateful that they're getting more diverse, and continuing to give attention to people who aren't on every other panel show), but if the tasks are as good as they were on the last series then it'll be fun.

[BeardFaceMan]

I just hope we haven't been spoiled by the NZ series, this UK series is going to have to be on form to compete with that.

[MigraineBoy]

I just hope we haven't been spoiled by the NZ series, this UK series is going to have to be on form to compete with that.

Didn't Alex say they've used a task from the first NZ series this time around?

[BeardFaceMan]

Didn't Alex say they've used a task from the first NZ series this time around?

If he had any sense he would because there were some great ones, but Alex has also said he has a bit of task hubris and doesn't like taking ideas from anyone else so it'll be interesting to see what happens, I'm not overly impressed with the cast for this series so it's going to live or die on the strength of the tasks.

[MigraineBoy]

Sweden's little version of me is also one of the producers who comes up with the tasks. I really enjoy watching their show, and we share tasks, which is nice. There's a balloon popping task in this series, which was a Swedish task that we adapted.

We had another one which was a version of a New Zealand task based on waiting for a toaster to pop. Another fun bit with the international ones is that we work together, so it feels like a little community of people, all trying to make this odd thing.

Funny I don't remember the NZ toaster task.

The beauty of the NZ tasks have been their simplicity & how none of them required a location other than the house/garden.  It really felt like the first few UK series when money was obviously a bigger constraint.

[BeardFaceMan]

That does make me more hopefully for this series if Alex is finally getting help with the tasks. I think there was mention in the NZ thread of one of the NZ writers being in touch with Alex to make sure they didn't come up with duplicate tasks, it's nice to hear it's a two-way thing and everyone's working together. Makes me even more hopeful of some sort of International Champion of Champions.

[mjwilson]

How many more countries do we need to come up with a good Taskmaster so that we can be watching it all year round?

[greencalx]

I won't be watching this tonight.


Because my wife is out and we'll want to watch it together, so it'll be tomorrow. I'll have to be good and not peek at this thread before then.

[AsparagusTrevor]

How many more countries do we need to come up with a good Taskmaster so that we can be watching it all year round?

Thinking about it, it seems there's only the US which managed to fuck it up. Which, yeah, they would, wouldn't they.

[L. Bizarglow]

Genuinely fucked off they're bleeping the swearing, not because I love swearing but the ping noise they're using is throughly annoying and distracting.

[BritishHobo]

Yeah, why is that a thing? I thought they did a family-friendly alternative version.

[AsparagusTrevor]

At first I thought it was just Morgana calling Alex a 'cunt' but the annoying dinging continued throughout. It's gotta be an accident, they've aired the wrong version, surely?

[L. Bizarglow]

They bleep the repeats when they're shown at an earlier time and the YouTube highlights. There's no need to bleep the post water shed slot surely.

[The Crumb]

This feels like quite a comedown after NZ series 2. Contestants are pleasant enough, but I've not really laughed once.

[Bad Ambassador]

Apparently, it's not supposed to be the censored version.

[Ja'moke]

I thought that was a pretty fun first episode. Sure, not to the amazing high standards of the recent Taskmasker NZ, but the line-up gelled quite nicely already.

And yeah, I assumed they must have played the censored version by accident.

[Glennhoddleishavingagoal]

I quite enjoyed that, going in with very low expectations. Desiree going batshit with the forks was a highlight and feel like Morgana's going to be a really fun contestant...even Alan Davies came across pretty well and I thought he might be enough to put me off watching entirely (basically pleased he is approaching it lowkey rather than his "on" QI persona).

Nowhere near as great as NZ series 2 and the tasks were a bit middling but taken for what it was, a decent hour of telly.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

I'm 99% certain the bleeped version was shown by mistake and it'll be back to normal next week. It definitely spoiled the episode for me.

A solid start, but it's done nothing to allay my fears that Alan Davies is just going to coast through the series. The others all made me laugh though.

The live task seemed familiar. Was that from NZ series 1?

[olliebean]

That does make me more hopefully for this series if Alex is finally getting help with the tasks. I think there was mention in the NZ thread of one of the NZ writers being in touch with Alex to make sure they didn't come up with duplicate tasks, it's nice to hear it's a two-way thing and everyone's working together. Makes me even more hopeful of some sort of International Champion of Champions.

There was a duplicate task in the first NZ series though, wasn't there? The one about making the largest object disappear? It was identical to the task in the UK series that was on around the same time, so the idea must have been shared from one to the other.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

There was a duplicate task in the first NZ series though, wasn't there? The one about making the largest object disappear? It was identical to the task in the UK series that was on around the same time, so the idea must have been shared from one to the other.

Apparently that was a coincidence.

Alex has confirmed the bleeped version was shown by mistake: https://twitter.com/alexhorne/status/1441150151230255107

[jimboslice]

These comparisons are a bit off. I love NZ S2, but I don't think it hit the ground running and the second half was much stronger, although admittedly that could be down to getting to know the contestants.

This was a decent opening episode, with some good tasks. No stand-out contestants yet, but no duff ones either. My gut tells me that Victoria will ultimately shine, and Morgan will continue to be very attractive.

[Glennhoddleishavingagoal]

True, it does always take an episode or two for the dynamic to settle so right not to judge it too harshly just yet. Unfortunately any series without a David Correos in is already at a big disadvantage now, as far as I'm concerned.

The live task seemed familiar. Was that from NZ series 1?

Yeah, it was. I think they did it but with sport, colour and animal maybe?

A solid start, but it's done nothing to allay my fears that Alan Davies is just going to coast through the series.

I dunno, I really think he's quite a bit more bearable coasting through it. Seems like an amiable mate of your dad's which frankly I'll take over the over-confident child hopped up on too many sweets version of him from QI.

[beanheadmcginty]

Always loved Morgana but never seen her so skinny. Lessgana?

[Virgo76]

I'm 99% certain the bleeped version was shown by mistake and it'll be back to normal next week.

I hope so.
I don't care about the NZ version. Perhaps there should be a separate thread for discussing that?