Taskmaster series 14

[Bad Ambassador]

It's a special edition of the board game, a new "Secret Series" game, and a card-based travel game, all of them available in US versions, presumably with "please do not shoot other players" printed on each task.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

This starts on September 29th. Hope it's as good as the last series!

Trailer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/taskmaster/status/1570064960985628674

[Peacock Johnson]

Spoiler alert

"Eat the grape" - NZ task there perhaps?

[close]

[Wayman C. McCreery]

Did anyone go to the Taskmaster gathering at Chesham United today. The photos on social media make it look like it was absolutely brilliant.

It seems to have been Alex, Greg, Tim Key, Lou Sanders and Paul Williams playing games with a couple of thousand people at a non-league football ground.

[Famous Mortimer]

The NZ Paul Williams?

[Wayman C. McCreery]

The NZ Paul Williams?

Yup! If you search #TaskmasterGathering on Twitter it's just photo after photo of people clearly having an absolutely wonderful day.

[Famous Mortimer]

Excellent stuff! I'm now hoping the NZ version gets on British telly.

[muldoon]

Spoiler alert

"Eat the grape" - NZ task there perhaps?

[close]

Spoiler alert

This is in episode 10 (was at the filming). Not quite as good as the NZ original, but hardly surprising given that that's one of the all time great TM moments

[close]

Did anyone go to the Taskmaster gathering at Chesham United today. The photos on social media make it look like it was absolutely brilliant.

Yeah. Fun and obviously a nice one-off occasion. Best thing about it was the tasks for all 8,000* people, which were based on slowly whittling competitors down to one winner: in one everyone had to keep guessing heads or tails correctly to stay in. Another challenged everyone to work out a phone number using cryptic clues to guess each digit, and the first person to call the phone won...

[MigraineBoy]

John Kearns is a guest on Sunday Brunch next week* & the Radio Times preview of ep2 says The relatively unknown John Kearns - who creates chaos and then melts down in disbelief that everything has gone wrong - is steadily emerging as the comic highlight of the series.



*as is Black Francis - can't wait to see how he copes with the Lovejoy #bantz

[MigraineBoy]

The Alex contestant interviews have started on YouTube.

Dara: https://youtu.be/SMtfwXWQyiA

[holyzombiejesus]

I always thought the Greg bits were filmed in a theatre :(

https://twitter.com/taskmaster/status/1575057641918840832?s=20&t=LkT5roAbOjiw_wkSR03Ivg

[MigraineBoy]

I always thought the Greg bits were filmed in a theatre :(

https://twitter.com/taskmaster/status/1575057641918840832?s=20&t=LkT5roAbOjiw_wkSR03Ivg

The first series was filmed in Clapham Grand, so I think subsequent series then tried to recreate that 'theater' look.

[holyzombiejesus]

Ah, right.

[lankyguy95]

It does take some of the magic away when you go to one of those shows and realise it's a cold sound stage with a surprisingly small, almost fold-down set in the middle. Lighting and camera angles do a lot of the heavy lifting on most of those sort of setups.

[olliebean]

The set looks very small since they stopped doing the socially-distanced Covid episodes.

[Utter Shit]

God I hope this is good tonight. Something nice and cheerful and sweet to distract from all the shit going on.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

I have a theory that the better series are the ones they don't hype up before they start. There's barely been any publicity for this one*, so we might be on to a winner.

*Though maybe they don't need it - Munya's got a million Instagram followers and will bring the show to a completely new audience. Is he the first UK contestant to have made their name on social media rather than standup or the telly?

[MigraineBoy]

I have a theory that the better series are the ones they don't hype up before they start. There's barely been any publicity for this one*, so we might be on to a winner.

*Though maybe they don't need it - Munya's got a million Instagram followers and will bring the show to a completely new audience. Is he the first UK contestant to have made their name on social media rather than standup or the telly?

There hasn't been a Channel 4 press pack for either of the last two series. 

Asim Chaudry did those YouTube mockumentaries which led to People Just Do Nothing, so its sort of a similar path.

[Utter Shit]

*Though maybe they don't need it - Munya's got a million Instagram followers and will bring the show to a completely new audience. Is he the first UK contestant to have made their name on social media rather than standup or the telly?

Can't think of any off the top of my head - as Vroomo said, PJDN started on Youtube but it was the TV series that got him well known.

I know this is just me being a 37 year old and not knowing how the modern world works, but it blows my mind that people can now get incredibly famous (and rich) without being on the TV or in the news. A load of Youtubers sold out Charlton's ground and raised a million pounds the other day hosting a charity match. Just completely unknowable to me.

[Twilkes]

I have a theory that the better series are the ones they don't hype up before they start. There's barely been any publicity for this one*, so we might be on to a winner.

*Though maybe they don't need it - Munya's got a million Instagram followers and will bring the show to a completely new audience. Is he the first UK contestant to have made their name on social media rather than standup or the telly?

Didn't Mawaan come up through online presence? That might have been early in his career though, he did quite a bit more before Taskmaster in 2020.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

Didn't Mawaan come up through online presence? That might have been early in his career though, he did quite a bit more before Taskmaster in 2020.

Oh yeah! Mawaan had definitely done a few telly bits before Taskmaster but nothing massively notable. He's the only contestant I haven't already been aware of when a Taskmaster lineup's been announced. I don't know if it was because he was on by far the weakest series of the show but he's down there with Baddiel as my least favourite contestant - he barely raised a smile from me.

I suppose, like others have said, Asim fits the bill too - though most people would recognise him from the telly rather than YouTube. Whereas Munya will definitely be seen as the guy who does the songs on Instagram.

[selectivememory]

Hmm. Likeable enough cast, but some weak tasks in that first episode. Though the live task was good.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

That felt rather gentle. More like a swearier episode of the Generation Game than Taskmaster.

[bigfatheart]

Liked the contestants, including the ones that CaBbers aren't supposed to like. Thought the tasks were a bit bland - not the worst they've had but nothing that felt too exciting. If that's the standard for the whole series, then I'd expect it to be enjoyable without being one of the classics.

Oddly, I thought the prize and live task were probably the highlights, when they're usually likely to be the dead areas.

[olliebean]

So I guess now we know that Alex doesn't know the difference between a biography and an autobiography.

[Twilkes]

"I mean, it's a fact, sure as day follows night, sure as eggs is eggs, sure as every even-numbered Taskmaster series is shit."

Prove it wrong please, team. :)

[thelittlemango]

The contestants seem like a good bunch but for a first episode the tasks were so disappointing.

The guess the film task was visually interesting with the box heads but essentially it was just a challenge of guessing things and them being either right or wrong, not much space for humour outside of funny wrong answers.

Then the toilet roll one, I saw the location and thought there were loads of opportunities in the space they had but the actual task was again really basic. The premise seemed to be that it might look funny to see people throwing toilet roll into a toilet from a height but once that's out of the way all you're left with is every contestant literally just doing that like it's a fairground game or youtube challenge or something with again not much space for humour (credit to John for getting something from it).

I just don't understand why they do these types of tasks, it seems like a waste to get 5 funny people on and then shackle that part of them with tasks that don't let them express that and show their own identities and ways of thinking, and instead do tasks that are so linear and more tests of skill rather than ingenuity, but I guess Alex has a different idea for what he wants out of the show.

The prize, bird one and the live task were much better to be fair, so hoping it picks up on the next episode.

[MigraineBoy]

Then the toilet roll one, I saw the location and thought there were loads of opportunities in the space they had but the actual task was again really basic. The premise seemed to be that it might look funny to see people throwing toilet roll into a toilet from a height but once that's out of the way all you're left with is every contestant literally just doing that like it's a fairground game or youtube challenge or something with again not much space for humour (credit to John for getting something from it).

I just don't understand why they do these types of tasks, it seems like a waste to get 5 funny people on and then shackle that part of them with tasks that don't let them express that and show their own identities and ways of thinking, and instead do tasks that are so linear and more tests of skill rather than ingenuity, but I guess Alex has a different idea for what he wants out of the show.

They had 15 minutes and were instructed 'not to move from the spot' but could they not have pushed all the rolls over the edge, then gripped the spot and either hopped or shuffled their way downstairs, picking up the rolls and depositing them in the loo?

It seemed like one of those challenges they probably hoped for people doing the obvious and then someone trying something different with spectacular or disastrous results.

[thelittlemango]

They had 15 minutes and were instructed 'not to move from the spot' but could they not have pushed all the rolls over the edge, then gripped the spot and either hopped or shuffled their way downstairs, picking up the rolls and depositing them in the loo?

It seemed like one of those challenges they probably hoped for people doing the obvious and then someone trying something different with spectacular or disastrous results.

I was thinking that too as they've had so many people in the past who have moved the actual spot to get closer to the thing (another sign of repetition) but seem to remember from these threads that Alex doesn't like it that much when people look for loopholes and would rather they be done as intended.

[The Crumb]

Then the toilet roll one, I saw the location and thought there were loads of opportunities in the space they had but the actual task was again really basic. The premise seemed to be that it might look funny to see people throwing toilet roll into a toilet from a height but once that's out of the way all you're left with is every contestant literally just doing that like it's a fairground game or youtube challenge or something with again not much space for humour (credit to John for getting something from it).

I just don't understand why they do these types of tasks, it seems like a waste to get 5 funny people on and then shackle that part of them with tasks that don't let them express that and show their own identities and ways of thinking, and instead do tasks that are so linear and more tests of skill rather than ingenuity, but I guess Alex has a different idea for what he wants out of the show.

Yeah I don't really get these weird sports day type tasks that go for being a fair competition over being funny or interesting. It also felt completely irrelevant to the location. I think get some paper in from the furthest distance would have allowed more varied approaches and made more of the space.