Tuesdays, 10pm,
Dave and on demand on UKTV Play.
We’re super pleased for the return of last year’s surprise hit, which ranked second on the OFFICIAL list of last year’s best new gameshow formats. Another five comics (Doc Brown, Jon Richardson, Katherine Ryan, Joe Wilkinson and TV’s hardest working man Richard Osman) are challenged to complete in often absurd challenges testing skill, wit and creativity and then argue with Taskmaster Greg Davies and assistant Alex Horne over the results, frequently pushing the boundaries of the rules if not always managing to stay in the spirit of them.
Last year’s shows were funny, inventive and surprising and had a really good cast, we’re hoping for more of the same. It’s probably the closest we have to an Asian style variety show, not withstanding Cats Does Countdown and Top Gear.
If you can’t wait for episode one, it’s actually been up on UKTV Play as a series preview but we’ve not watched it yet because UKTV Play isn’t on Roku and I can’t be bothered to plug my Fire Stick in. Or watch it sitting in front of a computer. I think this sort of thing is better watching as a shared experience anyway, which is my other excuse and I’m sticking to it.
I would ask in this instance not to spoil specifics until it’s gone out on television, but people have suggested the first episode is very funny.
I won’t spoil anything but I will agree with what’s said above, the first episode is very funny. Very well edited as well. Looking forward to the rest of the series, and the following series which is already in the can!
They’ve put together a good cast. I would have happily had more from the first lot because you really got a mix of ways of thinking about things, but it’s for the best to mix it up and they’ve got it right again.
A fun, weird set of challenges with a nice mix of approaches with people finding different ways to push the boundaries of the rules in each round.
Also not going to spoil, but gosh – there’s a moment in which I laughed at the hardest I have in quite a while. Top job!
I didn’t know that UKTV Play was a thing. So I can watch Task Master despite getting home at around 10:30.
I bloody love Taskmaster.
I love it when the contestants start doing something that’s almost a solution and then don’t quite make the mental leap to see it to completion and then Greg pulls them up on it.
The potato throwing sequence was sublime.
Although I’m not sure I like the reversioning of intro tune for the challenges.
“Sometimes it’s hard being the Taskmaster! Sometimes you crush dreams!”
The bit with Joe’s foot really, really made me laugh, it was so beautifully edited and handled as well with the gasps from the audience and the participants. As ever, I love the way Greg loves doing the show, I love his barely suppressed hysterics throughout (“Yes, thank me!”).
I recommended my parents watched it too, because they like Richard, and my mum texted to say they found it “quite funny”, praise indeed. We got a Katherine Ryan simulcast last night too as she was also on Jack Dee’s Help Desk, in a similar but slightly different dress, fact fans.
It’s shows up the skill of the hosts (and to a lesser extent the comics) as performers, knowing full well how to build it up, throw in the shock reversal and seeing how it runs. Really good.
270k EXCLUDING +1 if DS is to be believed. Last series was doing about 400k IIRC, so hopefully it will pick up a bit.
Reported by a few places that ITV are ‘resting’ lots of popular shows, namely Jonathan Ross, The Cube, Surprise Surprise, Family Fortunes, Mr And Mrs, Through The Keyhole and Catchphrase until 2017 and then probably axing them in 2018…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/itv-rest-shows-cube-family-8212147
Er, Family Fortunes was rested in 2015 with a view to broadcast a series next year.
Not surprising. ITV have had a major reshuffle recently, and this is probably the new commissioners making way for some of their own commissions.
I’m liking this a lot. One minor quibble about this week’s episode, though: Just one hour to “produce” each of those music videos?
Quibble aside, this series will suit me just fine until Catsdown returns. It’s now on my very short obtain-every-week list.
I like that they’ve changed the incidental music back.
400k for this last night apparently.
The Wikipedia page explains the scoring. It seems that one of the live tasks wasn’t scored in the traditional 5-4-3-2-1 fashion but had its results added directly to the overall scores, with a considerable knock-on effect to the totals for the day and the, er, week.
“OP”, as the kids say, but the winner was definitely good value. Very good all round, really.
Yes I did ponder that one episode (the scoring system is pretty obvious otherwise). I wonder why they changed it?
The easiest explanation would be “cock-up”.
I think it’s quite interesting, for all its levity there’s something about Taskmaster that demands a certain honesty or there’s no point, more so than other shows of its ilk.
On the other hand, though, there’s random things like Josh’s bonus point just for having a practical joke played on him, and Jon’s task-of-tasks, which in principle weight things heavily in favour of the target of each. In practice, though, I don’t think either actually impacted the outcome of the show?
I don’t think it really matters who wins as such as long as what we’re being told is a true outcome of events. The fact that Josh got a bonus point doesn’t matter so much as the fact that he actually counted the rice.
To be clear it doesn’t necessarily have to be *fair* – there’s already loads of subjectivity, it’s part of the show’s lifeblood, but it does need to be *honest*.
I’m increasingly convinced that Taskmaster is a comedy show using the game show format rather than vice versa. As a thought experiment, how much material do you think there is that ends up on the cutting room floor? We’ll never know the answer. If it were played by conventional game show standards, contestants who had done well in rounds that were arbitrarily junked through not being sufficiently funny would have strong reason to feel upset. I very much doubt that the contestants are legitimately wagering their possessions, as well.
It would be disappointing to discover that this is not only a comedy show but also a more-scripted-than-advertised comedy show, with the contestants’ ingenuity or gameplay (or, perhaps more importantly still, their reactions to the viddeos) being less original than portrayed. I don’t expect the show to be completed in a single take; nobody can complain if the contestants end up telling the same joke several times and the best version of it gets used in the edit.
But if – say – Joe Wilkinson’s moment of inglory in episode one turned out to have been scripted (say he had a go at the potato task, wasn’t particularly interesting in doing so, then took nine takes to do a one-and-in over-the-oche shot) it probably wouldn’t really matter…
I’d have certainly loved to have seen the Edinburgh show it’s based on.
A couple points to mention from being at a recording for series 3.
(And fair declaration that I do really love TM)
Greg and Alex /really/ emphasised to the studio audience that everything was real, in particular the prizes are all real. This was pretty relevant as Al Murray had offered something fairly immobile as his prize — cue “we will come round to your house and get it” from Greg.
Honestly, I never got the impression any of them knew what was coming up in any way – with 7 comedians there, generally one of them could chip in with some critique of just about anything.
There were never any retakes (except for the autocue bits at the start/end of each section which Greg was really bad at). Sometimes the conversation went in circles, but generally it just meandered until the producer told Greg to get to a decision. (Whenever you see Greg rattle through the positions quickly, it’s because he’s been told to hurry up.) I’d say about 20-30 minutes conversation occured per task, a lot more than went into the show. I think the editiors have quite a job getting the swearing down to the low levels it is in the broadcast.
Thanks for that, Tom! Good to know.
I suppose I next wonder whether the players have some sort of informal trade-their-winnings-back-to-each-other pact.
Actually, Josh’s bonus point have him the series win by 1 point. Otherwise it would have been a three-way tie.
I eventually saw you did there: “Joe Wilkinson and TV’s hardest working man Richard Osman“. Lovely bit of juxtaposition with TV’s hardest working man following comedy’s laziest arse.
That was entirely accidental, although obviously I had to leave Osman to the end for effect.