Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

Surely this is the dedicated Taskmaster thread.

Still not finished the previous season, which is more due to our 9yo currently cycling through all previous seasons (and us not then wanting to watch more Taskmaster after she goes to bed) than any comment on the series. Watched the penultimate one over the weekend and it was hilarious. Also, after watching his sublime appearance on WILTY recently, am ready to shave my eyebrows and join Sam Campbell's cult. Watched his special Companion over the weekend, and he is so very funny. Not necessarily consistent enough for an hour, but had us laughing constantly.

Two eps into the new series, not screaming classic lineup so far

As individuals they all seem ok, but it's not exactly up there with the best line-ups, though looking back there have only been a couple of straight-up gold and a couple of clunkers so perhaps I rose-tint this a bit, every series has had some gold in it (I think perhaps the Lou Sanders series was the worst with little redemption even though most of the participants are absolutely fine in their own right)

I don't think I've ever seen Steve Pemberton be himself before, but he's my instant favourite, he just seems naturally amusing.

He does too many* dad jokes.

*There can never be too many dad jokes

Just having an instant dad joke for everything is good in my book.

Maybe he gets a better edit than some people who try and land jokes at every opportunity and end up surrounded by tumbleweed before the odd one actually raises a giggle. I like him. He doesn't seem like he's trying too hard.

Obvs John Robins was wearing a HMHB t-shirt on this week's show, so he gets a free pass.

I love Taskmaster, it’s my favorite TV show, but as an American I often don’t know who most of the contestants are so all of my conceptions of them come just from Taskmaster. I agree this batch seems weak, though I’ve only seen the first ep. It feels odd that in season 17 they still get contestants who don’t seem to understand the show and what makes an entertaining guest.

My favorites are the genuine weirdos. Sam Campbell and Lucy Beaumont were both incredible last series and now they have a podcast together. Susan Wokoma was delightful too.

I don't think I've ever seen Steve Pemberton be himself before, but he's my instant favourite, he just seems naturally amusing.

I like him a fair bit in his other endeavours, but in this he's a bit Dara O'Brien style 'I'm probably going to win' smug for me.

Nick is very likeable, but hardly hilarious.

Lucy Beaumont absolutely does my head in. I can't fathom how someone can be that ditzy and yet get herself together enough to fashion a career out of her ditziness. Career weirdos just baffle me (see also Sam Campbell and Mike Wozniak, for example).

Absolutely *loved* Susan Wokoma, up there with Katy Wix in terms of people I only knew through acting roles before Taskmaster and now absolutely adore.

And yeah, my previous encounters with Nick have been in his magician persona on Catsdown, and acting roles which don't count. Based on the former I thought I'd hate him, but he's ok. Amiable and silly are good Taskmaster traits, but the series needs someone to root for, and I can't summon much enthusiasm for any of them.

i just find it odd that Steve P isn't sat in the traditional old man seat.

and the fact i can't remember the woman's name two episodes in probably doesn't bode well.

Lucy Beaumont absolutely does my head in. I can't fathom how someone can be that ditzy and yet get herself together enough to fashion a career out of her ditziness

it's an act, right?

if it is an act it's brilliant. if it isn't, you're right it's mystifying.

For me it's Joanne McNally this year, for absolute comedy snob reasons. She's just not for me. I don't rate her one bit.

I absolutely love John Robins (fellow Queen enthusiast that he is), and his attempts to stick a chopping board to a whiteboard really made us laugh this week. Otherwise it's all a bit meh so far. I love Nick's vampire costume, though.

Jamali was a terrible contestant, I remember, but that must have been a stressful season to be on. Total social distancing, whole country on edge, etc. But yeah, it's not a show to try to maintain your cool persona on. If being in control is your thing, you should not answer the call.

i just find it odd that Steve P isn't sat in the traditional old man seat.

They sit in alphabetical order of first names, always have. They must have forgotten to get younger people with names later in the alphabet.

Joanne would probably be a laugh to hang out with, but hardly a comic genius.

> They sit in alphabetical order of first names, always have.

mind blown.

i kinda wish they'd have some of the Dave-era people back onto the bigger budget show

5, 7 and 9 are the best series imo. Don't think 8 was that bad either.

I’ve seen Sam Campbell live and his energy is off the charts nuts

This is amazing
https://bsky.app/profile/blueno.se/post/3kqgtq5hlir2f

I watched this last night and noticed we were getting a lot of low angled shots showing the puddles but didn't twig that they'd edited out Nick Mohammed's reflection. I wonder if there's much more of that kind of thing they've included that hasn't been picked up on yet? (I know about them having the contestants sit in alphabetical order each series)

Ooh, I didn't notice about the puddle reflections, that's a nice trick. I'm sure there are loads of wee Easter eggs in the linking shots. It took me about three series to work out that Alex was holding up the number of fingers of the episode part in the inserts cutting to and from ads.

It was also kind of mindblowing for reasons I couldn't quite fathom that the age-split of teams has Nick on the old person team. So I looked them all up and it's because there's ten years between the four younger ones then another ten years up to Steve.

Sophie youngest by four years, Jon and Joanne about the same age, then Nick about five years older than them but still ten years younger than Steve.

do they always split the teams by age? I always assumed it was mostly about scheduling and who was available to film stuff at the same time.

I don't think it's always by age but they like to have the teams contrast imo, age is one way to do that.

It seems quite age-based most of the time (basing entirely on Brand and Baddiel here, tbf) I haven't really looked it up.

Alan Davies and VCM an obvious age-split one as well

Season 7 for example it was gender based, Jessica Knappett is the same age as Acaster and Phil Wang but got paired with Kerry Godliman.

The pairings aren't always age-based: Frankie Boyle and Ivo Graham developed a weird father-son relationship in the Series 15 group tasks, for example.

I would have guessed Sophie was second oldest by a few years. She's had a hard paper round and is being played in the 'slightly crazy/menopausal woman' personality slot on the panel.

I was surprised as well but yeah she was born in '87!

I honestly don't know how old I thought Sophie was, but I'd absolutely have gone "older than Joanne" every day of the week.

aw I thought *every* reflection of nick had been removed but it's only the ones in that task.

Yeah I would've swapped Sophie and Joanne's real ages! (36 & 40 respectively)

Sophie has definite eccentric aunt vibes

I've been trying to work out who Nick Mohammed reminds me of and just realised it's Bobby G (the one from Bucks Fizz)

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29186

^ the pembleton crossword

Watched the episode last night. Picking away at the crossword, I've got about half done.

aside from a kind of boring cast, this season also seems to have more team tasks and more tasks that are about creativity (like make a portrait of this person using the contents of the hamper), which are usually less fun imo

they were more fun, dare i say it, when it was lucy and sam doing it...

(or bob or sally...)

i just prefer when the contestants are stressed out and tortured, not making fun drawings or videos or whatever

i agree this series is lacking something, there's no great spark between any of the contestants in the studio. anyway i finished the xword, had to reveal three or four but all solid clues imo, great job.

steve and nick are the first people i've seen posting about their experiences on twitterx, which is nice. but maybe that's just an algorithm thing.

I like the creative tasks. I agree that this series has generally been less laugh-out-loud funny than some, but I've still found it enjoyable in a more low key, gently amusing way. Maybe it's because there are fewer stand up comics than usual? (or at least fewer comedians who do wisecracking, riffing stuff rather than more character stuff?)

I find all the contestants likeable enough now (Nick is just hardcore adorable), but yeah not the funniest bunch.

Some of Greg's recent postmortems have been suffocatingly hilarious, on the other hand.

the channel 4 streaming service had some episodes of the Swedish version of Taskmaster available a while ago, and the Swedish one felt a bit like this, mostly not uproariously funny but the participants were all likeable and it was fun to watch, sometimes you don't want to see people straining to be funny or wring every last drop of comic possibility out of every riff.

I absolutely can't go Joanne McNally but the rest of them are very amiable and amusing without being annoying, and I also wish they had better tasks.

Agree on both counts.