#Taskmaster s17e06 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 5 months

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I have weirdly posted very little on Tumblr about the current Taskmaster season, despite being absolutely obsessed with it. I’ve been enjoying it hugely, but every time I go to write a post about it, I get in my head about whether I’m enjoying it wrong. I need to stop reading the internet.

So I’m liveblogging this episode, like I used to do. Because it’s fun. Thoughts on Taskmaster s17e06, written as I watch it:

- That intro was the funniest one they’ve had in a while. The aunt relay story was like the Platonic ideal of Taskmaster intro Alex banter. Great start.

- John Robins is, as I expected and specifically called (you have to call it so you can have the bragging rights if you’re right and never bring it up again if you’re wrong), absolutely killing it, points-wise, throughout this season of Taskmaster. But his prize tasks aren’t what I was expecting, especially since good prize tasks are usually correlated strongly to a contestant who cares a lot about winning, as the others just fill in the list without much thought. John started really strong with the diaries, and since then has just brought in things that float around the internet four separate times. I would like to see the rest of his Taskmaster meme collection thought.

- And Nick brought in an ice cube, so maybe John’s still in the game. Quite funny how he sold that though, his entire face swearing that this is definitely a reasonable thing to do.

Look, I’m trying to stop drinking, and I am definitely over the mentality I had in my twenties, about how you have to drink things “properly”, where “properly” means never diluting the alcohol content because, to quote Lord Gregory Davies, “I’m not a pussy”. My days of believing that sort of thing are long over, I swear. Or I thought they were, until I saw this. Don’t put ice in wine, guys. Obviously. Don’t put ice in wine.

- Ohhh, this is that episode Joanne was talking about on the podcast, where they refer to the prizes as “presents for Greg”. Good stuff, that was funny.

- The contestants who turn up on Taskmaster having obviously never seen it before are the ones where I’m least likely to seek out their other work, because I just cannot believe I would find anything relatable in anything written by a person who could go on a show like that without doing any research beforehand. However, those contestants are often funny in the moment. And Sophie not knowing what prize tasks are by episode six is pretty funny.

- Of the first three prizes, Sophie’s is the first one I’d actually want. I’ve always thought going around in those giant inflatable balls looks like enormous fun, but I’ve never done it. Can’t see Greg enjoying it, though. What a terrible gift.

- Alex’s petulant “They’re not presents!” was also very funny. Strong first six minutes of the episode for Alex Horne.

- I would also like Joanne’s present. And unlike with Sophie’s, I don’t see why Greg wouldn’t. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t. I shouldn’t want this because she’s one of the two people with a shot at catching up to John, but five points to Joanne. That’s got to be the best present.

- Oh, this is the episode when Steve pulls out that cryptic crossword message that people found back in the fall, when this was filmed. Yeah, okay, I hate to say it but that’s got to be five points to Steve on effort alone. They’re a good thing to get into, too. And it should be four to Joanne; I’ve got bragging rights riding on John but top marks in this one should go to the two people mostly likely to catch him. I’m extremely impressed by anyone who can do a cryptic crossword, much less set one.

- Further to my argument that competitiveness is not just entertaining for its own sake, but it is also funny when done on this comedy show: the look on John Robins’ face after Steve reveals the cryptic crossword and John realizes he’s fucked this one by comparison. You can’t tell me that’s not funny. That is a funny realization to watch come over a person’s face. Also, this is the most I’ve liked Steve in the show so far. That is some proper effort.

- Yep, I hate to say it because of my bragging rights that are on the line, but I think Greg scored that prize task exactly correctly. You’re going to need to pick it up in the studio tasks, John. And maybe stop bringing in shit you found on the internet. I’m fine and invested in the competitive side of this a normal amount.

- I frequently like the tasks in which they have to reference each other in some way (like the season 12 prize task where they brought gifts for the person sitting next to them is one of my favourite prize tasks ever), but I’m not sure how well it’ll work in a season where aside from Nick and Steve, none of them seem to know each other (at least before filming this). In addition to two people not knowing what show they’re on. Joanne’s probably got a bit of an advantage here because everyone knows some stuff about Steve Pemberton.

- No victory criteria specified on the task, so this will be a two-parter. Which means actually, the points may not even be based on how good the hamper is, so maybe that’s no advantage at all. The points will probably be based on what they do with their hampers once they get them.

- Just to be pedantic for a moment: the information is on the task, and the task itself never actually says their hamper has to match the wheel.

- Joanne bringing in that thing I mentioned, that she’ll be able to come up with something for Steve because everyone knows at least a bit about him: holding up a disembodied head, “This ‘cause I know he likes weird shit.” Yep. I haven’t actually seen any of the League of Gentlemen shows, but that’s the one thing I know about Steve Pemberton from outside Taskmaster. If I had to represent what I’m pretty sure his work is like, I think there are probably disembodied heads and other weird shit.

- Steve Pemberton quoting the wrong song back at Alex after “1, 2, 3, 4” was also pretty funny. He’s slightly growing on me this episode.

- Joanne’s first thought of what makes things exciting: tequila. Very on-brand.

- I like the idea of this task, fairly open-ended and leaves room for creativity. It’s not far off from the “create tension” task, or the many similar “make [thing] the most exciting” in previous seasons, but those often tend to be good. And this season has a few people who seem to shine in the ones where they’re allowed to do a whole sketch. Nick, so far in this season, has squandered several opportunities to show off his actual memorization/magic trick-related skills, but has squandered no opportunities to show off his theatrical side.

- Joanne going in a split second from giggling about Irish stereotypes to accusing Greg of racism: also funny.

- And one scene later, we have Nick’s theatrical side. I knew he’d go big on this. Constructed a set and organized lighting and music. Good stuff.

- Sophie might be okay here, point-wise, if she comes up with a narrative to justify the dancing when selling it. But I bet she won’t.

- Having seen her in the studio – and she didn’t. Why did Alex have a pigeon on his head? You need a narrative, Sophie. Greg likes a narrative.

- “And that, Greg, was a thumble brag.” – Alex

Thumble brag, it’s thumble brag, thumble brag of the week!

- Everyone’s very on brand in this task so far. Nick goes theatrical. Sophie does a confused abstract dance-y thing. John goes sporty.

- I wrote that before seeing Joanne in a moustache, doing an unnecessarily complicated game. That’s less on-brand but I like it.

- My reaction while watching John’s set-up: That’s funny, he took the opportunity to turn the tables on Alex, making him read out and do a task. Aw, got the Queen song titles in there, well done. I wonder if they’ll… hang on, are you allowed to just light shit on fire in the grass on the Taskmaster grounds? What the fuck? He says he had a two-hour health and safety meeting to clear driving that car with an egg, but no one stopped him from lighting a fire in the grass?

- I have no idea what the hell is going on in Joanne’s attempt but it’s definitely not a thumb war. What did Joanne think the task was?

- Whatever John and Alex were doing was also not a thumb war, though maybe slightly more because they did hit each other with pretend thumbs. Also, I don’t care whether it adhered to the remit, because that was enormous fun to watch. I would genuinely watch that like an actual sport. I would pay good money for the uncut footage of that whole game. Why don’t more people on Taskmaster hit each other with sticks?

- Okay, lots of things in this episode have been funny so far, but the first one to make me actually laugh out loud was John freaking out about naming the wrong Queen album when asked what a particular song was on. It’s the split-second transition between the confidence with which he delivered his first answer and the panic when he realized it was wrong. That transition is never not funny. The cheeky look on Alex’s face was pretty good too.

- Ugh, they saved Steve for last because he’s going to go really big, isn’t he? He’s been good in all the theatrical tasks so far. I’m not saying “ugh” because I’m not impressed, I just don’t want him to narrow John’s lead in the overall scores.

- Okay that was fucking funny. He went even bigger than I expected, how did he put all that together in that amount of time? Yeah, fuck it, well done, Steve. You made a movie. But you didn’t hit Alex Horne with a stick, did you?

- I’m enjoying Alex in the studio being briefly unable to read the autocue because he’s giggling too hard at Steve’s theatrical production.

- I think I’d have put Joanne on the same level as Nick and John – I’d personally probably have put John one point higher, and that’s not because I have bragging rights staked on him winning the series, it’s because I like watching sport-type-things and people hitting each other with sticks – but if I take out my subjective bias, I think the three of them were probably about the same. Other than that I agree with the scoring though.

- I enjoyed the high five between Nick and Sophie over both being at the bottom of the scoring. It’s always fun when the two lowest-scoring contestants bond over that. John’s only one point up though, rough episode for him. But he’s got a cushion of a few points on his lead overall, it’s all right. Steve was always going to win that theatrical one. Also, Alex just said the word “darts” when introducing the next task, which makes me think John’s about to claw some points back. That’s his thing.

- Oh yes, those are darts in the initial shots. Let’s go, Johnny JR. Here’s where you make up the points.

- Oh it’s a team task. Okay this might go less well. Means he can’t pull ahead of Joanne here. But he can at least catch up to Steve. I bet Steve Pemberton can’t throw darts.

- John doesn’t even get into the dome before informing the team that he was on the college darts team. I’m impressed that he managed to hold back from mentioning that he was the captain. I’m actually looking forward to this, aside from its value as a Taskmaster task. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to John Robins brag about his darts skills, and it sounds like he can back that up, as other comedians who’ve seen him play say he’s good, and presumably Oxford doesn’t make you captain of their teams if you can’t do it. I’m pleased that I’ll (presumably) get to see if he can do it. Or see him fail at what’s supposed to be “his thing”, which will also be funny.

- You know, there is a bit of a pattern of Alex putting things in this season that seem like little things related to John Robins, mainly just little Easter Egg things for Alex's friend. Pickled onions in that glove task, when John is always going on about how much he likes picked onions. The task on the first episode where they had to rank each other by who’s won the Perrier Award (that of course applies to Steve too, but I assume Steve has enough other accomplishments in his career so he doesn’t define himself by it so much). Reading in Welsh. Darts. I would have counted rum being in the gloves task as one of those little nods to John Robins things, though doing that on purpose would be pretty fucked up right after he quit drinking, so I’m assuming it was just a really weird oversight. A really weird oversight. I would like them to include less fake alcohol for the alcoholic, and more tasks based around activities he’s really good at (I’m sorry, I can’t refer to darts as a sport, but it’s a very impressive skill). Mainly because I have bragging rights riding on him doing well. And because I want to see how good he actually is at darts.

- And Alex gets in a mention of John being captain of the darts team, after John refrained from saying so himself. Alex does do this while calling John out for stripping off on camera, though, so it doesn’t come off as that much of a compliment.

- Well we won’t find out if Steve’s any good at throwing darts, but Nick Mohammed doesn’t seem to be. And Steve Pemberton is definitely not much of a gymnast. I wonder if that would have gone better if they’d traded places? Nick’s probably more flexible, but being short seems like a disadvantage, not being able to reach as far. I’d have also expected Nick to be better at the bottle thing, given that he does party tricks for a living.

- I wrote the above point before hearing them have that exact discussion in the studio. I think Nick’s wrong, they had it the right away around. I also think all of Sophie and Nick’s interactions are quite funny. But all be honest, at this point I’m mainly focused on getting to the next part so I can see John Robins throw darts.

- Sophie declaring that she’s actually pretty good at bottle flipping and then immediately tossing it on the ground was perfectly timed. Or well edited.

- I've been avoiding filling the post up with screenshots the way I have in previous Taskmaster liveblogs (mainly because it takes too long), but John and Joanne's facial expressions immediately after Sophie throws the bottle on the ground are pretty funny:

Those are two people who have confirmed they are definitely going to need to rely on darts skills and flexibility.

- I was doing well with avoiding screenshots until I got to the part of the episode where they keep having reactions to Sophie’s incompetence. I'm quite enjoying John watching with dismay as Sophie drops it on the ground again, then as soon as her back is turned, he glances at Alex like, "What am I expected to do with this?"

It was a great idea to set up this task so Sophie Willan can perform some straight-up slapstick comedy in the background the whole time. It's like the time they put Guz Khan on a chair and made him eat chocolates in an amusing way while the other two got on with the task.

- God damn, John. Yep, the man can play darts. It turns out he can, in fact, play darts. That’s pretty cool to watch. It’s not a sport but it’s cool to watch.

- Have to give some credit here to Joanne’s contortionist abilities too. That’s pretty good. They definitely got it the right way around.

- Holy shit, that’s really impressive. I’m enjoying the montage of John smugly repeating “bullseye” but I wish we had more shots of him actually throwing. What we did see was cool.

- Second proper, significant laugh out loud of the episode comes from Alex telling them they have to do it again in different roles, and then admitting he’s joking. Good joke, Alex.

- Holy shit, was Joanne really clambering around in there for an hour? I can believe that, if they had 43 moves. An hour of that would be just over a minute per move. That is impressive on her part, for the stamina as much as the flexibility. That’s fucking cool. I would like the uncut footage of that task as well, please, Taskmaster.

- Oh I like that interior task location. How have they not used that until the second half of the season?

- Ah, that’s where they were going with the hamper. We haven’t had a good “create a portrait” task yet this season, and this a fun deviation from making ones of Greg. I guess there are only so many portraits of Greg the contestants can be forced to make.

So actually, if they were being strategic in the hamper task, they should have put basically nothing in there, to stop their opponents from being able to make anything good. But they couldn’t have known that and it could have backfired if they’d tried. Also I guess they’re technically on a comedy show.

- Joanne’s running monologue throughout this task is horrifying.

- Oh shit, Steve’s isn’t bad. Solid use of banana. Actually looks like a person. Unnecessary detail, as there has been in most of Steve’s tasks throughout this season. I’m a big fan of unnecessary detail. I’d probably quite like Steve if I’d never heard him on the podcast admitting to breaking that egg on purpose. But he did so I still want him to get beat. I doubt he will on this task, though.

- Written after seeing the next picture: definitely not by Joanne, he won’t.

- This has nothing to do with the episode or anything but I like Joanne’s t-shirt. The one she’s wearing. Not anything about the picture she made. The picture she made is almost as horrifying as her monologue while making it.

- Oh, John’s is surprisingly not bad either! It looks like an actual person. An orange person, which is not the colour Nick Mohammed is, but still. To be fair John did have flour, which is an advantage over the others, you can make a proper picture with that.

- And Nick’s is terrible, but his attempt to sell it in the studio is pretty funny.

- Oh and Sophie’s is properly good! Though she also had easier materials. That’s got to be the five-pointer.

- What? Nick over John? I don’t think so. Come on, Greg. That’s the first score I’ve really strongly disagreed with all episode.

- Sophie and Steve celebrating the five points together is funny, though.

- Okay, John’s not fallen that far behind. Only three points behind the top score, going into the live task. That’s less than his overall lead. If this is going to be his weak episode it’s not that bad, depending how the final task goes.

- Oh, I like a team studio task.

- Well they’ve definitely got it the right way around this time, having Nick get covered in rings. The other team might have had it wrong, as Sophie’s slightly shorter than Joanne, but more importantly, Joanne would probably be better at throwing than Sophie. This is one that’s a big advantage to the team of three since there are two throwers, but that’s only an advantage if Sophie can throw.

- That got exciting at the end. I stopped pausing it to write stuff down once they actually started the studio task, because I did end up getting into it like a sport. Maybe too much like a sport, the words “Come on John” came out of my mouth a couple of times before I remembered it’s not really a sport. It’s fine, guys. It’s fine. It’s not really a sport. Credit to Steve, though, the man can throw. And Nick can move. Some good catching from Joanne, too.

While watching this, I’ve thought of another way that competitiveness is definitely funny. It’s just a parody, isn’t it? Parody is funny. You take something that really exists outside comedy, remove its contents but keep its structure, and fill the structure up with silly contents. In this case, a task like this is a parody of sport. The tension, the competitiveness, the physical effort, the strategy, the skills on display, the commentary, the drama – the structure of a sport is all there. But you fill it up with something silly. Parodies are funny, and they get funnier the more seriously they’re taken.

- Oh shit! It’s a Wilkinson situation! I mean, without the drama of the Wilkinson situation, because Steve Pemberton is doing fine overall and doesn’t really need this. But still, I do like it when Greg actually sticks to the rules and disqualifies people when they deserve it. Fine margins, Steve! Fine margins!

John winning team tasks is a double-edged sword, obviously, because it bolsters Joanne's points too, and at the moment she's in second place. But it's not like it would be better if they lost, and I think it's still more important to extend his lead over Steve than over Joanne. Even though she's ahead of them, I feel like Steve is more likely to catch up to John than Joanne is. Partly because of something Nick said on the podcast a while ago, mentioning that the competition in their season was usually between John and Steve. If Joanne ends up winning the whole thing, you'd think he'd have included her in that.

- Oh, and just after I wrote the above point, I played the video again and they showed the overall season scores so I didn’t have to be keeping track in my head. John’s still got his lead comfortably. Getting to the point where Steve almost can’t catch him in the time they have left, though I don’t want to say that yet. Having a task like this that goes 5-0 for John over Steve was big for that.

Joanne could definitely catch him, which makes me glad they’re on a team, so she can’t get ahead of him via team tasks. It’s a good position after six episodes.

- And Joanne gets on the board with episode wins. That’s good, she definitely should be there. And I definitely remember that this is just a parody and not an actual sport. It's fine. Good episode. I am a normal amount of invested in it.

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