#its funny that i almost exclusively draw the episodes with guests and not the actual plot. but they just have such colorful locations-----

[wasyago]

the ship graveyard oOoOoOoooOo

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I know I said I wasn’t going to add any more TV shows to my list, but then I saw something online about Comedians Giving Lectures coming back for a third season next week, and then I read about that show, and then I decided to go back on my plan to not start new TV shows for a while. It’s only 14 episodes, so not that big an addition to my list. And it just looked too good to pass up. Cool format, great list of guests across the episode, and Sara Pascoe.

I’ve watched the first four episodes of the first season. It’s a little different than I’d expected going in, because I’d pictures the guests spending some time on stage with each other, so you get a bit of the back-and-forth that make panel shows good. But once I realized that this wasn’t like that, I recalibrated my expectations and started enjoying it a lot. It’s much closer to a stand-up showcase than to a panel show - the three guests come out one at a time and each do an 8-ish-minute set on the topic they’ve been given. Sara Pascoe introduces them and does about 90 seconds of banter between sets. Then everyone goes home.

It’s great. I like a show that leaves a lot of room for creativity, where the format doesn’t constantly get in the way. And this one very much does that - they give the comedians a topic and then set them free for 8-ish minutes. This also means they have to stick almost exclusively to actual comedians in terms of guests. You can bring on a breakfast television presenter or reality TV star to do a carefully structured panel show, where they can play the panel game or answer the panel questions or whatever. But you need actual comedians if you want people to be funny for a sustained period of time while saying original things they’ve written. In the four episodes I’ve seen so far, they’ve had eleven stand-up comedians and Stephen Mangan, who’s quite a good comic actor. I know Joe Thomas appears in season 2 (I’ll be honest - the draw of Joe Thomas was part of what got me to add this show to my list, because Joe Thomas doesn’t do a lot of “as self” appearances and I don’t want to skip a rare opportunity to see one), so they’re open to having actors coming in sometimes, but they’re actors who do comedic roles and can be funny in their own right. I don’t mind the occasional non-comedian on a panel show, sometimes they can even be fantastic and better than some comedians (Claudia Winkleman), but in general, it’s nice to have a show where everyone on it is really funny and it’s not padded with other celebrities.

If I were the God of Television, I’d make a couple of changes to this format. For some reason they have “experts” who jump in after each lecture and comment on it, as though they’re actual lectures, and those don’t add much to the show. It seems like they’re just there to try to make it clearly that this is a show with its own structured format - a format of people being judged on how well they can give lectures - rather than just being stand-up. Because every show needs its “thing” that makes it stand out, I guess. But the experts are pointless and I think they should get rid of them. Replace it with the comedians having a minute or so to discuss each lecture among themselves. That would be cool.

But mostly it’s a good show. And the episode I’m about to watch has Chris Ramsey in it, which is good because Taskmaster season 13 starts in a few days (which is exciting!) and I have not seen many appearances by Chris Ramsey from the last five years. I remember him being a young floppy-haired guy on older episodes of 8 Out of Cats, but I don’t know much about what he’s done since, aside from cut his hair. Ed Gamble has said on the Taskmaster podcast that Chris Ramsey has a very competitive personality and will probably bring that to season 13, and I’m excited to see that, because the very competitive contestants are generally my favourites. Especially if you get more than one of them on a season together so they can clash with each other, and I think Sophie Duker’s pretty competitive too, so that could be fun.

Anyway, I’m glad I can see a little of Chris Ramsey on this show so I have an idea of what’s like before the new Taskmaster season starts. And I’m glad I downloaded this show generally. It’s been quite fun so far.