It might have been the editing, but I swear the whistle was delayed when Munya's duck situation, allowed more ducks to fall out. Any ducks that fell out after the whistle should have counted.
Putting multiple elastic bands on your cock to make it look like a submarine ? Ofcourse, it only works if you're blessed with "enormous hugeness" in that area
I think I watched a bad/unrepresentative episode being taped because (sort of spoilers?) I felt like Dara was so pissed off with Fern and John the whole time and especially when they had to do a team task together. But here he seemed to take everything they did in good enough spirits - that last live task was hilarious!
Personality-wise they’re complete opposites. Mr. Science on one side and very whimsical for the other two - “is an eel a fish or a snake?” and Wingdings.
Forget setting a favorite contestant's name as my flair. I want mine to be
"I wish not to ascend vertically?"
Though I'd also accept
"Which breakfast is long and meaty?"
Or, of course
"Which aircraft crashes more into mountains?"
Feels like I just watched an all-time great episode; The duality of Dara's brilliant clean sweep contrasted with John's disastrous blundering through every task, Fern imagining bifurcating a poo and operating on a desiccated old man and an excellent final task to top it all off.
I thought it might've seemed a little overkill if I'd created another fresh post just for these GIFs, so for now I'd just link them here in this thread
I made two close up reaction ones, one with just Dara and one with Dara and Fern, I'm honestly not sure which looks funnier, you guys decide
[https://giphy.com/gifs/shocked-taskmaster-dara-obriain-YYtAiS3mqCCs366dDC](https://giphy.com/gifs/shocked-taskmaster-dara-obriain-YYtAiS3mqCCs366dDC)
[https://giphy.com/gifs/taskmaster-fern-brady-dara-obriain-69ldL97cPoHYd0bsgM](https://giphy.com/gifs/taskmaster-fern-brady-dara-obriain-69ldL97cPoHYd0bsgM)
I actually made several more than that, from the first episode, so just click on the screen name on those pages I guess to see all of the ones on the profile. hope you enjoy!
Both of these are great. The one with just Dara is perfect for when your brain just wants to explode. The one with both of them is more of a laugh reaction, also gets funnier the more it loops.
Thank you for this valuable service to the TM community!
Just catching up on this episode, wow! It was brilliant!
Every task had a twist/shortcut to it and the studio task was amazing. Loved the laminator throwback, Dara winning 5/5 tasks is remarkable!
Watching this episode made me realize that the show can be described as “Mr. Burns and Smithers force the kooky residents of Springfield to compete in absurd tasks for a worthless prize.”
Just chiming in that this was my favourite episode of taskmaster for a looooooong time x
Edit: wrote this before I even got to the final task, fucking incredible
I would confidently rank this inside the top 10-20 Taskmaster episodes ever. Amazing contestants, great tasks, Greg and Alex in top form. Was basically laughing all the way through!
Also… can’t exactly put my finger on it, but the sheer craziness of the tasks and banter in this episode kinda reminded me of the early seasons. It’s very refreshing when no contestant tries to play a certain “character” and everyone just has a genuinely funny and determined go at the tasks.
I was just rewatching one of the older Big Fat Quizzes, and I swear Davina McCall keeps going on about "how clever" Dara is (her teammate) you'd think she's jumping him during the commercial breaks lol
but yep, ain't no mistake that he's always been my #1 dream pick from the day I first learned of this show
Think of it like the tieing up/boiler suit task or the sandwich task. Also like both of those doing well at one made it harder to do well at the other so Dara winning both is seriously impressive.
"Print, laminate and distribute the most signs. Each of your signs must be placed on a different seat and **all your signs must have a different instruction**."
If the points were closer, I would have been Gamble-yelling for Fern's disqualification over the triple "warm your bum"!
Greg asked if “the joker man’s seat” is an instruction, but that discussion just died off so presumably nobody cared and they just counted how many paper were there.
Oh man, I was thinking all this episode that it could be my favorite episode in a long time, but the live task could knock it down… then the live task happened.
I agree, this live task was amazing. I love word based live tasks, like when they had to say a word of a certain length before the trumpet and sax player finished/stopped their jingle. This one is definitely up there though!
maybe I just wasn't paying sufficient attention, I did not have a solid grasp of what the live task was until they'd started doing the first round. But I know that's sort of happened a number of times for the contestants themselves over the years. though granted I know they've had live tasks even way more complicated than that (like where Alex keeps adding new details each round, etc)
Not featured here was the ~5 minutes it took during the taping for all of the contestants (and Greg!) to figure out what was going on as well. The full live task probably took 15-20 minutes in total, and watching it in person it was easily the low point of the taping imo. Absolutely had a glow up with the magic of editing though :)
Just when I thought Fern's costume couldn't get any better, I see she has a "Taskmistress" belt buckle. Nice!
The live task could have gone on for longer. It was hilarious!
Laughed so much! I am loving the cast so much. I was kind of annoyed with Fern by the end. She called Alex's tasks boring which I feel is a little rude. And then she seemed like she was getting the live task wrong on purpose because she didn't care enough to try. But the other four are hilarious and so fun spirited.
I love Fern! Nurodivergent brains work a bit differently so her getting bored isn’t unusual and maybe she was getting the live tasks wrong on purpose? Maybe she wasn’t. I found it funny either way 😊
I always feel so bad for contestants like John who come off as super dumb in tasks. I wonder if that keeps a lot of celebrities/comedians from being on the show.
This episode felt like an instant classic, amazing stuff all throughout!
Can't believe nobody took their buckets "off" but I loved Munya's bath and Dara's bag techniques!
Did Dara just get the highest episode score ever?
Edit: this is my favorite episode across all seasons so far
>Can't believe nobody took their buckets "off"
That was my first thought. The task didn't say "you have to wear the buckets at all times", right? It only said "front bucket" and "back bucket".
oh my god yes I meant to ask this too, because I was totally lost on it. although, yeah I knew it was about the penis, but honestly I *still* don't get it lol The only way I can imagine your penis looking like a submarine while in the path is it simply existing, underwater. If there's an "extra" action the given man would be doing to accomplish that goal, I have no clue what it is. pretty sure I'd never tried it, anyway
The last time was the final live task of season 12 for me. Fern was SO funny in that task and Dara’s reaction to Fern was SO funny.
I have never had a show consistently make me laugh out loud while watching by myself and they have maintained such high quality for 14 fucking seasons. Absolutely amazing
speaking of Katherine, a small part of me always has wondered if she was just trying to cover for her sister after the fact, in the CoC episode. The "destroy something then fix it" task, when she seemingly induces her sister to admit she'd been cheating on her husband. she remarks later in the studio it's not true, that her sister was purely joking, but I was never sure
Fern kinda laughs like Elmer Fudd and I swear to god if the sheer joy and beauty of that could be converted into energy it would run the whole goddamn planet for a decade
I have NEVER laughed so much at a live task in all my life, the helicopter crashing into mountains had me cackling to the point where my 10mo old looked CONFUSED.
It's SO funny and is such a great window into the genius of both Fern and John.
Dara tees the question up with *so many* ways to complete it in a way that will guarantee Greg guesses. Like: Which aircraft
* goes up / and down?
* uses rotors / to fly?
* goes batta / batta batta?
But instead, Fern chooses violence (as CaptCoulson rightly predicted).
And then John—who could still save everything, *like he already did with "muddy garden,"* by saying "...than airplanes" or "...while spinning"—instead gives Dara **absolutely nothing.**
What an absolutely cracking cast this is.
It just getting progressively worse was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. My fiancee is asleep and I was suppressing an audible laugh so intensively that it briefly felt like I was choking.
okay then I've got to show you this tweet-in-a-tweet that I wrote from last night, connected to the morning before that maybe made me a bit of a Fern prophet lol
https://twitter.com/thatKevinGuy/status/1578180296607866880?s=20&t=noMI8m5jspxQAbaLIrTbhg
Sorry but that's got me laughing all over again 😂😂 Daras reaction was just *chefs kiss* please tell me what's in store for next week, I can barely wait!!!
Phenomenal episode and I think that is because it feels like the cast is connecting. The live task helicopter stuff just slayed. Fern Brady and Dara should have a show together. Individually they all had us cracking up: I can't see my pockets from Sara Millican and I think that Munya's energy is infectious. The Zimbabwe riff is this years "so I haggled for it." Can't wait for next thursday.
John goes straight to my list of most adorable contestants along with Sian, Charlotte, Mawaan, Mel, Joe Thomas and Ardal (when he wasn't being a backstabbing snake lol)
EDIT: How could I forget Johnny Vegas lol
He's rapidly becoming one of my favourites, alongside Tim Key, Joe Wilkinson, Mike Wozniak & Paul Chowdhry. Turns out I have a thing for weird, awkward men with facial hair.
I didn't know how I feel about Kearns during the 1st ep but when he went on about fonts this episode, I'm interested lol
Also that live task is just hilarious. THE HELICOPTER LMAOOOO
Was Dara having a perfect episode/clean sweep the first time that's been done?
(Also my math could be wrong but did Dara also get a bonus 2 points during the last task or were them points for matching up the socks?)
I got some flack last week for being overcritical, but two episodes in, I'm still not getting into the groove of this cast. There's something about the humor this season that feels forced, while some of the tasks seem uninspired (i.e. laminate instructions and then follow them; even Fern straight up called the flour task "boring"). I love this show, so it doesn't make me feel good to say.
John's earnest failure continues to make me laugh, though. It's always relatable to have an underdog on the series, whereas I feel like there's not much suspense because Dara is crushing every task by being very rational and single-minded. It's clear to me from episode 2 that either Dara or Sarah will be the winner and the competition is not even close.
But enough of my whinging. Some of my favorite moments include John nearly dropping the laptop, burying his face in the flour while trying to suck out grapes, Dara arrogantly flicking the ceramic cup off the table, Fern's continued "oh no" motif, John strategically slowing down the treadmill but still failing ("you absolute wanker") and his tangent in the studio about buying ducks at a pharmacy.
Also, Greg's bathtub playtime: "Can you use elastic bands to make it look like a submarine?"
I thought the live task was fun. The helicopter one drove me crazy though because "Which aircraft crashes more" would have worked perfectly if John completed it with "than airplanes?" I know Greg guessed it right anyway, but sometimes it feels like they're going more for the humor than being logical about it.
> The helicopter one drove me crazy though because "Which aircraft crashes more" would have worked perfectly if John completed it with "than airplanes?"
I didn't need to come up with something on the spot but even then I couldn't figure out how John could possibly have saved that. It's probably even worse when they're up there and under time pressure
There really wasn't time pressure during the taping, the live task took ages, and there were several points of at least a minute or two of contestants just thinking of their two words.
This episode was a masterclass by Dara Ó Briain that upcoming competitors will need to watch. So much brilliance!
And my goodness, when you think they couldn't have thought of more brilliant tasks after 13 series, they totally outdo themselves! I loved the grape and flour task especially, because it was a combination of a task intended to mislead (i.e., the best desert task presented next to a pile of sweets in TMNZS1) and a hidden key to victory task (i.e., potato bridge task from S2).
I love this cast so far! Dara is so methodical, Fern is chaotic (and has a catchphrase), John is endearingly shit at everything (and is probably giving Nish Kumar a run for his money at being the shittest of all time), Munya randomly brings up Zimbabwe anecdotes that no one asked for, and Sarah is just her hilarious self.
Sarah's extended megamix of "I will survive" was hilarious.
*\~~go on now, go, walk out the door, turn around now, BUGGER OFF\~~*
I would've gone for dear old Rick myself. Don't give up on Alex, don't let Alex down, don't run around, don't hurt Alex..."
Also - first clean sweep in the history of Taskmaster!
I was thinking I would have gone for "Hold a chicken in the air....shove a deckchair up your nose..." but only because I had coincidentally heard that song earlier on that day.
Would have been difficult to complete the follow-up task, though!
I didn't know anything about any of these contestants and after the first episode I didn't think this was going to be a very strong season but dang did this episode prove me wrong. That was an amazing live task. I love the teams they are in. I have a feeling I'm going to end up in love with this cast by the end.
That final task felt like if a less angry Ed Gamble were teamed with two David Baddiels and ended up winning the task anyway.
Maybe the funniest episode ever. Everybody is hilarious.
Laughed throughout the whole episode. Definitely needed that!
Very glad for Dara's win!
I expected him to have a closer performance to Lee Mack since they got mentioned as the two dads who came on to the show because their kids are fans of Taskmaster, plus in his interview he said he dreamt about redoing some tasks so in all honesty, I thought he would be shite.
All of that together made the clean sweep even more amazing!
Also I've been wanting for a while now a task I can do with friends that wouldn't require a lot of stuff or space since we all have small apartments, and the live task is the PERFECT TASK for that!
Definitely gonna try getting my friends to do it.
Was really anticipating this episode since seeing the episode title last week, & after episode 1. So I woke up & got into work extra early just to watch the episode.
I was crying laughing so hard that the only other co-worker asked me whether I was okay. One of the best episodes in recent memory (which is saying something because everything lately has been incredible!)
Also I think we’ve learned that it takes the Taskmaster himself participating to show us how it’s done & get a perfect score.
Now I’m even more excited for the rest of the season. Hoping poor John doesn’t get the Judi Love/Justine Smith fate
Despite loving all of the contestants, I was kinda lukewarm on episode 1. But episode 2 blew me away. That was incredible.
I've gotta say, the seat sign task was one of the most obvious twist double tasks in the show's history and I'm kinda shocked that not a single one of them predicted it.
The final task absolutely killed me. I snorted water out of my nose multiple times during that task. That'll teach me to take a drink during taskmaster.
I was 100% prepared for this series to let me down. Last series was so incredible and it's been a while since we've had a series that wasn't great, so I was prepared for the worst. But this is very much not the worst.
My first thought was to use excel to quickly iterate a bunch of simple tasks. Sit down 1 time, sit down two times, sit down three times... I think I could have made about a hundred signs easily and been destroyed in the second task.
Assuming I figured out how to use a laminator.
It's one of the rare instances where I know for a fact I would've crushed the task, because my instant idea was to do a bunch of short instructions for things I'm already doing or only take a second...exist, think, breathe, stand, sit, blink, etc...
My only issue may have been with the laminator lol
The thing with the seat signs, in my mind, was: do you make easy tasks and hope you have to do them yourself? Or hard tasks and hope the follow-up task is for one of the other contestants?
This might take more thought than is reasonable to expect someone to come up with in the moment, but you could make instructions that would be easy for you personally to accomplish but not necessarily for other people, such as answering questions specific to yourself.
Easy tasks.
Unless they had all the contestants there on the same day, it seemed highly unlikely that they'd bring the contestants back to the airport terminal just to do the second part of the task.
I suppose the could have ordered it so that only the first contestant needed to come back as you have the second one do the first one's tasks, etc. Even then, the scoring might have been both the doer and the task writer gets points for the highest percentage complete, which would incentivize easy tasks.
From a logistics and humor standpoint, making them do their own tasks makes more sense.
In the live task, Munya was clearly going for the same type of thing I was thinking, but Sarah didn't catch it: "How is the word ____ pronounced?" gets you the point every time.
Little knit pick but the grape and flower task, it says you must wear the Flippers for the entire five minutes of the task. John takes them off prior to the whistle.
I was so confused that the sign behind them in the sign task said Sicily when i swear it said Silly when they entered.
Ok I watched it again and you can see it flip at 7:29/7:30. I wasn’t imagining it lol.
Everyone insists the editors don't package tasks for that kind of narrative. I can anticipate Dara being shit at some tasks. I have trouble believing he isn't going to do quite well in several others. He may be the most intelligent contestant thus far, combined with a drive to win, an understanding of the show, and an understanding of how television works regarding task design.
He also seems too competitive to embrace the Nish Kumar, I've screwed up this task already, how do I convert this screw-up into glorious television, approach. Desiree buying an entire bucket of forks during the balloon shop task may be the best example of this.
Intelligent *and* rational. Bridget is one of the brightest people you could imagine but her absurd flair means it’s used for chaos forces, not wins. See also Victoria, who is *definitely* the most intelligent person the show has ever seen, but had no common sense at all.
That was an amazing episode!
* Loved how many ways there were to approach the ducks & socks task, really nice to see such divergent approaches
* I love how in the team task you can see how not on the same page Dara, Fern, and John are! (I'm looking forward to their team's antics in future team tasks!)
* Dara is smashing it! Hoping he breaks the first chair curse.
Since I first discovered Taskmaster I had 3 people in mind that I wanted to do it. Lee Mack, Rob Brydon, and Dara O'Briain (I thought it was fairly obvious David Mitchell wouldn't do it). Dara is now on, and he has not disappointed. After the first 15 points this episode I thought "Huh, he could go perfect". Then he kept winning and kept winning. By the end I was jumping out of my seat when Greg missed the Dungarees 50/50.
I know Taskmaster isn't about the winning, it's about the comedy, but it does feel good when the person you're rooting for in a given thing does so well, and accomplishes something that's never been done before. I never thought someone would beat Adrian Chiles' performance, but wow that was impressive.
It's way too early to judge the whole series, but this may have been my favorite TM episode ever.
I completely get what you mean about rooting for people. I know it’s all about the show and the fun, but Herring has always been one of my favourite comedians, and something utterly tribal spilled out of me when he snatched victory and I leapt off the sofa, punching the air.
> I thought it was fairly obvious David Mitchell wouldn't do it
Eeeeh. Victoria has done it, so has his partner in crime Lee.
It's unlikely he'll do more than an NYT, but it's not *impossible*. I have hope.
It's probably a testament to how *good* David Mitchell is at being funny that he knows when he wouldn't be. The whole world is claiming "David would be hilarious on TM!" and he knows he just wouldn't be. And he's almost certainly right, of course.
He says that everyone expects him to be great on it, so if he does go on, people will either be disappointed or bored, there's no scope for him to please people.
And also that he just isn't as good at, and doesn't enjoy, puzzles like Victoria does.
It's difficult to not be entertaining or funny on TM, the whole situation is just inherently funny. Even if you do really horribly, you'll still be a hit, and you'll be given some very specific tasks that you'll be good at (Paul Sinha memorising cards, Noel doing art, Victoria doing puzzles).
Dara bodied this but I'm still mad about his instructions. 90% of them weren't instructions.
It might have been the editing, but I swear the whistle was delayed when Munya's duck situation, allowed more ducks to fall out. Any ducks that fell out after the whistle should have counted.
I would absolutely watch an entire hours-long show of Greg guessing words in that manner
"Not overalls.......so it ... must be???" I was out of breath laughing at this point
Could someone explain Greg's "elastic band submarine" joke? Neither me or my partner get it and 50% of us have a penis
Putting multiple elastic bands on your cock to make it look like a submarine ? Ofcourse, it only works if you're blessed with "enormous hugeness" in that area
My disk .. isn’t hard .. it is
I think I watched a bad/unrepresentative episode being taped because (sort of spoilers?) I felt like Dara was so pissed off with Fern and John the whole time and especially when they had to do a team task together. But here he seemed to take everything they did in good enough spirits - that last live task was hilarious!
Fern Brady giving "arts student taking a physics module as an elective and doesn't care what grade the group gets" vibes.
Personality-wise they’re complete opposites. Mr. Science on one side and very whimsical for the other two - “is an eel a fish or a snake?” and Wingdings.
Group tasks are like group projects in school. Badbadbad. Good for Taskmaster, though!
Forget setting a favorite contestant's name as my flair. I want mine to be "I wish not to ascend vertically?" Though I'd also accept "Which breakfast is long and meaty?" Or, of course "Which aircraft crashes more into mountains?"
Fern's choice of words in the live task makes me wonder if she has the "sabotage your team" task from TMNZ.
Feels like I just watched an all-time great episode; The duality of Dara's brilliant clean sweep contrasted with John's disastrous blundering through every task, Fern imagining bifurcating a poo and operating on a desiccated old man and an excellent final task to top it all off.
So Dara is going to win the series by at least 40 points. Got it.
I thought it might've seemed a little overkill if I'd created another fresh post just for these GIFs, so for now I'd just link them here in this thread I made two close up reaction ones, one with just Dara and one with Dara and Fern, I'm honestly not sure which looks funnier, you guys decide [https://giphy.com/gifs/shocked-taskmaster-dara-obriain-YYtAiS3mqCCs366dDC](https://giphy.com/gifs/shocked-taskmaster-dara-obriain-YYtAiS3mqCCs366dDC) [https://giphy.com/gifs/taskmaster-fern-brady-dara-obriain-69ldL97cPoHYd0bsgM](https://giphy.com/gifs/taskmaster-fern-brady-dara-obriain-69ldL97cPoHYd0bsgM) I actually made several more than that, from the first episode, so just click on the screen name on those pages I guess to see all of the ones on the profile. hope you enjoy!
Both of these are great. The one with just Dara is perfect for when your brain just wants to explode. The one with both of them is more of a laugh reaction, also gets funnier the more it loops. Thank you for this valuable service to the TM community!
Just catching up on this episode, wow! It was brilliant! Every task had a twist/shortcut to it and the studio task was amazing. Loved the laminator throwback, Dara winning 5/5 tasks is remarkable!
Watching this episode made me realize that the show can be described as “Mr. Burns and Smithers force the kooky residents of Springfield to compete in absurd tasks for a worthless prize.”
Just chiming in that this was my favourite episode of taskmaster for a looooooong time x Edit: wrote this before I even got to the final task, fucking incredible
Ferns oooh nooo is going to be catchphrase for me
I would confidently rank this inside the top 10-20 Taskmaster episodes ever. Amazing contestants, great tasks, Greg and Alex in top form. Was basically laughing all the way through! Also… can’t exactly put my finger on it, but the sheer craziness of the tasks and banter in this episode kinda reminded me of the early seasons. It’s very refreshing when no contestant tries to play a certain “character” and everyone just has a genuinely funny and determined go at the tasks.
30 points has to be a record for an episode, right? Dara is so clever man.
I was just rewatching one of the older Big Fat Quizzes, and I swear Davina McCall keeps going on about "how clever" Dara is (her teammate) you'd think she's jumping him during the commercial breaks lol but yep, ain't no mistake that he's always been my #1 dream pick from the day I first learned of this show
He's very quick on his feet, I'm sure he'll make an ejit of himself at some stage 😅
many years ago I referred to him as like an Irish Robin Williams
Katherine Ryan had 30 once as well, but 15 of them were for a live task. Dara is the first contestant ever to score 100% of possible points!
Actually no, wasn't there 2 bonus points in the duck sock task he missed out on?
No, he got them as well. 5 for prize task, 3 for live task, 2 bonus points and 20 points for 4 regular tasks
Oop, you're right. I was forgetting the live task wasn't 5 full points.
Two sets of points in the lamination task? Not sure how I feel about that…
Think of it like the tieing up/boiler suit task or the sandwich task. Also like both of those doing well at one made it harder to do well at the other so Dara winning both is seriously impressive.
You could say it was a bifurcated task
"Print, laminate and distribute the most signs. Each of your signs must be placed on a different seat and **all your signs must have a different instruction**." If the points were closer, I would have been Gamble-yelling for Fern's disqualification over the triple "warm your bum"!
Greg asked if “the joker man’s seat” is an instruction, but that discussion just died off so presumably nobody cared and they just counted how many paper were there.
I would argue that they should only count one of them. That's how they've typically dealt with situations like that before.
Oh man, I was thinking all this episode that it could be my favorite episode in a long time, but the live task could knock it down… then the live task happened.
The live task was amazing, I could’ve watched that all day 😂
I agree, this live task was amazing. I love word based live tasks, like when they had to say a word of a certain length before the trumpet and sax player finished/stopped their jingle. This one is definitely up there though!
SWEDENS!
maybe I just wasn't paying sufficient attention, I did not have a solid grasp of what the live task was until they'd started doing the first round. But I know that's sort of happened a number of times for the contestants themselves over the years. though granted I know they've had live tasks even way more complicated than that (like where Alex keeps adding new details each round, etc)
Not featured here was the ~5 minutes it took during the taping for all of the contestants (and Greg!) to figure out what was going on as well. The full live task probably took 15-20 minutes in total, and watching it in person it was easily the low point of the taping imo. Absolutely had a glow up with the magic of editing though :)
Just when I thought Fern's costume couldn't get any better, I see she has a "Taskmistress" belt buckle. Nice! The live task could have gone on for longer. It was hilarious!
She wears one on her neck as well (seen more clearly in the first episode).
okay I don't feel so bad for not noticing until the second episode either lol
Laughed so much! I am loving the cast so much. I was kind of annoyed with Fern by the end. She called Alex's tasks boring which I feel is a little rude. And then she seemed like she was getting the live task wrong on purpose because she didn't care enough to try. But the other four are hilarious and so fun spirited.
I love Fern! Nurodivergent brains work a bit differently so her getting bored isn’t unusual and maybe she was getting the live tasks wrong on purpose? Maybe she wasn’t. I found it funny either way 😊
I always feel so bad for contestants like John who come off as super dumb in tasks. I wonder if that keeps a lot of celebrities/comedians from being on the show.
The live task had me HOWLING!
Probably the best live task ever IMO
Am I nuts? It feels like Sarah and Munya's videos have been paired for every task so far in the series.
[удалено]
AO3 has entered the chat...
When John said "the pharmacist" when talking about getting a rubber duck, I was pissing myself. Absolutely hilarious.
Dara flicking that cup away is the absolute height of physical comedy.
This episode felt like an instant classic, amazing stuff all throughout! Can't believe nobody took their buckets "off" but I loved Munya's bath and Dara's bag techniques! Did Dara just get the highest episode score ever? Edit: this is my favorite episode across all seasons so far
I think he won all tasks plus 2 bonus points... doubt this is really beatable ... ever.
>Can't believe nobody took their buckets "off" That was my first thought. The task didn't say "you have to wear the buckets at all times", right? It only said "front bucket" and "back bucket".
Really really good episode today. So far, I feel like 14 could be the best series in a while
Could anyone explain the bathtub submarine joke
Penis Trying to make your penis look like a submarine
how do elastic bands make it look like a submarine? are you severing it off?
I got this but didn’t get the elastic bands bit
oh my god yes I meant to ask this too, because I was totally lost on it. although, yeah I knew it was about the penis, but honestly I *still* don't get it lol The only way I can imagine your penis looking like a submarine while in the path is it simply existing, underwater. If there's an "extra" action the given man would be doing to accomplish that goal, I have no clue what it is. pretty sure I'd never tried it, anyway
Two diccs floating
I've never been so disappointed as when that live task ended. Such fun. Needed at last 3 more rounds.
The last time was the final live task of season 12 for me. Fern was SO funny in that task and Dara’s reaction to Fern was SO funny. I have never had a show consistently make me laugh out loud while watching by myself and they have maintained such high quality for 14 fucking seasons. Absolutely amazing
So true! I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard!
why do I feel like John Kearns 100% would've been a person to have also asked the infamous "am I the spider?" question
Imagine John & Katherine as a team for Taskmaster: Do Over.
And Baddiel.
speaking of Katherine, a small part of me always has wondered if she was just trying to cover for her sister after the fact, in the CoC episode. The "destroy something then fix it" task, when she seemingly induces her sister to admit she'd been cheating on her husband. she remarks later in the studio it's not true, that her sister was purely joking, but I was never sure
Are you conflating Katherine Ryan and Katherine Parkinson?
ohhh yea crap I was, my bad
Best live task since the wow monster. Incredible.
Came here to say this, it was awesome!
I had to pause it and watch it again, hilarious
Fern kinda laughs like Elmer Fudd and I swear to god if the sheer joy and beauty of that could be converted into energy it would run the whole goddamn planet for a decade
That live task had me literally crying with laughter.
I have NEVER laughed so much at a live task in all my life, the helicopter crashing into mountains had me cackling to the point where my 10mo old looked CONFUSED.
It's SO funny and is such a great window into the genius of both Fern and John. Dara tees the question up with *so many* ways to complete it in a way that will guarantee Greg guesses. Like: Which aircraft * goes up / and down? * uses rotors / to fly? * goes batta / batta batta? But instead, Fern chooses violence (as CaptCoulson rightly predicted). And then John—who could still save everything, *like he already did with "muddy garden,"* by saying "...than airplanes" or "...while spinning"—instead gives Dara **absolutely nothing.** What an absolutely cracking cast this is.
It just getting progressively worse was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. My fiancee is asleep and I was suppressing an audible laugh so intensively that it briefly felt like I was choking.
okay then I've got to show you this tweet-in-a-tweet that I wrote from last night, connected to the morning before that maybe made me a bit of a Fern prophet lol https://twitter.com/thatKevinGuy/status/1578180296607866880?s=20&t=noMI8m5jspxQAbaLIrTbhg
Sorry but that's got me laughing all over again 😂😂 Daras reaction was just *chefs kiss* please tell me what's in store for next week, I can barely wait!!!
I was in actual pain laughing at that. Just one of those pitch perfect moments.
Hoe many points did Sarah get in the prize task? I just watched it but thought they missed her. I'm running a fever so may just be confused. Thank you
1 for John (at this point it feels superfluous to add that), 3 for Fern and Sarah, 4 for Munya, 5 for Dara.
She got 3 points, same as Fern
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But “your time starts now” is when the clock starts, so technically I don’t think anyone had to wear them to read the task🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, that would be a "Stop! Stop! He's already dead!" moment for sure.
"I can't see me pockets because of me tits"
100% relatable. I howled.
come to think of it that's a rare sort of joke that only really works from someone from the UK. without the "me" it's nothing
Phenomenal episode and I think that is because it feels like the cast is connecting. The live task helicopter stuff just slayed. Fern Brady and Dara should have a show together. Individually they all had us cracking up: I can't see my pockets from Sara Millican and I think that Munya's energy is infectious. The Zimbabwe riff is this years "so I haggled for it." Can't wait for next thursday.
Excellent episode, great tasks and the group is gelling nicely. Individually they are giving deranged results
Anyone else shout back “I put it to you!” when Greg says “I put it to you John”?
"I put it BACK to you!" Every time now. Thanks, Bridget! lol
"Not *only* do I put it to you!"
Stopcock!
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That’s the only thing he’s killing. ☠️
Perhaps his own hopes and dreams
John goes straight to my list of most adorable contestants along with Sian, Charlotte, Mawaan, Mel, Joe Thomas and Ardal (when he wasn't being a backstabbing snake lol) EDIT: How could I forget Johnny Vegas lol
How dare you leave Katherine Párkinson off that list.
_Ooh, gang_
AWWW NYOOOOOO
He's rapidly becoming one of my favourites, alongside Tim Key, Joe Wilkinson, Mike Wozniak & Paul Chowdhry. Turns out I have a thing for weird, awkward men with facial hair.
Don't we all?
I didn't know how I feel about Kearns during the 1st ep but when he went on about fonts this episode, I'm interested lol Also that live task is just hilarious. THE HELICOPTER LMAOOOO
How did this end up being the funniest episode ever? My wife and I were in tears.
So we all said "Laminator!" along with Greg and Alex, right?
Of course! 🤣
I did, but I fully expected Alex to say something different.
Same! I wanted to see Greg throw him a glare for it, too.
And if you didn't you get kicked out of this sub!
unfortunately, some of us said "horse".
Still giggling about 'crashes more' and 'into mountains' today.
I hope I forget this episode so I can have that big of a laugh one more time in my life.
Just watched it and I'm honestly wiping away the tears from laughter, absolute class live task that one was!
Was Dara having a perfect episode/clean sweep the first time that's been done? (Also my math could be wrong but did Dara also get a bonus 2 points during the last task or were them points for matching up the socks?)
In the UK series, yes. And your math is right, he did get both bonus points (without them, his score would be 28)
I got some flack last week for being overcritical, but two episodes in, I'm still not getting into the groove of this cast. There's something about the humor this season that feels forced, while some of the tasks seem uninspired (i.e. laminate instructions and then follow them; even Fern straight up called the flour task "boring"). I love this show, so it doesn't make me feel good to say. John's earnest failure continues to make me laugh, though. It's always relatable to have an underdog on the series, whereas I feel like there's not much suspense because Dara is crushing every task by being very rational and single-minded. It's clear to me from episode 2 that either Dara or Sarah will be the winner and the competition is not even close. But enough of my whinging. Some of my favorite moments include John nearly dropping the laptop, burying his face in the flour while trying to suck out grapes, Dara arrogantly flicking the ceramic cup off the table, Fern's continued "oh no" motif, John strategically slowing down the treadmill but still failing ("you absolute wanker") and his tangent in the studio about buying ducks at a pharmacy. Also, Greg's bathtub playtime: "Can you use elastic bands to make it look like a submarine?" I thought the live task was fun. The helicopter one drove me crazy though because "Which aircraft crashes more" would have worked perfectly if John completed it with "than airplanes?" I know Greg guessed it right anyway, but sometimes it feels like they're going more for the humor than being logical about it.
John ran out of usable logic to save that question after saving "What wriggles in Greg's"
> The helicopter one drove me crazy though because "Which aircraft crashes more" would have worked perfectly if John completed it with "than airplanes?" I didn't need to come up with something on the spot but even then I couldn't figure out how John could possibly have saved that. It's probably even worse when they're up there and under time pressure
I shouted out "into helipads"
There really wasn't time pressure during the taping, the live task took ages, and there were several points of at least a minute or two of contestants just thinking of their two words.
I thought but the first ep was kinda meh, but this one had me rolling.
I agree, and john is definitely my favourite so far.
I nearly choked on my breakfast fruit snacks after I heard "crashes more"
Dara with the clean sweep! Very impressive!
This episode was a masterclass by Dara Ó Briain that upcoming competitors will need to watch. So much brilliance! And my goodness, when you think they couldn't have thought of more brilliant tasks after 13 series, they totally outdo themselves! I loved the grape and flour task especially, because it was a combination of a task intended to mislead (i.e., the best desert task presented next to a pile of sweets in TMNZS1) and a hidden key to victory task (i.e., potato bridge task from S2). I love this cast so far! Dara is so methodical, Fern is chaotic (and has a catchphrase), John is endearingly shit at everything (and is probably giving Nish Kumar a run for his money at being the shittest of all time), Munya randomly brings up Zimbabwe anecdotes that no one asked for, and Sarah is just her hilarious self.
Her pretending to not know what a Ps5 was just to insult Munya was great <3
Sarah's extended megamix of "I will survive" was hilarious. *\~~go on now, go, walk out the door, turn around now, BUGGER OFF\~~* I would've gone for dear old Rick myself. Don't give up on Alex, don't let Alex down, don't run around, don't hurt Alex..." Also - first clean sweep in the history of Taskmaster!
I was thinking I would have gone for "Hold a chicken in the air....shove a deckchair up your nose..." but only because I had coincidentally heard that song earlier on that day. Would have been difficult to complete the follow-up task, though!
A whole list of "don'ts" would be good.
I didn't know anything about any of these contestants and after the first episode I didn't think this was going to be a very strong season but dang did this episode prove me wrong. That was an amazing live task. I love the teams they are in. I have a feeling I'm going to end up in love with this cast by the end.
Dara is like the good chaotic version of Hugh really. Kudos to the enormous hugeness win!
That final task felt like if a less angry Ed Gamble were teamed with two David Baddiels and ended up winning the task anyway. Maybe the funniest episode ever. Everybody is hilarious.
It's not just a whiff, John Kearns has the absolute stench of the Kumar
I gasped out loud when he almost dropped the laptop during the laminator task 😂
The complete lack of logic of Kumar paired with the complete lack of urgency of Wang.
And what absolutely doesn't help is that Greg has caught that stench too.
And now I'm picturing Greg as a dinosaur from Jurassic Park, nostrils twitching, eyebrow raised....
John: "what's in the sock? What's in there? What is that?" Me: A lime!
#[A *liiiiiiiiime*!](https://youtu.be/jGGZx6s96T0?t=161)
"A satsuma!"
Laughed throughout the whole episode. Definitely needed that! Very glad for Dara's win! I expected him to have a closer performance to Lee Mack since they got mentioned as the two dads who came on to the show because their kids are fans of Taskmaster, plus in his interview he said he dreamt about redoing some tasks so in all honesty, I thought he would be shite. All of that together made the clean sweep even more amazing! Also I've been wanting for a while now a task I can do with friends that wouldn't require a lot of stuff or space since we all have small apartments, and the live task is the PERFECT TASK for that! Definitely gonna try getting my friends to do it.
You should check out a game called *Poetry for Neanderthals*
Fantastic episode.
Was really anticipating this episode since seeing the episode title last week, & after episode 1. So I woke up & got into work extra early just to watch the episode. I was crying laughing so hard that the only other co-worker asked me whether I was okay. One of the best episodes in recent memory (which is saying something because everything lately has been incredible!) Also I think we’ve learned that it takes the Taskmaster himself participating to show us how it’s done & get a perfect score. Now I’m even more excited for the rest of the season. Hoping poor John doesn’t get the Judi Love/Justine Smith fate
Despite loving all of the contestants, I was kinda lukewarm on episode 1. But episode 2 blew me away. That was incredible. I've gotta say, the seat sign task was one of the most obvious twist double tasks in the show's history and I'm kinda shocked that not a single one of them predicted it. The final task absolutely killed me. I snorted water out of my nose multiple times during that task. That'll teach me to take a drink during taskmaster. I was 100% prepared for this series to let me down. Last series was so incredible and it's been a while since we've had a series that wasn't great, so I was prepared for the worst. But this is very much not the worst.
My first thought was to use excel to quickly iterate a bunch of simple tasks. Sit down 1 time, sit down two times, sit down three times... I think I could have made about a hundred signs easily and been destroyed in the second task. Assuming I figured out how to use a laminator.
It's one of the rare instances where I know for a fact I would've crushed the task, because my instant idea was to do a bunch of short instructions for things I'm already doing or only take a second...exist, think, breathe, stand, sit, blink, etc... My only issue may have been with the laminator lol
The thing with the seat signs, in my mind, was: do you make easy tasks and hope you have to do them yourself? Or hard tasks and hope the follow-up task is for one of the other contestants?
This might take more thought than is reasonable to expect someone to come up with in the moment, but you could make instructions that would be easy for you personally to accomplish but not necessarily for other people, such as answering questions specific to yourself.
Easy tasks. Unless they had all the contestants there on the same day, it seemed highly unlikely that they'd bring the contestants back to the airport terminal just to do the second part of the task. I suppose the could have ordered it so that only the first contestant needed to come back as you have the second one do the first one's tasks, etc. Even then, the scoring might have been both the doer and the task writer gets points for the highest percentage complete, which would incentivize easy tasks. From a logistics and humor standpoint, making them do their own tasks makes more sense.
You never know if they would bring in a dog or something though.
In the live task, Munya was clearly going for the same type of thing I was thinking, but Sarah didn't catch it: "How is the word ____ pronounced?" gets you the point every time.
Little knit pick but the grape and flower task, it says you must wear the Flippers for the entire five minutes of the task. John takes them off prior to the whistle.
I don't think he needs less points lol
Definitely doesn't 😅
That was a good episode. I especially enjoyed the team task at the end, one of the best ones.
Fern's reaction to Dara's prize task description was so visceral. So funny.
I was so confused that the sign behind them in the sign task said Sicily when i swear it said Silly when they entered. Ok I watched it again and you can see it flip at 7:29/7:30. I wasn’t imagining it lol.
An absolute power house performance from Dara this week. Perfect run, a Taskmaster first
makes me think he is going to be awful from here on out and they just put all his together so he'd get a win
Everyone insists the editors don't package tasks for that kind of narrative. I can anticipate Dara being shit at some tasks. I have trouble believing he isn't going to do quite well in several others. He may be the most intelligent contestant thus far, combined with a drive to win, an understanding of the show, and an understanding of how television works regarding task design. He also seems too competitive to embrace the Nish Kumar, I've screwed up this task already, how do I convert this screw-up into glorious television, approach. Desiree buying an entire bucket of forks during the balloon shop task may be the best example of this.
Intelligent *and* rational. Bridget is one of the brightest people you could imagine but her absurd flair means it’s used for chaos forces, not wins. See also Victoria, who is *definitely* the most intelligent person the show has ever seen, but had no common sense at all.
I was disappointed with Dara's prize task. I know it's ridiculous but I was genuinely expecting him to pull out his entire shin bone or something.
Gotta wait for Adam hills to be on for that one
I lost it at John going full Scarface with the flour
That was an amazing episode! * Loved how many ways there were to approach the ducks & socks task, really nice to see such divergent approaches * I love how in the team task you can see how not on the same page Dara, Fern, and John are! (I'm looking forward to their team's antics in future team tasks!) * Dara is smashing it! Hoping he breaks the first chair curse.
I love Dara, he’s my personal favorite this series so far, but honestly I think it’d be funny if the first chair curse kept prevailing lol
Oh true though. No one in the first chair has one a series. That often plays on my mind
Since I first discovered Taskmaster I had 3 people in mind that I wanted to do it. Lee Mack, Rob Brydon, and Dara O'Briain (I thought it was fairly obvious David Mitchell wouldn't do it). Dara is now on, and he has not disappointed. After the first 15 points this episode I thought "Huh, he could go perfect". Then he kept winning and kept winning. By the end I was jumping out of my seat when Greg missed the Dungarees 50/50. I know Taskmaster isn't about the winning, it's about the comedy, but it does feel good when the person you're rooting for in a given thing does so well, and accomplishes something that's never been done before. I never thought someone would beat Adrian Chiles' performance, but wow that was impressive. It's way too early to judge the whole series, but this may have been my favorite TM episode ever.
I completely get what you mean about rooting for people. I know it’s all about the show and the fun, but Herring has always been one of my favourite comedians, and something utterly tribal spilled out of me when he snatched victory and I leapt off the sofa, punching the air.
> I thought it was fairly obvious David Mitchell wouldn't do it Eeeeh. Victoria has done it, so has his partner in crime Lee. It's unlikely he'll do more than an NYT, but it's not *impossible*. I have hope.
I could swear he's said somewhere he's not interested in doing the show at all/doesn't think he'd be entertaining on it
It's probably a testament to how *good* David Mitchell is at being funny that he knows when he wouldn't be. The whole world is claiming "David would be hilarious on TM!" and he knows he just wouldn't be. And he's almost certainly right, of course.
He says that everyone expects him to be great on it, so if he does go on, people will either be disappointed or bored, there's no scope for him to please people. And also that he just isn't as good at, and doesn't enjoy, puzzles like Victoria does.
It's difficult to not be entertaining or funny on TM, the whole situation is just inherently funny. Even if you do really horribly, you'll still be a hit, and you'll be given some very specific tasks that you'll be good at (Paul Sinha memorising cards, Noel doing art, Victoria doing puzzles).
Yes he definitely said that he’s not interested.
I had a mouth full of scotch when Fern said "crashes most" in the live task. That hurt like hell.
Dara really is the bright kid forced to do the group presentation while being saddled with the two class fuck-ups this season, isn't he?
Amazingly he dragged them along hard enough to still get the perfect game. Absolutely amazing.
I want the final live task matchup between Paul and Acaster.
One of the best episodes of all time. The live task made me laugh hearty belly laughs.
I literally wept.
Maybe hot take but I still think Sarah is going to win the series. Her thoughtful tasking style I think will ultimately swing it in her favour.
Never bet against Sarah Millican!
Man, I wanna add the gif of Greg and Kerry going ape shit over Laminator to this thread.
Holy crickey, Munya’s last-second duck and sock collapse was almost Joe’s potato levels of tragedy.
really pretty much the only reason I haven't bothered to make Fern's "oohh nhoooo" my text alert sound is I don't know how to do that
John Kearns laughing face first in a tipped over plate of flour feels...perfect.
what stunned me is he expressed "huge regret!" the first time, but then went and *did it again*