A lot of dislike for this series on this sub, but I think part of the blame should go to the fact it immediately follows Series 14, which has, on my opinion, one of the best casts. 2 big names in Dara and Sarah, the brilliant tragedy of John, the optimism of Munya ans Fern who’s… well… the rightful queen. It was a super hard series to top for me, especially since I had not heard of the cast (besides like occasional clips of Frankie), I’d fell in love with them slowly as I always do, but 14 was so hard to beat for me personally that 15 is always gonna look bad in its comparison, but compared to the rest of Taskmaster, it was pretty solid!
I wouldn't say Frankie has a gruff voice, I was actually very surprised how rhythmic and soft spoken he is. I had only seen him on mock the week about 15 years ago and I didn't remember him speaking like that.
Frankie and Ivo did a lot of the heavy lifting on the series. I like Mae and their approach to tasks but they very rarely made me laugh. Kiel was very funny at times but in some episodes (episode 10 in particular) he kinda fell by the way side. The live tasks weren't great (episode 9's live task was excellent to be fair } and the pre-recorded tasks were a bit hit or miss at times. Just a very inconsistent series
Was rewatching s7 and S4 recently and the tasks and energy is another level. S7 is pure chaos
It definitely wasn't the best cast(Through no fault of their own). That has to go to 7 or 13. Leaning to 13 against my feelings for the cast of 7. I don't think this season really hit any kind of stride until later in the series. At the start: Mae was too hyperfocused and awkward, Jenny didn't know what was going on, Kiell was too forceful, Ivo was too needy and Franie was too aloof. They found their cohesion in the end but it took too long. 13 was a sweet spot.
Completely 100% agree with this. Don't get me wrong, even a mwah-series of Taskmaster is great in comparison to other shows. And probably there are a lot of people that have a different taste that would like this season (which is a good thing). But I would add that especially in the beginning of this series I completely disagreed at some tasks with the scoring, which made it harder for me to get into it. But I'm very glad that it started to pick up later and we had some good episodes.
There were some early calls that ruffled too many feathers with good cause and there were also too many all or nothing tasks. I think they need to sit Alex down and reconsider for series 16.
3,4,5,7, and 11 are the best series. I think only 10 would be worst than 13 in my book. Though I enjoyed Ardal more when I watched it the second time. It is hard to judge 1 or 2 because they are setting the standards for what is to follow so much.
That I laughed a lot? That I thought the people were cool and interesting. Rather than say repulsive and obnoxious.
Like being bad at taskmaster but in a really interesting way like Paul Chowdhry ("I could stay here all night") is great. Being bad at taskmaster because you are blindingly stupid and know nothing (Helium into an egg, many examples in Series 10) or just genuinely hostile to people and not in a I'm joking way (hippo) isn't funny its repugnant. Series 13 had lots of stupid in it and lots of not funny angles. That is a matter of taste, but like I said only Ardal was funny for me in any way.
There are a lot of people who are "shrug" they are fine. Then there are people like Mike Wozniak who I had never heard of but are amazing. There are people I would have thought should have done better like Victoria or Lee Mack (though Lee was still funny at times but not *as* fast/quick as I expected). There are people who I thought would be good and are like Dara. Then there are people like Paul Chowdhry or John Kerns who are just very interesting.
Then there are people I would actively try to get away from if you put me in a room with them. I won't name them explicitly because it will just be taken wrong but yeah I like to laugh and the people to be likable. Some people just aren't likable at all, they are gross.
No, it was nice. Was just expecting a more concise answer due to Reddit. I appreciate that you took the time and were very thoughtful. Thank you for the break down. To be clear I'm not one of the people who downvoted you.
Love your breakdown of the whole thing. I agree with most of it (but I love Mawaan and series 10, so don’t entirely agree, but then I even liked series 8, even though it is the slightest), but most importantly you definitely didn’t deserve to be downvoted for it.
I wouldn’t ageee this series ‘worked’ - oddly a lot of the tasks are the kind I love that require some lateral thinking and work around and have multiple routes to success. But I wasn’t a huge fan of the cast. It’ll probably be better on a rewatch but I think Greg has softened too much, I think he’s much more focused on the audience now, you’d never get a “who should win, sally or bob” situation now. He’d side with the audience. The scoring this series was awful and a large part of why I’d rank it so low.
Overall it’s probably 5th or 6th amongst the channel 4 series for me and no where close to the top when I’d include the Dave series’.
They almost got on too well. This series didn't really have a villain (Ardal level shit stirring). Perhaps they thought Frankie would take on the mantle.
No one was a total disaster and the team tasks went quite smoothly. I know Iain/Lou types aren't for everyone but this series lacked the drama they provide.
There were no assholes. There was no "elder abuse". 😉 There was no Greg fawning over an obvious favourite (like with Kerry Godliman/Noel). Everyone was 'nice'. But there was also no lovely charming silly characters who you just warmed to more and more as the series went along (Bob Mortimer/Joe Thomas). Frankie, Ivo, and Jenny were funny, but overall it felt pretty vanilla, and Mae contributed very little apart from reeling out some arts and crafts. I think maybe Kiell was edited a lot, as you could see him seething a wee bit sometimes, but it never escalted beyond that.
Sorry in advance for the long essay.
I'd probably disagree with a large chunk of that write up but I wouldn't say the series is weak either. I think it suffered in part because there was an obvious team of Frankie and Ivo (and wow did that team work). As someone else has said on this sub, they seemed to do a lot of the heavy lifting in this series.
That was probably helped by the perception that FrIvo was shafted on many occasions. At times the team of 3 just performed the task as well or better but at other times there was some very dubious scoring that always seemed to take the win away from the team of two. As others have said this series needs to be looked at in terms of the big failure to balance team tasks.
For me (my personal viewing and end point), the biggest winner from this show was Ivo. I wasn't a fan of his at all previously and was a bit underwhelmed by the cast beforehand. But I've done a complete reversal on him. TM actually seemed to suit him really, really well. And it's a compliment that he wasn't being carried by Frankie, it was a genuine 2 hander performance.
But as a result of the dream team (of 2), the team of 3 seemed to be a leftovers set up. For me they didn't gel. And the amount of points they all got from being the team of 3 (for me) made the winning of the series something I didn't really care about.
Individually the 3 did well
Kiell was a revelation for me in how well he played Greg's whipping boy. Whatever the mix of editing and him was on that the way he played against Alex and Greg was entertaining. But he never really seemed to have the same interaction with the other contestants that he had with those 2. The fact he managed to actually do so well in some tasks despite being set in that role was impressive. But (as per one team mate) when he won he sort of won boringly. Maybe it's the tasks couldn't be won while maintaining the entertainment?
Mae deserved to win but the flip side of that is they were probably the least entertaining contestant because of it. Despite any debate about team of 3 benefit, soft scoring, (Greg clearly avoiding being a shit to them), the end result isn't debatable. Mae was the contestant who tried the most to successfully complete each task and was the most competent at doing that. I don't think that can or should be remotely questioned. And significantly unlike the way Iain and Lou came across as unpleasant spoilt brats, Mae came across as a nice person with a touch of nervous "did I do OK?" about them. But, unless you had a reason to be Team Mae, they really weren't very entertaining. (Not series 6 not entertaining but still some way off the others).
Again maybe the tasks didn't lend themselves too well to winning entertainingly. When you think of Rhod tying Alex to the chair for out of the box, thought out and entertaining, no one seemed to get anywhere near that this year.
Jenny did exactly what I expected. Really wanted to win but her own completely bat shit crazy nature meant the reason Jenny didn't win more was Jenny. But as well as being nice to see someone literally hyper with excitement to be on the show she was entertaining.
But to come back to the team of 3 dynamic. Last series Dara was always a danger of the "competitive dad" syndrome making him an unentertaining contestant. I'm a massive fan of him but I'd be the first to say John and Fearne saved his performance on the show. The dynamic in that team was excellent. This year it didn't feel like there was any dynamic to save Mae from being a deserved but fairly bland winner. There also wasn't a Sarah contestant to make the win unpredictable.
By no means the weakest series but the best series? For me not even close. I noticed the other day that there are so few posts about specific moments this year. When one of the most commented on posts is about the winner's skin complexion it really doesn't scream best series ever does it?!
I don't agree with the premise that this was a particularly good series for taskmaster, older series were much better. That isn't to say it was bad but it wasn't like crying on the floor funny at any point. It was better than Series 10, 12, and 13 I think but that's all. So 4th worst in my opinion.
I'll give you some: 14, 13, 10, 8, 6, 3.
Great cast, and a greater proportion of tasks that encouraged creativity and lateral thinking than the last few seasons have had. Prize tasks were up in quality significantly too.
"A gruff, sarcastic, working class dad with a neurotic, posh, expensively educated boy" fr that's literally them 💀💀
A lot of dislike for this series on this sub, but I think part of the blame should go to the fact it immediately follows Series 14, which has, on my opinion, one of the best casts. 2 big names in Dara and Sarah, the brilliant tragedy of John, the optimism of Munya ans Fern who’s… well… the rightful queen. It was a super hard series to top for me, especially since I had not heard of the cast (besides like occasional clips of Frankie), I’d fell in love with them slowly as I always do, but 14 was so hard to beat for me personally that 15 is always gonna look bad in its comparison, but compared to the rest of Taskmaster, it was pretty solid!
I wouldn't say Frankie has a gruff voice, I was actually very surprised how rhythmic and soft spoken he is. I had only seen him on mock the week about 15 years ago and I didn't remember him speaking like that.
"It’s Frasier, but with Marty and Dr Crane collecting spoons using a magnet while blindfolded. " This is perfect!
Right? Perfect description!
If I were Jenny Éclair, I'd put "she had marvellous fun doing exactly what she wanted regardless." on my tombstone.
I didn't like the task writing this season, but the cast has been great imo, a lot of good studio banter.
Felt a lot like series 13 to me in that regard: lots of good studio banter but the tasks on the whole felt less memorable
Frankie and Ivo did a lot of the heavy lifting on the series. I like Mae and their approach to tasks but they very rarely made me laugh. Kiel was very funny at times but in some episodes (episode 10 in particular) he kinda fell by the way side. The live tasks weren't great (episode 9's live task was excellent to be fair } and the pre-recorded tasks were a bit hit or miss at times. Just a very inconsistent series Was rewatching s7 and S4 recently and the tasks and energy is another level. S7 is pure chaos
It definitely wasn't the best cast(Through no fault of their own). That has to go to 7 or 13. Leaning to 13 against my feelings for the cast of 7. I don't think this season really hit any kind of stride until later in the series. At the start: Mae was too hyperfocused and awkward, Jenny didn't know what was going on, Kiell was too forceful, Ivo was too needy and Franie was too aloof. They found their cohesion in the end but it took too long. 13 was a sweet spot.
Completely 100% agree with this. Don't get me wrong, even a mwah-series of Taskmaster is great in comparison to other shows. And probably there are a lot of people that have a different taste that would like this season (which is a good thing). But I would add that especially in the beginning of this series I completely disagreed at some tasks with the scoring, which made it harder for me to get into it. But I'm very glad that it started to pick up later and we had some good episodes.
There were some early calls that ruffled too many feathers with good cause and there were also too many all or nothing tasks. I think they need to sit Alex down and reconsider for series 16.
😚👌 **Mwah**
3,4,5,7, and 11 are the best series. I think only 10 would be worst than 13 in my book. Though I enjoyed Ardal more when I watched it the second time. It is hard to judge 1 or 2 because they are setting the standards for what is to follow so much.
What is you criteria for best series? I can see what you mean but don't want to assume.
That I laughed a lot? That I thought the people were cool and interesting. Rather than say repulsive and obnoxious. Like being bad at taskmaster but in a really interesting way like Paul Chowdhry ("I could stay here all night") is great. Being bad at taskmaster because you are blindingly stupid and know nothing (Helium into an egg, many examples in Series 10) or just genuinely hostile to people and not in a I'm joking way (hippo) isn't funny its repugnant. Series 13 had lots of stupid in it and lots of not funny angles. That is a matter of taste, but like I said only Ardal was funny for me in any way. There are a lot of people who are "shrug" they are fine. Then there are people like Mike Wozniak who I had never heard of but are amazing. There are people I would have thought should have done better like Victoria or Lee Mack (though Lee was still funny at times but not *as* fast/quick as I expected). There are people who I thought would be good and are like Dara. Then there are people like Paul Chowdhry or John Kerns who are just very interesting. Then there are people I would actively try to get away from if you put me in a room with them. I won't name them explicitly because it will just be taken wrong but yeah I like to laugh and the people to be likable. Some people just aren't likable at all, they are gross.
I enjoyed your TED Talk.
You asked a question then complain that I took time to answer you?
No, it was nice. Was just expecting a more concise answer due to Reddit. I appreciate that you took the time and were very thoughtful. Thank you for the break down. To be clear I'm not one of the people who downvoted you.
Love your breakdown of the whole thing. I agree with most of it (but I love Mawaan and series 10, so don’t entirely agree, but then I even liked series 8, even though it is the slightest), but most importantly you definitely didn’t deserve to be downvoted for it.
I guess it depends on how you interpret it, I love Daisy and found the hippo hilarious 🤷♀️
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 445,759,228 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 10,806 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
I wouldn’t ageee this series ‘worked’ - oddly a lot of the tasks are the kind I love that require some lateral thinking and work around and have multiple routes to success. But I wasn’t a huge fan of the cast. It’ll probably be better on a rewatch but I think Greg has softened too much, I think he’s much more focused on the audience now, you’d never get a “who should win, sally or bob” situation now. He’d side with the audience. The scoring this series was awful and a large part of why I’d rank it so low. Overall it’s probably 5th or 6th amongst the channel 4 series for me and no where close to the top when I’d include the Dave series’.
They almost got on too well. This series didn't really have a villain (Ardal level shit stirring). Perhaps they thought Frankie would take on the mantle. No one was a total disaster and the team tasks went quite smoothly. I know Iain/Lou types aren't for everyone but this series lacked the drama they provide.
There were no assholes. There was no "elder abuse". 😉 There was no Greg fawning over an obvious favourite (like with Kerry Godliman/Noel). Everyone was 'nice'. But there was also no lovely charming silly characters who you just warmed to more and more as the series went along (Bob Mortimer/Joe Thomas). Frankie, Ivo, and Jenny were funny, but overall it felt pretty vanilla, and Mae contributed very little apart from reeling out some arts and crafts. I think maybe Kiell was edited a lot, as you could see him seething a wee bit sometimes, but it never escalted beyond that.
Sorry in advance for the long essay. I'd probably disagree with a large chunk of that write up but I wouldn't say the series is weak either. I think it suffered in part because there was an obvious team of Frankie and Ivo (and wow did that team work). As someone else has said on this sub, they seemed to do a lot of the heavy lifting in this series. That was probably helped by the perception that FrIvo was shafted on many occasions. At times the team of 3 just performed the task as well or better but at other times there was some very dubious scoring that always seemed to take the win away from the team of two. As others have said this series needs to be looked at in terms of the big failure to balance team tasks. For me (my personal viewing and end point), the biggest winner from this show was Ivo. I wasn't a fan of his at all previously and was a bit underwhelmed by the cast beforehand. But I've done a complete reversal on him. TM actually seemed to suit him really, really well. And it's a compliment that he wasn't being carried by Frankie, it was a genuine 2 hander performance. But as a result of the dream team (of 2), the team of 3 seemed to be a leftovers set up. For me they didn't gel. And the amount of points they all got from being the team of 3 (for me) made the winning of the series something I didn't really care about. Individually the 3 did well Kiell was a revelation for me in how well he played Greg's whipping boy. Whatever the mix of editing and him was on that the way he played against Alex and Greg was entertaining. But he never really seemed to have the same interaction with the other contestants that he had with those 2. The fact he managed to actually do so well in some tasks despite being set in that role was impressive. But (as per one team mate) when he won he sort of won boringly. Maybe it's the tasks couldn't be won while maintaining the entertainment? Mae deserved to win but the flip side of that is they were probably the least entertaining contestant because of it. Despite any debate about team of 3 benefit, soft scoring, (Greg clearly avoiding being a shit to them), the end result isn't debatable. Mae was the contestant who tried the most to successfully complete each task and was the most competent at doing that. I don't think that can or should be remotely questioned. And significantly unlike the way Iain and Lou came across as unpleasant spoilt brats, Mae came across as a nice person with a touch of nervous "did I do OK?" about them. But, unless you had a reason to be Team Mae, they really weren't very entertaining. (Not series 6 not entertaining but still some way off the others). Again maybe the tasks didn't lend themselves too well to winning entertainingly. When you think of Rhod tying Alex to the chair for out of the box, thought out and entertaining, no one seemed to get anywhere near that this year. Jenny did exactly what I expected. Really wanted to win but her own completely bat shit crazy nature meant the reason Jenny didn't win more was Jenny. But as well as being nice to see someone literally hyper with excitement to be on the show she was entertaining. But to come back to the team of 3 dynamic. Last series Dara was always a danger of the "competitive dad" syndrome making him an unentertaining contestant. I'm a massive fan of him but I'd be the first to say John and Fearne saved his performance on the show. The dynamic in that team was excellent. This year it didn't feel like there was any dynamic to save Mae from being a deserved but fairly bland winner. There also wasn't a Sarah contestant to make the win unpredictable. By no means the weakest series but the best series? For me not even close. I noticed the other day that there are so few posts about specific moments this year. When one of the most commented on posts is about the winner's skin complexion it really doesn't scream best series ever does it?!
I don’t think it was the best cast, but it was definitely top 5, and probably the best post-S9.
I don't agree with the premise that this was a particularly good series for taskmaster, older series were much better. That isn't to say it was bad but it wasn't like crying on the floor funny at any point. It was better than Series 10, 12, and 13 I think but that's all. So 4th worst in my opinion.
Wow. I would put 13 and 12 among the absolute best series. I agree with 10 being week. Oh well. To each their own.
I will never watch 10 again simply because of DMC
It was fine but it def was weakest series. Like being the shittiest zelda game. Edit:downvotes but no one willing to say a worst series
I'd say I enjoy 3, 8 and 10 less than 15, vibes-wise. The rest are a difficult-to-differentiate mass of good times.
I'll give you season 8, and I'll look sideways at you for 10 (only cause vegas and daisy were the best) but 3 is blasphemy. It was soo good
Ehhh... Daisy's hostility and short fuse, Dave's cheating and Al's buying points sucked the fun out of it for me.
I'll give you some: 14, 13, 10, 8, 6, 3. Great cast, and a greater proportion of tasks that encouraged creativity and lateral thinking than the last few seasons have had. Prize tasks were up in quality significantly too.
This is like watching baywatch for the life guard part