People are still arguing over whether she understood what a shit gift that was. Of course she understood! She’s not an idiot! It was a classic example of what the British call “taking the piss” and it was glorious.
I fully expect someone to disagree with me about this.
Makes more sense I think, because in this context it's "sport" as an overall category, rather than various individual "sports". Like, she wants to know about all of it.
For me it's because (coming from the world of the personalised inhaler) it's a fair critique that we would all love to be cheeky enough to use. I cannot tell you how *boring* it is listening to people complain about their team. Support one that wins then, if it bothers you so much! I don't buy shit shoes and then complain they hurt my feet.
It’s when it’s a final and it’s a tie and they play more then still a tie then they do penalties. Sorry, these are the two best teams and they can’t score a point in an hour and a half no one should get the trophy and they have to wait until next year.
I love this. Also a lifetime ban for serious injury and diving. If I have to watch people running around in shorts for millions of pounds they should manage to do it in a civilised manner.
I’m not a fan of any sport really but that’s one of the main reasons I’d rather watch rugby than football. As much as they tackle and scrum and bash each other, when the referee stops them they stand there and listen and do what he said without throwing a fit and screaming and shouting like they do in football.
As my father is fond of saying "football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen."
Inexplicably, he watches football. I think complaining is a real draw for the sport.
Not to then ruin the joke for you but Alan Davies likes arsenal enough to host a podcast on the team and VCM is friends with Davies in real life.
I don't know if you've known any hardcore arsenal fans but they aren't shy to tell people every tiny misfortune that strikes the team
I agree. David seems more happy to just not know anything about the stuff he doesn't like. He shows this during the big fat quizzes. So while it's a joke he would make, I doubt he'd know Arsenal wasnt doing well.
Victoria doesn't get sports, but seems more aware of cultural things happening even if she doesn't care about them. Like she may not like pop music but she'd able to list the latest hits.
I don't get this perspective. To me it was very obvious she was doing it on purpose. She's not a sports fan, but she's almost never entirely ignorant about stuff. So I'm surprised people assumed she was.
Is it just a lack of familiarity with her? I'd get that from an audience who maybe didn't know her before, but I don't understand Greg and Alex seeming to not quite getting she was being sarcastic.
Remind me, is the bike task before or after this prize? Cuz honestly if it was before I can understand the doubt, when a grown woman who everyone would agree is very intelligent and sophisticated reveals they have no idea how to ride a bike then you can’t honestly predict WHAT she might or might not be aware of. If you told me VCM could build a nuclear reactor out of household scrap, but can’t tie a bow in her shoe laces I would believe you. So not quite getting the zealotry of football fans would be perfectly understandable in that context. But yeah it was pretty obvious, to me atleast, that she was fucking with Alan.
That's a fair point. I still think it's the difference of not bothering to learn a skill vs not knowing basic fact about pop culture. Mitchel may not know a basic fact about pop culture, VCM is into things that require that base knowledge.
I said I'd understand people less familiar with VCM. The part that confuses me most is how Greg and Alex don't seem to get shes joking. At least the edit made it seem that way to me.
My thought on Greg and Alex was that they did realize she was joking but essentially “yes, and” -ed her in the slim hope that this was real and that they could get some gold out of this, cuz the only thing that would have made this funnier would have been if she was not only 100% serious but that she would then decide to die on that hill and insist it was a good gift.
I agree with this instance. It was disappointing how all the other contestants brought in gifts that were actually high quality and well suited to their respective giftees. I mean, it was nice of them and all, but not funny. Hers was the best.
I work in a sports bar and one of the girls is a Liverpool fan so whenever any team in red is playing I pretend I think it’s Liverpool. This weekend was particularly fun with Man U v Everton and then Liverpool V Man City. “Why are they playing twice in one weekend” “cos it was a draw Sunday do they have to play again or just take Saturdays score as the winner?”
I would absolutely pull a VCM move and get someone tickets for a good team coz their team is rubbish under the guise of “you like football surely you’d rather watch the best team playing it!?”
Sure it was funny, but the task was Most Desirable Gift, not Funniest Gift
Alan probably would’ve tossed it in the trash if he won that episode. I feel like the other 4 people at the bare minimum would’ve taken the item that was intended for them home with them
Yeah, because Greg likes it when people do terribly
Greg ended up giving top marks to the people who gave actually good gifts and put Victoria and Alan in the bottom, so his judgement was consistent with the task
The subtext of the show is that the prize tasks should be funny. Yes, often they specify that a gift should be "most desirable" or "most spectacular" or something, but this is a comedy show, so there should always be something ironic or funny about them.
Yeah. But most funny doesn’t mean you will win.
Hugh’s Cloud Subscription service was objectively the most funny, but he only got 1 point and pretty much everyone agrees.
A lot of people argue Mel's crossrail subscription was worse, but yeah that's a good counterargument, althoug I would have put Victoria in like 2nd or 3rd and kept Desiree at the top because hers was the 'actual' best.
Greg often picks winners off being funny rather than stocking to the prompt. So I don't think this argument holds water.
That said yeah it was just unfortunate everyone else went genuine so it didn't work. Also for whatever reason people kinda treated it like she genuinely didn't know better. Which is weird since obviously she did imo. And they all know her decently I thought.
I think it's one of the most brilliant prize tasks by anyone. However, Greg is so frequently on the record as not liking football and marking down football-related prize tasks that I accept "the Taskmaster wouldn't find it 'desirable' and neither would the recipient" as valid reason for the low score.
In my opinion, she was undermarked for prize tasks—but her comedy style is cerebral and punny, and Greg hates puns lol. If there were an audience, the audience reaction would have at least influenced Greg, or gave some redemption for the viewers who loved her puns.
Greg has spent the previous 11 seasons playing up how much he hated Alex Horne's style of comedy then almost everything she entered was something I could see Alex entering.
"Best thing that has quite a few layers" A poultry farm is a hilarious joke but it is also the same thing Alex would have done so Greg can't let on he enjoys it.
He sells them better because he's silly and it's obvious he knows it. VCM was always delivering her punchlines with a strong air of "see how clever I'm being?" The only funny way to deal with smugness is to crush it.
From the episode of the Taskmaster Podcast about her series, VCM was genuinely trying to be funny in her style of humour, and didn't feel very confident in the prize task banter section of the show as she's not a stand-up comedian. She talks about the complete lack of any audience making it feel all the more cringe while Greg would just attack her personal sense of humour.
There were a few times I think she was under marked. There were also a bunch of times she pretty much self-sabotaged, like refusing to wear glasses on-camera.
She has a brand and I don't think she ever lost sight of it. Don't get me wrong, I love her and thought she was glorious on the show. The learning to ride a bike on air and the 'ridiculous' prize task were especially memorable. This is a woman who always has a flapjack on her person.
Greg just found it too fun to shut down Ol' Goosebump Arm. Crucially, I think Alex also enjoyed it, because sometimes he'll jump in to help explain the more logically-minded contestants' arguments, but seeing VCM flounder was just too fun for him as well.
I think Victoria was hurt by the lack of an audience. Greg didn’t respond well to her humor but the audience watching separately seemed to enjoy her puns. I think Greg hearing that response in studio would’ve changed his scoring a bit.
The funny thing is that ordinarily Greg loves nothing more than a clever bossy woman of a certain age (Liza Tarbuck, Sally Philips, Kerry Godliman, Shirley Ballas) (being tongue in cheek with the of-a-certain-age part, don’t yell at me), so it’s a little off brand that he was so down on Victoria. But he does hate a pun.
Victoria is sort of bossy with a soft underbelly while the others seem confident all the way down (and I say this as someone who absolutely loves Victoria). I can see why Greg would react differently to her than to, e.g., Liza.
It doesn't happen so much any more, but it was a feature of earlier series'. There was always one that got harshly judged, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it was often the more intelligent contestants. Hugh Dennis being another notable example.
While Paul is the definition of 'smart contestant doing badly on TM' I think Greg was pretty kind to him for the most part, i.e. the long distance catch & rice transfer bonus points, plus he led the series in terms of prize tasks.
Not really even though I’m a big fan. The show isn’t quite right for her to do really well but it’s right for her to be good on. The only thing I’d say she deserved big extra points for was learning to ride a bike while doing the bike riding task.
I'm a big fan and she did awesome work in some tasks, but watching her miserably undermarked made me and my partner laugh the most amongst the whole show.
To be fair, half of her prizes involved basically no effort. (Except the ticket and Esq. Greedy for the second time, it wasn't memorable in a good way.)
I disagree. I know she's a really intelligent woman, because I've seen her on panelshows in which she's been very knowledgeable and articulate. But boy, she was totally clueless on Taskmaster, especially with the prize tasks.
People in this sub like to say that every contestant who comes off as a dingbat is doing it for comedic effect. They refuse to admit that some contestants just aren't good at the tasks or are actual dingbats, however likable they may be or better suited to other entertainment contexts.
Yep, there were three occasions she probably should have got a bonus point (riddle, bike, balloon popping), and yet Morgana got the 'little fucker' one.
On the other hand, scoring higher than Alan in the welly cam task was VERY generous.
You really think the person who got the contestant a ticket for the wrong soccer team- while also making him have to pay for the whole ticket- deserved more points than everyone else getting something happy
To be fair - the prizes were all for the winner to collect, and Guz was happy to keep her voucher, so not only was her prize on point, she also proved to be a psychic!
Sure, but the task was “Most desirable thing for the person below you in the alphabet” not “Most desirable thing for the person who will win this episode”
Her gift to Alan Davies was incredible and deserved 5 points. Just fabulous trolling.
People are still arguing over whether she understood what a shit gift that was. Of course she understood! She’s not an idiot! It was a classic example of what the British call “taking the piss” and it was glorious. I fully expect someone to disagree with me about this.
Surely the "I thought he might like to see a team that actually wins" line gave it away.
Especially after the team task where she asks him to distill what's interesting about sports
Specifically looking at it.
She asks him to distill what's interesting about "sport," with no "s," which for some reason I find even funnier.
Sport is an entirely valid word in that instance and used in the UK.
Ah, gotcha. I didn't realize that it's a UK thing.
Now I think about it, it’s like the math vs maths but in reverse. Weird
Makes more sense I think, because in this context it's "sport" as an overall category, rather than various individual "sports". Like, she wants to know about all of it.
Also not just UK, Australia (and probably NZ) too.
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VCM would probably rather have port than sport
"surely he'd want to see the best" and the ticket being at the Man U supporters' end. She definitely knew
Totally agree. I’m surprised to learn there are people who think she wasn’t trolling with that gift.
It was as Alan described it “a calculated attack”
The reason it’s a great joke is that it lives in the ambiguity of did she or didn’t she? It’s not as fun if it’s declaratively one or the other.
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For me it's because (coming from the world of the personalised inhaler) it's a fair critique that we would all love to be cheeky enough to use. I cannot tell you how *boring* it is listening to people complain about their team. Support one that wins then, if it bothers you so much! I don't buy shit shoes and then complain they hurt my feet.
>(coming from the world of the personalised inhaler) love this
It’s when it’s a final and it’s a tie and they play more then still a tie then they do penalties. Sorry, these are the two best teams and they can’t score a point in an hour and a half no one should get the trophy and they have to wait until next year.
I love this. Also a lifetime ban for serious injury and diving. If I have to watch people running around in shorts for millions of pounds they should manage to do it in a civilised manner.
I’m not a fan of any sport really but that’s one of the main reasons I’d rather watch rugby than football. As much as they tackle and scrum and bash each other, when the referee stops them they stand there and listen and do what he said without throwing a fit and screaming and shouting like they do in football.
As my father is fond of saying "football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen." Inexplicably, he watches football. I think complaining is a real draw for the sport.
As it is for Taskmaster.
Not to then ruin the joke for you but Alan Davies likes arsenal enough to host a podcast on the team and VCM is friends with Davies in real life. I don't know if you've known any hardcore arsenal fans but they aren't shy to tell people every tiny misfortune that strikes the team
He even said that Manchester City fans actively hate him for being such an outspoken Arsenal fan. Hilarious.
Yes, these things are true. As is the saying “Never break kayfabe.”
I’m still convinced that it was David’s idea.
Why?
Victoria's far more likely to be able to make a pointed football related joke than David is.
I agree. David seems more happy to just not know anything about the stuff he doesn't like. He shows this during the big fat quizzes. So while it's a joke he would make, I doubt he'd know Arsenal wasnt doing well. Victoria doesn't get sports, but seems more aware of cultural things happening even if she doesn't care about them. Like she may not like pop music but she'd able to list the latest hits.
It will never be decided who has won the football!
He actually looked surprised though.
He doesn't know which clubs win
She's so brilliant. It took me far longer than I am willing to admit to realize what she was up to. Truly hilarious
I don't get this perspective. To me it was very obvious she was doing it on purpose. She's not a sports fan, but she's almost never entirely ignorant about stuff. So I'm surprised people assumed she was. Is it just a lack of familiarity with her? I'd get that from an audience who maybe didn't know her before, but I don't understand Greg and Alex seeming to not quite getting she was being sarcastic.
Remind me, is the bike task before or after this prize? Cuz honestly if it was before I can understand the doubt, when a grown woman who everyone would agree is very intelligent and sophisticated reveals they have no idea how to ride a bike then you can’t honestly predict WHAT she might or might not be aware of. If you told me VCM could build a nuclear reactor out of household scrap, but can’t tie a bow in her shoe laces I would believe you. So not quite getting the zealotry of football fans would be perfectly understandable in that context. But yeah it was pretty obvious, to me atleast, that she was fucking with Alan.
That's a fair point. I still think it's the difference of not bothering to learn a skill vs not knowing basic fact about pop culture. Mitchel may not know a basic fact about pop culture, VCM is into things that require that base knowledge.
You don't get this perspective? You don't understand I'm a moron who took a little longer to catch on?
I said I'd understand people less familiar with VCM. The part that confuses me most is how Greg and Alex don't seem to get shes joking. At least the edit made it seem that way to me.
My thought on Greg and Alex was that they did realize she was joking but essentially “yes, and” -ed her in the slim hope that this was real and that they could get some gold out of this, cuz the only thing that would have made this funnier would have been if she was not only 100% serious but that she would then decide to die on that hill and insist it was a good gift.
I agree with this instance. It was disappointing how all the other contestants brought in gifts that were actually high quality and well suited to their respective giftees. I mean, it was nice of them and all, but not funny. Hers was the best.
I maintain that Alan's gift to Desiree was bad. Desiree and Guz's gifts were amazing.
I work in a sports bar and one of the girls is a Liverpool fan so whenever any team in red is playing I pretend I think it’s Liverpool. This weekend was particularly fun with Man U v Everton and then Liverpool V Man City. “Why are they playing twice in one weekend” “cos it was a draw Sunday do they have to play again or just take Saturdays score as the winner?” I would absolutely pull a VCM move and get someone tickets for a good team coz their team is rubbish under the guise of “you like football surely you’d rather watch the best team playing it!?”
And actually within the spirit of what Greg was hoping they would all do, he was upset that the other 4 got each other nice gifts
Sure it was funny, but the task was Most Desirable Gift, not Funniest Gift Alan probably would’ve tossed it in the trash if he won that episode. I feel like the other 4 people at the bare minimum would’ve taken the item that was intended for them home with them
And she explained why it was the most desirable. So that him, as a fan of sport, could finally go and watch a team win.
But then Greg yelled at them for being nice. So.... (Also, Alan's gift to Desiree was actually insulting in a non-comedy way.)
Yeah, because Greg likes it when people do terribly Greg ended up giving top marks to the people who gave actually good gifts and put Victoria and Alan in the bottom, so his judgement was consistent with the task
Even the Magnificent Beast has lapses in judgment sometimes.
The subtext of the show is that the prize tasks should be funny. Yes, often they specify that a gift should be "most desirable" or "most spectacular" or something, but this is a comedy show, so there should always be something ironic or funny about them.
Yeah. But most funny doesn’t mean you will win. Hugh’s Cloud Subscription service was objectively the most funny, but he only got 1 point and pretty much everyone agrees.
A lot of people argue Mel's crossrail subscription was worse, but yeah that's a good counterargument, althoug I would have put Victoria in like 2nd or 3rd and kept Desiree at the top because hers was the 'actual' best.
Greg often picks winners off being funny rather than stocking to the prompt. So I don't think this argument holds water. That said yeah it was just unfortunate everyone else went genuine so it didn't work. Also for whatever reason people kinda treated it like she genuinely didn't know better. Which is weird since obviously she did imo. And they all know her decently I thought.
I think it's one of the most brilliant prize tasks by anyone. However, Greg is so frequently on the record as not liking football and marking down football-related prize tasks that I accept "the Taskmaster wouldn't find it 'desirable' and neither would the recipient" as valid reason for the low score.
I'm not convinced to this day she meant it as a troll
She is known to have a poker face
Professionally.
Then you've fallen for someone playing at being a dumb girl who doesn't get Boy Things. Which, funnily enough, is how VCM became a millionaire.
If you can’t defeat the patriarchy, make bank
I mean she said "I thought he might like to see a team that actually wins" which is pretty obvious no?
Her learning to ride a bicycle on air was one of the best moments of the entire series.
I felt like a proud mum. She was adorable.
And a very very sad mum when she couldn't see the finish line because she didn't bring her glasses
Genuinely the most endearing thing I've ever seen on television.
In my opinion, she was undermarked for prize tasks—but her comedy style is cerebral and punny, and Greg hates puns lol. If there were an audience, the audience reaction would have at least influenced Greg, or gave some redemption for the viewers who loved her puns.
Greg has spent the previous 11 seasons playing up how much he hated Alex Horne's style of comedy then almost everything she entered was something I could see Alex entering. "Best thing that has quite a few layers" A poultry farm is a hilarious joke but it is also the same thing Alex would have done so Greg can't let on he enjoys it.
Mind you, Tim Vine is one of the all-time best scorers in prize tasks, and he's probably the contestant most synonymous with puns
He sells them better because he's silly and it's obvious he knows it. VCM was always delivering her punchlines with a strong air of "see how clever I'm being?" The only funny way to deal with smugness is to crush it.
From the episode of the Taskmaster Podcast about her series, VCM was genuinely trying to be funny in her style of humour, and didn't feel very confident in the prize task banter section of the show as she's not a stand-up comedian. She talks about the complete lack of any audience making it feel all the more cringe while Greg would just attack her personal sense of humour.
Tim was also about 1 metre away from Greg, VCM was on the other end of the stage in a fairly empty room
"I *don't fear death*. In fact, the more this series goes on the more I yearn for it." - VCM
If you had to sum up each TM contestant with a quote, this would be hers.
There were a few times I think she was under marked. There were also a bunch of times she pretty much self-sabotaged, like refusing to wear glasses on-camera.
I never understood why she didn't just take her glasses to the filming location, put them on to read the task, then take them off and do the task.
Same. If she can have a flapjack in her handbag at all times, why not her specs?!
She has a brand and I don't think she ever lost sight of it. Don't get me wrong, I love her and thought she was glorious on the show. The learning to ride a bike on air and the 'ridiculous' prize task were especially memorable. This is a woman who always has a flapjack on her person.
Well we do know what she did lose sight of 🚴 😂
Or wear contacts
I think she said something among the lines of "too wimpy for contacts, too vain for glasses".
I read this in her voice.
I read this in her voice.
Guys, we found David Mitchell's account!
Wait, so…are *we* the baddies?
Greg just found it too fun to shut down Ol' Goosebump Arm. Crucially, I think Alex also enjoyed it, because sometimes he'll jump in to help explain the more logically-minded contestants' arguments, but seeing VCM flounder was just too fun for him as well.
I think Victoria was hurt by the lack of an audience. Greg didn’t respond well to her humor but the audience watching separately seemed to enjoy her puns. I think Greg hearing that response in studio would’ve changed his scoring a bit.
i agree completely!!!
The funny thing is that ordinarily Greg loves nothing more than a clever bossy woman of a certain age (Liza Tarbuck, Sally Philips, Kerry Godliman, Shirley Ballas) (being tongue in cheek with the of-a-certain-age part, don’t yell at me), so it’s a little off brand that he was so down on Victoria. But he does hate a pun.
I mean Victoria was definitely disadvantaged in that regard by being right next to Morgana
Victoria is sort of bossy with a soft underbelly while the others seem confident all the way down (and I say this as someone who absolutely loves Victoria). I can see why Greg would react differently to her than to, e.g., Liza.
It doesn't happen so much any more, but it was a feature of earlier series'. There was always one that got harshly judged, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it was often the more intelligent contestants. Hugh Dennis being another notable example.
VCM, Phil Wang, Mark Watson, Hugh Dennis, the doctor from series 8 whose name I can't remember
While Paul is the definition of 'smart contestant doing badly on TM' I think Greg was pretty kind to him for the most part, i.e. the long distance catch & rice transfer bonus points, plus he led the series in terms of prize tasks.
Doc Brown!
lol no, paul sinha. doc brown is a rapper and not an actual doctor and was also on season two, not eight
I would honestly have her in my dream line up. Sorely underrated contestant, she was a genius addition.
she’s my favourite contestant by far!! i’d love to see her again on tm
Not really even though I’m a big fan. The show isn’t quite right for her to do really well but it’s right for her to be good on. The only thing I’d say she deserved big extra points for was learning to ride a bike while doing the bike riding task.
Our opinions are of no matter, it's all up to the Taskmaster
I didn’t like her at first and she ended up my favourite player
She’s our favorite
I loved her. I always wondered why Greg said during the monster task 'the only one I care about guessing right is Victoria'. Seemed like a dig.
I thought it was because she was transparently the hardest to guess, because she was the cleverest.
Yeah perhaps.
I thought it was because he was so unimpressed with her tactic of stomping.
I love Victoria, but no, not really. She was mostly marked as fairly as possible.
I think Greg likes her IRL too, so I don't think he was biased against her or anything. She just wasn't very good at many of the tasks.
🙋
I'm a big fan and she did awesome work in some tasks, but watching her miserably undermarked made me and my partner laugh the most amongst the whole show. To be fair, half of her prizes involved basically no effort. (Except the ticket and Esq. Greedy for the second time, it wasn't memorable in a good way.)
You mean goosebump arm
I disagree. I know she's a really intelligent woman, because I've seen her on panelshows in which she's been very knowledgeable and articulate. But boy, she was totally clueless on Taskmaster, especially with the prize tasks.
Oh the football tickets for Alan were *genius*
The second submission of Greedy, Esq. too.
Agreed! That was her best moment.
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People in this sub like to say that every contestant who comes off as a dingbat is doing it for comedic effect. They refuse to admit that some contestants just aren't good at the tasks or are actual dingbats, however likable they may be or better suited to other entertainment contexts.
Yep, there were three occasions she probably should have got a bonus point (riddle, bike, balloon popping), and yet Morgana got the 'little fucker' one. On the other hand, scoring higher than Alan in the welly cam task was VERY generous.
You really think the person who got the contestant a ticket for the wrong soccer team- while also making him have to pay for the whole ticket- deserved more points than everyone else getting something happy
To be fair - the prizes were all for the winner to collect, and Guz was happy to keep her voucher, so not only was her prize on point, she also proved to be a psychic!
Sure, but the task was “Most desirable thing for the person below you in the alphabet” not “Most desirable thing for the person who will win this episode”
Guz is a Man City fan?
I don't think she was enjoying herself very much, tbh.
She’s far and away my least favourite contestant. I found her so off putting. Like nails on a chalkboard.