Taskmaster finale, more Ghosts, and a start on December year-end meme
I dithered over fandomtrees for a bit, because it's been an odd year for me fannishly, but ultimately decided to sign up, and my tree is now up.
(In addition to the usual suspects, I decided this was a good format for those requests where I'm looking for very specific and out-of-the-fandom-mainstream things, like non-angsty/fix-it-fic for the She Who Became the Sun trio of Esen, Ouyang, and Wang Baoxiang and all those Taskmaster setting change AU ideas that I've been having fun imagining/discussing this year. Most likely nothing will come of that (I doubt anyone will even find the Taskmaster prompts, because it's tagged "actor RPF", the rest of which all seems to be c-drama RPF at the moment, but it's a place to stash all those prompts, at least.)
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Taskmaster series 14 finale: SPOILERS!
OK, so, Dara won the series and doesn't have to move house (as Ed said, he lives so close to the Taskmaster house, he'd have had to, for his own sanity, move if he hadn't won). I would have been happy with Sarah winning, too, but Dara clearly wanted it more, so I'm glad he got it. And Sarah had a very respectable showing, in her second place. And Munya had another good episode and ended up in solid third. And there is no loser, as such, because Fern and John tied for fourth/last for the first time ever. Which all feels fitting.
Hahaha, Greg admitted to being earwormed by "Me -- Fern Brady, me -- Fern Brady" still! Should've given her more points, Greg, clearly! Also, Alex called Greg "you big manatee in a suit" -- which, is this the first time Alex has called him names?
This was one of my favorite prize tasks in a while! Not that the entires were good, they mostly weren't, but the whole thing was really funny! My individual favorite was Fern, who possibly accidentally offended Greg by saying she meant to bring brown hair die before (possibly also accidentally?) offended him by comparing him to the Devil. I'm amused but unsurprised to know that Fern apparently does Tarot readings for herself just, like, to plan for the day, and I actually agree with her that the three card reading (five of wands, six of cups, the Devil) was a really neat match for Taskmaster -- and I LOVED Greg getting up on the throne in the Devil's squat, and Fern's delighted "Hee hee!". Great job all around! Sarah insulting Greg (extremely not accidentally) was also great, Munya's face mask pendant good luch charm was very Munya, and Dara's asteroid + meteorite cufflinks prize was genuine really cool, even if Greg didn't appreciate it -- and the bit about the asteroid crashing into the earth led to the great sequence of the others putting in how their prizes would be very useful in their case, before John saing morosely, "You haven't seen mine yet." Synergy and performance art! And then John's was a fridge magnet and won, after John asked, bafflingly, "Do you have a fridge" and it turned out that Greg has three, for some reason. Just, a fabulous final entry.
Esgrape room task -- this is another one borrowed from Taskmaster NZ, although the actual escape things were different, and this seemed easier, and with more shortcuts. I'm always surprised to see that Munya takes a while in tasks, because he is always hustling ("like a newt" XD) Greg: "Sometimes, I don't know that he's the best ambassador for Zimbabwe" -- I disagree! XD John, of course, was at the most John-like, miserably bumbling about. You know, I have a feeling I might actually do some things weirdly in a way similar to Fern, because I could absolutely see myself trying to gnaw through the string and also trying to eat the plastic grape, which Alex gently tries to dissuade her from. Sarah sort of grumpily but efficiently going about the escape room-ing, and Dara special forces-ing the whole thing in record time.
Last team task -- I was fully expecting Munya to act as the hands and Sarah as the eyes/brain giving direction, which I think is where Munya was going, too, but then they ended up sorting themselves the other way around. It wasn't super clear from the episode itself, but Sarah (who was the guest on the podcast this week, despite the traidition of having the winner) explained that Munya "is a tiny boy" and that she thought having her breasts sitting on top of his shoulders for the duration of the task was going to traumatize him, so that's why they went the other way around. Anyway, their resulting figures are pretty good, even if Munya's sideways face does look sad. Team of three absolutely had a disadvantage, in both having to make more things and in having to work with two uncoordinated hands (and also in having John, but we're going to take that as read)
The task where they had to select their objects on the first day -- it's neat that they split up the selection and the task, because it led to some nice anticipation. (Also, so did John's habit of tossing his jacket on the floor originate in him trying to hang it up in the first day and having it fall down?) I feel Dara's choices could've gone so wrong! Munya's combination of Swiss army knife, moon shoes, and vaseline feels so on brand XD Fern asking for pens, potatoes, and taxidermy was also amazing. And John of course waiting until the last 20 seconds to babble off his choices, cheeseburger, baseball cap, and magic lamp XD And I'm so amused that someone had to weld an A4 sheet of chocolate together for Sarah XD Task itself -- Fern is HILARIOUS in the things she says, in this case, "Wait, did I meet these potatoes before?" -- which is another episode namer, along with "Dafty in the middle" and "System of endless plates" and "The one that bats do" -- so that's 4 out of 10 episodes to Fern, vs 2 (or 3?) for Dara, 1 for Sarah, 1 (or 2?) for John, and 1 for Greg -- and I'm surprised Munya didn't get any, considering how much he was talking throughout! I was glad they left Fern for last, because she was very funny in the way I have come to expect from her -- announcing she was tired partway through the task, complaining about the task, talking to inanimate objects. Alex makes the same pained little noise when she bites into the raw potatoes as he did when she was trying to eat the plastic grape -- it's so funny! But also, I was completely unsurprised that she tried to throw the robin and not the much more easily throwable potatoes or pens over the caravan, because I saw the line of logic she was following immediately: it's a bird, of course she's going to make the bird fly. (I mean, it's mad, completely impractical logic, but that is what I have come to expect from Fern.) I was actually with Munya and John (and Dara?) in their interpretation of the task that they couldn't touch even the outer object with their hands, but they all actually managed that part very smoothly (and I would have absolutely carried the vaseline in my teeth, too). Why John was standing over his burger and hat for like a minute after figuring out what to do with them, and then ate some of the burger?
The hula lineup was amazing! I was especially impressed by Dara getting into it. And wow, his final balloon was so close!
And so Dara breaks the first chair curse, and also breaks Liza's most-points-earned record by about 3 points. A very impressive showing! (And even he looks small next to Greg, although just normal "two people with a reasonable height difference" small, not forced perspective in LotR small like most other winners XD)
It worked out to be quite funny that Sarah was the guest on Ed's podcast even though Dara had won -- and she joked that Ed should always do that from now, get the #2 person on, so they can talk shit about the winner. Sarah clearly enjoyed saying things like that she had decided she was going to have fun, not compete too hard, and if she'd really tried, she could've won -- to get a rise out of Dara when he listens primarily, I'm sure. But actually I found that while she was an entertaining podcast guest, I liked show!Sarah more than podcast!Sarah -- show!Sarah came across as more good-natured, with that infectious giggling, while she seemed a bit less nice on the podcast.
I had been looking forward to hearing either Sarah or Munya talk about their team experience (and they were unable to book Munya during the show, so hopefully he will show up to talk about one of the retrospectives), and Sarah did talk about that. She compared it to babysitting and said that after a while she was ready for a grown-up partner, which, like, OK, that's understandable -- I'm sure Munya is A Lot if you have to actually work with him. But I'm a bit sad to think that it seems like some of that great chemistry was probably Sarah humoring him rather than genuine simpatico-ness. I mean, I don't think she would've been happier with John or with Dara... although I do think Sarah and Fern would've made for a functional team of two as well (although I don't think they would've done as well as Fern did with Dara -- like, Fern might not have enjoyed Dara's competitive dad energy (which, I would not have either), but I do think it was good for keeping her focused. Fern with Sarah, I can readily see Fern being like, "I'm so tired" and Sarah being like, I get you, you know what, let's just sit on the couch for a bit and take a break from this feather nonsense. I'm also quite curious about what the team-of-boys dynamic would've been like in this alternate universe. Munya and John manage to be hilarious as a pair entirely created by Munya's will and boundless energy, since the show never has them work together, and yet Munya somehow manages to involve John in almost every task where they're in physical proximity at all, so I know those two would be amazingly funny on a team (totally nonfunctional, because Munya would drag John down some weird useless rabbit holes and John would just stand there binking at him like a fledgling owl that a lab puppy is trying to get to play with him (here I went on a brief mental digression about series 14 the pet AU, wherein I concluded that Dara would be a retired working dog from some high-stakes occupation, like a bomb-sniffing German Shepherd, and Sarah would be a playful ragdoll cat, and Fern would be a talking parrot of some kind, expressive and talkative and chaotic) -- anyway, I already thought that Dara was going to have a stroke during some team tasks just because of John, but having to deal with John and Munya simultaneously? Anyway, that was fun to contemplate.
But I've wandered rather far afield. Anyway, it was fun to get Sarah on the podcast, even if I didn't enjoy her podcast persona as much as her show persona. And I actually agree that getting the runner up over the winner makes for a more fun experience -- especially as the winner is often brought back to do the opening episode of the next series. Maybe Ed will actually take her advice!
Speaking of next series, I saw that both the New Year Treat and series 15. I don't have any pre-existing thoughts on the New Year Treat folks, although I've obviously heard of Mo Farah, and it so happens that around the same time I saw the announcement I had also just watched a Chicken Shop Date thing on YouTube with Amelia Demoldenberg and Munya-as-Unknown-P (I can't say I get what this is, on any level, but at least I'm aware of it). And then for series 15, I was like, I don't recognize any of those names -- but it turns out I do recognize one of those PEOPLE, because it's Mike from Ghosts! Speaking of which:
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I could not find BBC Ghosts series 2 on dailymotion or anywhere else for some weird reason -- the Christmas special was all over the place, but not the actual episodes. And I notice series 2 footage is even missing in some clip compilations on YouTube. If you've got a lead, hook me up? (or I'll have to cave in and purchase it on Amazon Prime I guess XD)
But meanwhile I lost patience and went on to said Christmas special and then watched series 3 and its Christmas special. Still enjoying it, obviously! spoilers
2020 Christmas special -- while it was interesting to get some Julian backstory and an arc for him, the thing I liked best about this episode was getting to meet Mike's family. I especially liked his father. The found family stuff with Alison and the ghosts singing together, and Alison giving them presents, was also really sweet.
Series 3 -- It might well be because I skipped an entire season of development and change, but it was really noticeable to me how different Robin was in series 3 vs series 1 (where I found him kind of annoying); I think there's a lot less in the way of jump scares and practical jokes, and maybe his speech is clearer/less cartoony, too? or possibly I've just gotten used to it. I also noticed that Humphrey seems to be part of the action a lot more, a full-fledged character where in series 1 he was pretty much just a sight gag. In fact, it was interesting to get Humphrey's backstory so thoroughly in the first episode, and the mix of pathos (him being willing to let his French wife who'd been completely ignoring him get away while he held off the guards) and comedy (how he actually died) worked well for me. And then there's Fanny's affair with Humphrey's body, which was unexpected and also very funny. Julian's flashback episode of when he first came to join the ghosts actually made me like Julian more than anything else, and I've been enjoying watching his relationship with Mike develop from mean practical jokes with work email to a weird sort of bro thing, even though Mike can't see him -- flying the drone "together" and Julian actually using his affecting-the-physical-world powers for good for once by pushing Record on the camcorder. Kitty is still adorable, and it was interesting, and sad, to get her flashback episode, but I was glad to see that she was an incurable optimist even following her realization about the ball specifically, and Kitty and Alison getting to be sisterly has been the sweetest bit of human/ghost interaction. The camping episode was really sweet; I appreciated it for Pat getting to shine, and Pat & Alison & the Captain bonding -- especially how touched both Alison and the Captain were to receive the imaginary patches from Pat. I didn't have any strong opinions on Mary out of series 1, beyond marveling at the fact that this was Katy Wix under there, but she's grown on me this series in terms of being funny -- her weird mix of accidental wisdom (?? fennel and onions ??) and overly active imagination freaking everyone out (the dream) are coming together for me into something entertaining. Anyway, the Captain is still my favorite, though I feel like he had fewer episodes where he was a major focus this series, and Kitty remains a fave as well, but Pat is also catching up to her. Inasmuch as this season had an arc, I guess it had to do with Lucy the fake sister (I was very proud of myself for having recognized that she was played by Jessica Knappett as soon as she appeared (mostly because I feel like Jess has quite a distinctive voice/way of speaking). I liked the resolution, with Fanny getting to save the day with her Murder, She Wrote-derived investigative skills, and I was expecting Thomas's keepie-uppies with Humphrey's head to become plot-relevant when the ghosts were chasing after the car, but -- I don't see how kicking the head into the car once it was past the gates would actually work given the rules established in the Julian flashback-to-becoming-a-ghost episode? Am I missing something, or does it violate the rules they had just established 5 episodes earlier? (I mean, I know it doesn't matter because it's a comedy show about ghosts, but I just found that to be a weird plot hole.)
2021 Christmas special -- cute and sweet, but I don't have a ton to say about it. My favorite thing about it was Fanny's unexpected backstory; I hope her math skillz are something she'll get a chance to utilize in the show more. I also liked Julian's lying lessons. I liked the joke with the Captain's opinion of the homeless guy turning on a dime when he learned he'd served in the armed forces, and then again when he learned it was the navy; conversely, I didn't find the Robin and Mary negotiation with Alison for the land/house running gag particularly funny, and felt like too much time was spent on it for the amusement value it delivered to me personally.
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As usual, I'll be doing (the older version of) zhelana's December year end meme, which is a mix of RL and media consumption sort of questions, so I figured I'd go slightly out of order and start off, in this post, with some answers that don't need to go under f-lock:
December 03 → talk about movies this year
I said last year on this meme day that I had still not gone into a movie theater post-Covid, but actually the rest of December 2021 made a liar out of me on that twice over -- L and I went to see Spider-Man: No Way Home and Encanto over winter break. But I haven't been in movie theaters since then. (I did think about maybe dragging B to see Death on the Nile, but we watched it on a plane instead, which was fine. I also thought about going to theaters for Doctor Strange 2, but a) the reviews of it did not inspire me to do so, and b) I'm really glad I didn't because the horror stuff was better for me on a small screen when I did eventually watch it on Disney+.)
Outside of theaters, I did see some movies.
L and I watched Turning Red, which I thought was merely OK. I didn't much care for the art style, and while the story deals with a lot of things that should've appealed to me -- immigrant experience, complicated family relationships, growing up -- it just felt aimed at a younger level and didn't really resonate with me.
I watched Shang-Chi with the rodents, which I liked well enough, especially Morris the chicken made out of butts and Tony Leung, but still need to rewatch properly, reading the subtitles. I watched Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness by myself, and liked it less than I'd expected, considering how much I'd liked the first movie. I still have not watched Black Widow, The Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, or Wakanda Forever (though I'll probably watch at least 'Wakanda' once it's out on D+).
I went back to watching movies on planes this summer trip and watched Dune (suitably epic, and I think I appreciate it more than the book, though it's still not a universe I love or care about), Death on the Nile (which I enjoyed, and thought was better than 'Orient Express' in some ways, except that Poirot and especially his mustache did not need a tragic backstory), The Batman (still don't care about Batman, but it kept my interest and had some very slick-looking setpieces), The Good Liar (what a puzzling waste of Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren), and Smallfoot (SO. BAD.)
December 04 → talk about television this year
OK, oh boy, this was the year of some weird TV rabbit holes for me XD
In the non-weird part, I continued to watch Marvel TV shows as they dropped, partly because I do seem to be enjoying them maybe more than the movies at the present juncture, partly to keep up with O. I watched Moon Knight, which both O and I liked, and Ms Marvel (which I also liked, but he didn't watch). I have not watched She-Hulk, and still have not watched Hawkeye or FatWS.
I also watched 7 out of 11 episodes of Netflix's Sandman. Which I quite liked on the whole, and intend to finish at some point (possibly even this year, but I think probably not). It's good, just a little too heavy and slow for my present leisure preferences.
But the majority of my television watching was Taskmaster or catalyzed by Taskmaster. So, I'd been preipherally aware of Taskmaster via, I think, qwentoozla and maybe a couple of other flisters who are fans, and some time in January YouTube started tossing "full task" videos into my sidebar, and I watched a bunch and got curious, and started watching the first full series I came across on YouTube, which was series 6. By mid-March I had caught up on all 12 series and assorted one-offs (and was making my way through the podcast). I watched series 13 and now 14 live as it aired, courtesy of some very helpful internet people -- oh, and CoC II as well. To deal with Taskmaster withdrawal between 13 and 14, I also mainlined the three seasons of Taskmaster NZ.
And then, as I started having favorites among the British panel show regulars via Taskmaster, I followed them to some other things, like watching a lot of random episodes of Would I Lie To You?, a bunch of Only Connect, I think two complete seasons of QI XL plus a scattering of other episodes, and some random bits here and there, like the Greg Davies episode of Who Do You Think You Are, and also a bunch of clips from other things.
Most recently the "funny British people" rabbit hole has led me to BBC's Ghosts, which I will almost certainly finish before the end of the year.
Oh, and I don't know if it counts as "television", but it's an episodic audiovisual thing, so I guess it does -- I also caught up on what there is of Um, Actually on YouTube.
What I have not watched at all is any Star Wars TV shows. O loves The Madalorian, but I feel like the genre is not my thing. I skipped Boba Fett, which nobody seemed to like much (and I don't get the obsession with Boba Fett either). I thought I might watch the Obi-Wan show, and I still might (O quite liked it), but it hasn't happened. I had no interest in Andor originally, because Rogue One bored me to the point that I never finished watching it, but everyone is raving about Andor, and also talking about how it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, so maybe that one is worth giving a shot...
I also did not go back to continue watching beyond the first season of The Expanse, but I might do that still. I also did not go back to finish Owl House when the new episodes dropped, so I should go back and do that, actually.
December 05 → talk about books this year
Books... mostly did not happen this year. I think I reached a level of, IDK, something at work where the complex pattern recognition circuits in my brain that usually need to be kept satisfied by being fed narrative were overloaded with work stuff, and I just didn't feel like consuming fiction, and was spending my leisure time watching Taskmaster and doing sudoku instead (there are still throughlines in those, but they are on the order of minutes, not hours or days).
Anyway, it was APRIL by the time I read my first book of the year, and that was a Rivers of London graphic novel, so not exactly much girth, and then May before I read my first novel, which was also RoL. Then it took almost two more months to lure myself back into reading with a silly SF romance novella that cafemassolit recommended, and even with all that stacked in its favor -- tropes I love (Enemy Mine), author I enjoy (Ilona Andrews), chances to liveblog at a friend -- it was still kind of like pulling teeth to get myself to read it. And I've been mired in a similar situation since October on Ocean's Echo, which I had been so eager to read in ARC -- author I like (Everina Maxwell), really fun premise (I really enjoy a guile hero protagonist like Tennal), reading along with a friend (cafemassolit), and yet here I am at 83% and have been here for about a month...
The only times I managed to get any reading done at any sort of normal pace was when there was external deadline pressure to do so. late June to August I went on a Hugo homework reading binge, first to see if I could get some voting done (and I managed to read all the short stories, novelettes, and most of the novellas), and finished up some more novellas, nominated novels, and Astounding stuff before the ceremony itself. 8 of the 19 or 20 books I am likely to finish for the year came from this burst of activity (I only count novellas and longer for the tally, because I started out counting physical books). And then in Sept-Oct, in the leadup to Hugo nominations and signups, I remembered that I had meant to catch up on Penric (originally after a conversation with sholio, and then seeing sholio's Yuletide noms in the spreadsheet reminded me of this fact) and then binged 6 Penric novellas (well, 5 novellas + a novel) until I was fully caught up.
I did manage to read two other things while on vacation, one of them also for K reasons -- A Restless Truth, the Freya sequel which K had lent me the ARC of -- and also The Unpopular Vote, which was a birthday gift from aome. So I guess the entirety of my reading consumption this year can be summed up as: 1) things I read because I'm in fandom for them, 2) things I read for the Hugos, 3) things I read because my friends had read them and gave me the book, and 4) things I read for Yuletide purposes. Which makes it a really weird year for me...
I will do my usual end of year book post in late December/early Jan, but that focuses on individual books and standouts, while this question was a nice opportunity to reflect on a year of reading that was overall very weird for me, so I ended up wrting more than I usually do for this question.
(In addition to the usual suspects, I decided this was a good format for those requests where I'm looking for very specific and out-of-the-fandom-mainstream things, like non-angsty/fix-it-fic for the She Who Became the Sun trio of Esen, Ouyang, and Wang Baoxiang and all those Taskmaster setting change AU ideas that I've been having fun imagining/discussing this year. Most likely nothing will come of that (I doubt anyone will even find the Taskmaster prompts, because it's tagged "actor RPF", the rest of which all seems to be c-drama RPF at the moment, but it's a place to stash all those prompts, at least.)
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Taskmaster series 14 finale: SPOILERS!
OK, so, Dara won the series and doesn't have to move house (as Ed said, he lives so close to the Taskmaster house, he'd have had to, for his own sanity, move if he hadn't won). I would have been happy with Sarah winning, too, but Dara clearly wanted it more, so I'm glad he got it. And Sarah had a very respectable showing, in her second place. And Munya had another good episode and ended up in solid third. And there is no loser, as such, because Fern and John tied for fourth/last for the first time ever. Which all feels fitting.
Hahaha, Greg admitted to being earwormed by "Me -- Fern Brady, me -- Fern Brady" still! Should've given her more points, Greg, clearly! Also, Alex called Greg "you big manatee in a suit" -- which, is this the first time Alex has called him names?
This was one of my favorite prize tasks in a while! Not that the entires were good, they mostly weren't, but the whole thing was really funny! My individual favorite was Fern, who possibly accidentally offended Greg by saying she meant to bring brown hair die before (possibly also accidentally?) offended him by comparing him to the Devil. I'm amused but unsurprised to know that Fern apparently does Tarot readings for herself just, like, to plan for the day, and I actually agree with her that the three card reading (five of wands, six of cups, the Devil) was a really neat match for Taskmaster -- and I LOVED Greg getting up on the throne in the Devil's squat, and Fern's delighted "Hee hee!". Great job all around! Sarah insulting Greg (extremely not accidentally) was also great, Munya's face mask pendant good luch charm was very Munya, and Dara's asteroid + meteorite cufflinks prize was genuine really cool, even if Greg didn't appreciate it -- and the bit about the asteroid crashing into the earth led to the great sequence of the others putting in how their prizes would be very useful in their case, before John saing morosely, "You haven't seen mine yet." Synergy and performance art! And then John's was a fridge magnet and won, after John asked, bafflingly, "Do you have a fridge" and it turned out that Greg has three, for some reason. Just, a fabulous final entry.
Esgrape room task -- this is another one borrowed from Taskmaster NZ, although the actual escape things were different, and this seemed easier, and with more shortcuts. I'm always surprised to see that Munya takes a while in tasks, because he is always hustling ("like a newt" XD) Greg: "Sometimes, I don't know that he's the best ambassador for Zimbabwe" -- I disagree! XD John, of course, was at the most John-like, miserably bumbling about. You know, I have a feeling I might actually do some things weirdly in a way similar to Fern, because I could absolutely see myself trying to gnaw through the string and also trying to eat the plastic grape, which Alex gently tries to dissuade her from. Sarah sort of grumpily but efficiently going about the escape room-ing, and Dara special forces-ing the whole thing in record time.
Last team task -- I was fully expecting Munya to act as the hands and Sarah as the eyes/brain giving direction, which I think is where Munya was going, too, but then they ended up sorting themselves the other way around. It wasn't super clear from the episode itself, but Sarah (who was the guest on the podcast this week, despite the traidition of having the winner) explained that Munya "is a tiny boy" and that she thought having her breasts sitting on top of his shoulders for the duration of the task was going to traumatize him, so that's why they went the other way around. Anyway, their resulting figures are pretty good, even if Munya's sideways face does look sad. Team of three absolutely had a disadvantage, in both having to make more things and in having to work with two uncoordinated hands (and also in having John, but we're going to take that as read)
The task where they had to select their objects on the first day -- it's neat that they split up the selection and the task, because it led to some nice anticipation. (Also, so did John's habit of tossing his jacket on the floor originate in him trying to hang it up in the first day and having it fall down?) I feel Dara's choices could've gone so wrong! Munya's combination of Swiss army knife, moon shoes, and vaseline feels so on brand XD Fern asking for pens, potatoes, and taxidermy was also amazing. And John of course waiting until the last 20 seconds to babble off his choices, cheeseburger, baseball cap, and magic lamp XD And I'm so amused that someone had to weld an A4 sheet of chocolate together for Sarah XD Task itself -- Fern is HILARIOUS in the things she says, in this case, "Wait, did I meet these potatoes before?" -- which is another episode namer, along with "Dafty in the middle" and "System of endless plates" and "The one that bats do" -- so that's 4 out of 10 episodes to Fern, vs 2 (or 3?) for Dara, 1 for Sarah, 1 (or 2?) for John, and 1 for Greg -- and I'm surprised Munya didn't get any, considering how much he was talking throughout! I was glad they left Fern for last, because she was very funny in the way I have come to expect from her -- announcing she was tired partway through the task, complaining about the task, talking to inanimate objects. Alex makes the same pained little noise when she bites into the raw potatoes as he did when she was trying to eat the plastic grape -- it's so funny! But also, I was completely unsurprised that she tried to throw the robin and not the much more easily throwable potatoes or pens over the caravan, because I saw the line of logic she was following immediately: it's a bird, of course she's going to make the bird fly. (I mean, it's mad, completely impractical logic, but that is what I have come to expect from Fern.) I was actually with Munya and John (and Dara?) in their interpretation of the task that they couldn't touch even the outer object with their hands, but they all actually managed that part very smoothly (and I would have absolutely carried the vaseline in my teeth, too). Why John was standing over his burger and hat for like a minute after figuring out what to do with them, and then ate some of the burger?
The hula lineup was amazing! I was especially impressed by Dara getting into it. And wow, his final balloon was so close!
And so Dara breaks the first chair curse, and also breaks Liza's most-points-earned record by about 3 points. A very impressive showing! (And even he looks small next to Greg, although just normal "two people with a reasonable height difference" small, not forced perspective in LotR small like most other winners XD)
It worked out to be quite funny that Sarah was the guest on Ed's podcast even though Dara had won -- and she joked that Ed should always do that from now, get the #2 person on, so they can talk shit about the winner. Sarah clearly enjoyed saying things like that she had decided she was going to have fun, not compete too hard, and if she'd really tried, she could've won -- to get a rise out of Dara when he listens primarily, I'm sure. But actually I found that while she was an entertaining podcast guest, I liked show!Sarah more than podcast!Sarah -- show!Sarah came across as more good-natured, with that infectious giggling, while she seemed a bit less nice on the podcast.
I had been looking forward to hearing either Sarah or Munya talk about their team experience (and they were unable to book Munya during the show, so hopefully he will show up to talk about one of the retrospectives), and Sarah did talk about that. She compared it to babysitting and said that after a while she was ready for a grown-up partner, which, like, OK, that's understandable -- I'm sure Munya is A Lot if you have to actually work with him. But I'm a bit sad to think that it seems like some of that great chemistry was probably Sarah humoring him rather than genuine simpatico-ness. I mean, I don't think she would've been happier with John or with Dara... although I do think Sarah and Fern would've made for a functional team of two as well (although I don't think they would've done as well as Fern did with Dara -- like, Fern might not have enjoyed Dara's competitive dad energy (which, I would not have either), but I do think it was good for keeping her focused. Fern with Sarah, I can readily see Fern being like, "I'm so tired" and Sarah being like, I get you, you know what, let's just sit on the couch for a bit and take a break from this feather nonsense. I'm also quite curious about what the team-of-boys dynamic would've been like in this alternate universe. Munya and John manage to be hilarious as a pair entirely created by Munya's will and boundless energy, since the show never has them work together, and yet Munya somehow manages to involve John in almost every task where they're in physical proximity at all, so I know those two would be amazingly funny on a team (totally nonfunctional, because Munya would drag John down some weird useless rabbit holes and John would just stand there binking at him like a fledgling owl that a lab puppy is trying to get to play with him (here I went on a brief mental digression about series 14 the pet AU, wherein I concluded that Dara would be a retired working dog from some high-stakes occupation, like a bomb-sniffing German Shepherd, and Sarah would be a playful ragdoll cat, and Fern would be a talking parrot of some kind, expressive and talkative and chaotic) -- anyway, I already thought that Dara was going to have a stroke during some team tasks just because of John, but having to deal with John and Munya simultaneously? Anyway, that was fun to contemplate.
But I've wandered rather far afield. Anyway, it was fun to get Sarah on the podcast, even if I didn't enjoy her podcast persona as much as her show persona. And I actually agree that getting the runner up over the winner makes for a more fun experience -- especially as the winner is often brought back to do the opening episode of the next series. Maybe Ed will actually take her advice!
Speaking of next series, I saw that both the New Year Treat and series 15. I don't have any pre-existing thoughts on the New Year Treat folks, although I've obviously heard of Mo Farah, and it so happens that around the same time I saw the announcement I had also just watched a Chicken Shop Date thing on YouTube with Amelia Demoldenberg and Munya-as-Unknown-P (I can't say I get what this is, on any level, but at least I'm aware of it). And then for series 15, I was like, I don't recognize any of those names -- but it turns out I do recognize one of those PEOPLE, because it's Mike from Ghosts! Speaking of which:
**
I could not find BBC Ghosts series 2 on dailymotion or anywhere else for some weird reason -- the Christmas special was all over the place, but not the actual episodes. And I notice series 2 footage is even missing in some clip compilations on YouTube. If you've got a lead, hook me up? (or I'll have to cave in and purchase it on Amazon Prime I guess XD)
But meanwhile I lost patience and went on to said Christmas special and then watched series 3 and its Christmas special. Still enjoying it, obviously! spoilers
2020 Christmas special -- while it was interesting to get some Julian backstory and an arc for him, the thing I liked best about this episode was getting to meet Mike's family. I especially liked his father. The found family stuff with Alison and the ghosts singing together, and Alison giving them presents, was also really sweet.
Series 3 -- It might well be because I skipped an entire season of development and change, but it was really noticeable to me how different Robin was in series 3 vs series 1 (where I found him kind of annoying); I think there's a lot less in the way of jump scares and practical jokes, and maybe his speech is clearer/less cartoony, too? or possibly I've just gotten used to it. I also noticed that Humphrey seems to be part of the action a lot more, a full-fledged character where in series 1 he was pretty much just a sight gag. In fact, it was interesting to get Humphrey's backstory so thoroughly in the first episode, and the mix of pathos (him being willing to let his French wife who'd been completely ignoring him get away while he held off the guards) and comedy (how he actually died) worked well for me. And then there's Fanny's affair with Humphrey's body, which was unexpected and also very funny. Julian's flashback episode of when he first came to join the ghosts actually made me like Julian more than anything else, and I've been enjoying watching his relationship with Mike develop from mean practical jokes with work email to a weird sort of bro thing, even though Mike can't see him -- flying the drone "together" and Julian actually using his affecting-the-physical-world powers for good for once by pushing Record on the camcorder. Kitty is still adorable, and it was interesting, and sad, to get her flashback episode, but I was glad to see that she was an incurable optimist even following her realization about the ball specifically, and Kitty and Alison getting to be sisterly has been the sweetest bit of human/ghost interaction. The camping episode was really sweet; I appreciated it for Pat getting to shine, and Pat & Alison & the Captain bonding -- especially how touched both Alison and the Captain were to receive the imaginary patches from Pat. I didn't have any strong opinions on Mary out of series 1, beyond marveling at the fact that this was Katy Wix under there, but she's grown on me this series in terms of being funny -- her weird mix of accidental wisdom (?? fennel and onions ??) and overly active imagination freaking everyone out (the dream) are coming together for me into something entertaining. Anyway, the Captain is still my favorite, though I feel like he had fewer episodes where he was a major focus this series, and Kitty remains a fave as well, but Pat is also catching up to her. Inasmuch as this season had an arc, I guess it had to do with Lucy the fake sister (I was very proud of myself for having recognized that she was played by Jessica Knappett as soon as she appeared (mostly because I feel like Jess has quite a distinctive voice/way of speaking). I liked the resolution, with Fanny getting to save the day with her Murder, She Wrote-derived investigative skills, and I was expecting Thomas's keepie-uppies with Humphrey's head to become plot-relevant when the ghosts were chasing after the car, but -- I don't see how kicking the head into the car once it was past the gates would actually work given the rules established in the Julian flashback-to-becoming-a-ghost episode? Am I missing something, or does it violate the rules they had just established 5 episodes earlier? (I mean, I know it doesn't matter because it's a comedy show about ghosts, but I just found that to be a weird plot hole.)
2021 Christmas special -- cute and sweet, but I don't have a ton to say about it. My favorite thing about it was Fanny's unexpected backstory; I hope her math skillz are something she'll get a chance to utilize in the show more. I also liked Julian's lying lessons. I liked the joke with the Captain's opinion of the homeless guy turning on a dime when he learned he'd served in the armed forces, and then again when he learned it was the navy; conversely, I didn't find the Robin and Mary negotiation with Alison for the land/house running gag particularly funny, and felt like too much time was spent on it for the amusement value it delivered to me personally.
*
As usual, I'll be doing (the older version of) zhelana's December year end meme, which is a mix of RL and media consumption sort of questions, so I figured I'd go slightly out of order and start off, in this post, with some answers that don't need to go under f-lock:
December 03 → talk about movies this year
I said last year on this meme day that I had still not gone into a movie theater post-Covid, but actually the rest of December 2021 made a liar out of me on that twice over -- L and I went to see Spider-Man: No Way Home and Encanto over winter break. But I haven't been in movie theaters since then. (I did think about maybe dragging B to see Death on the Nile, but we watched it on a plane instead, which was fine. I also thought about going to theaters for Doctor Strange 2, but a) the reviews of it did not inspire me to do so, and b) I'm really glad I didn't because the horror stuff was better for me on a small screen when I did eventually watch it on Disney+.)
Outside of theaters, I did see some movies.
L and I watched Turning Red, which I thought was merely OK. I didn't much care for the art style, and while the story deals with a lot of things that should've appealed to me -- immigrant experience, complicated family relationships, growing up -- it just felt aimed at a younger level and didn't really resonate with me.
I watched Shang-Chi with the rodents, which I liked well enough, especially Morris the chicken made out of butts and Tony Leung, but still need to rewatch properly, reading the subtitles. I watched Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness by myself, and liked it less than I'd expected, considering how much I'd liked the first movie. I still have not watched Black Widow, The Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, or Wakanda Forever (though I'll probably watch at least 'Wakanda' once it's out on D+).
I went back to watching movies on planes this summer trip and watched Dune (suitably epic, and I think I appreciate it more than the book, though it's still not a universe I love or care about), Death on the Nile (which I enjoyed, and thought was better than 'Orient Express' in some ways, except that Poirot and especially his mustache did not need a tragic backstory), The Batman (still don't care about Batman, but it kept my interest and had some very slick-looking setpieces), The Good Liar (what a puzzling waste of Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren), and Smallfoot (SO. BAD.)
December 04 → talk about television this year
OK, oh boy, this was the year of some weird TV rabbit holes for me XD
In the non-weird part, I continued to watch Marvel TV shows as they dropped, partly because I do seem to be enjoying them maybe more than the movies at the present juncture, partly to keep up with O. I watched Moon Knight, which both O and I liked, and Ms Marvel (which I also liked, but he didn't watch). I have not watched She-Hulk, and still have not watched Hawkeye or FatWS.
I also watched 7 out of 11 episodes of Netflix's Sandman. Which I quite liked on the whole, and intend to finish at some point (possibly even this year, but I think probably not). It's good, just a little too heavy and slow for my present leisure preferences.
But the majority of my television watching was Taskmaster or catalyzed by Taskmaster. So, I'd been preipherally aware of Taskmaster via, I think, qwentoozla and maybe a couple of other flisters who are fans, and some time in January YouTube started tossing "full task" videos into my sidebar, and I watched a bunch and got curious, and started watching the first full series I came across on YouTube, which was series 6. By mid-March I had caught up on all 12 series and assorted one-offs (and was making my way through the podcast). I watched series 13 and now 14 live as it aired, courtesy of some very helpful internet people -- oh, and CoC II as well. To deal with Taskmaster withdrawal between 13 and 14, I also mainlined the three seasons of Taskmaster NZ.
And then, as I started having favorites among the British panel show regulars via Taskmaster, I followed them to some other things, like watching a lot of random episodes of Would I Lie To You?, a bunch of Only Connect, I think two complete seasons of QI XL plus a scattering of other episodes, and some random bits here and there, like the Greg Davies episode of Who Do You Think You Are, and also a bunch of clips from other things.
Most recently the "funny British people" rabbit hole has led me to BBC's Ghosts, which I will almost certainly finish before the end of the year.
Oh, and I don't know if it counts as "television", but it's an episodic audiovisual thing, so I guess it does -- I also caught up on what there is of Um, Actually on YouTube.
What I have not watched at all is any Star Wars TV shows. O loves The Madalorian, but I feel like the genre is not my thing. I skipped Boba Fett, which nobody seemed to like much (and I don't get the obsession with Boba Fett either). I thought I might watch the Obi-Wan show, and I still might (O quite liked it), but it hasn't happened. I had no interest in Andor originally, because Rogue One bored me to the point that I never finished watching it, but everyone is raving about Andor, and also talking about how it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, so maybe that one is worth giving a shot...
I also did not go back to continue watching beyond the first season of The Expanse, but I might do that still. I also did not go back to finish Owl House when the new episodes dropped, so I should go back and do that, actually.
December 05 → talk about books this year
Books... mostly did not happen this year. I think I reached a level of, IDK, something at work where the complex pattern recognition circuits in my brain that usually need to be kept satisfied by being fed narrative were overloaded with work stuff, and I just didn't feel like consuming fiction, and was spending my leisure time watching Taskmaster and doing sudoku instead (there are still throughlines in those, but they are on the order of minutes, not hours or days).
Anyway, it was APRIL by the time I read my first book of the year, and that was a Rivers of London graphic novel, so not exactly much girth, and then May before I read my first novel, which was also RoL. Then it took almost two more months to lure myself back into reading with a silly SF romance novella that cafemassolit recommended, and even with all that stacked in its favor -- tropes I love (Enemy Mine), author I enjoy (Ilona Andrews), chances to liveblog at a friend -- it was still kind of like pulling teeth to get myself to read it. And I've been mired in a similar situation since October on Ocean's Echo, which I had been so eager to read in ARC -- author I like (Everina Maxwell), really fun premise (I really enjoy a guile hero protagonist like Tennal), reading along with a friend (cafemassolit), and yet here I am at 83% and have been here for about a month...
The only times I managed to get any reading done at any sort of normal pace was when there was external deadline pressure to do so. late June to August I went on a Hugo homework reading binge, first to see if I could get some voting done (and I managed to read all the short stories, novelettes, and most of the novellas), and finished up some more novellas, nominated novels, and Astounding stuff before the ceremony itself. 8 of the 19 or 20 books I am likely to finish for the year came from this burst of activity (I only count novellas and longer for the tally, because I started out counting physical books). And then in Sept-Oct, in the leadup to Hugo nominations and signups, I remembered that I had meant to catch up on Penric (originally after a conversation with sholio, and then seeing sholio's Yuletide noms in the spreadsheet reminded me of this fact) and then binged 6 Penric novellas (well, 5 novellas + a novel) until I was fully caught up.
I did manage to read two other things while on vacation, one of them also for K reasons -- A Restless Truth, the Freya sequel which K had lent me the ARC of -- and also The Unpopular Vote, which was a birthday gift from aome. So I guess the entirety of my reading consumption this year can be summed up as: 1) things I read because I'm in fandom for them, 2) things I read for the Hugos, 3) things I read because my friends had read them and gave me the book, and 4) things I read for Yuletide purposes. Which makes it a really weird year for me...
I will do my usual end of year book post in late December/early Jan, but that focuses on individual books and standouts, while this question was a nice opportunity to reflect on a year of reading that was overall very weird for me, so I ended up wrting more than I usually do for this question.