Taskmaster NZ + rewatch, fannish news and recs and meme
I seem to be missing fannish chatter -- a lot of my posts in the last month have been very RL heavy -- there's been a lot of RL to go around, with assorted family news and permutations and work, and my household (now back at full strength) is driving me nuts after less than 24 hours of togetherness (everyone is fine. they are just A Lot, collectively). I was kind of waiting for Yuletide and Snowflake to be the splash of fandom they tend to be every year, but I don't want to wait another 1-2 weeks, so, random cobbled together post of Taskmaster bits and random news and random recs and a meme, of course.
I'm sure everyone has already seen the Murderbot-on-Apple TV news. I'm really curious to see this! It definitely seems like a canon that would lend itself well to a TV show, either the current arc or a case-of-the-week/adventure-of-the-week kind of thing after the initial setup. The fact that it's Apple TV is both annoying (we don't have Apple TV, although at some point we'll need to replace our phones, so maybe we will again...) but also suggests a healthy budget, so that's nice. The casting feels like the least interesting casting to me, in the sense of casting a generic-looking white guy, although if they are planning to stick with "it" pronouns for Muderbot, I can definitely see why some other casting choices could've been more fraught. Mostly I hope the cast will include ART, and am really curious to know who would be voicing it if so.
I was also happy to see that Good Omens was renewed for the 3rd and final season. I intentionally held off on watching s2 because of the cliffhanger, so my plan is to watch the whole of s2-s3 once s3 is out.
More near-term than either of those was the teaser for Taskmaster Champion of Champions III, and I am suddenly a lot more excited for TM CoC III because Kiell is going to be subbing in for Mae! Now, I enjoyed series 11-15 a lot, but in most cases the winner of those series was not my favorite or even second-favorite contestant, and in some cases, like s12 and s15 (which I loved a lot on the whole), the winner was actually my least favorite of the five. And in particular I was not looking forward to very serious, competitive Mae going head to head against very serious, competitive Dara. Kiell easily ends up my favorite on the new lineup (previously it would've been Sophie, probably; and I do like Sophie, but she is quite intense, and I thin would be more fun to watch if she is not competing against a particularly intense line-up). Also, note to self: the New Year Treat will be airing on Jan 2, which is annoying, because I'm back to work at that point, but fine.
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Speaking of Taskmaster, nothing is airing currently, but I've definitely felt in need of some Taskmaster goodness, so I've been doing two things, kind of in parallel:
I started watching Taskmaster NZ series 4 (which I missed watching live because I was in Europe for the start of it, and then decided I would save it for after series 16). spoilers as they come
Episode 1 -- Man, I have not missed Jeremy's baffling scoring. He is my least favorite Taskmaster by some distance. I don't have a strong impression of this gang yet, but I think at this point Dai is my favorite, followed by Karen (I like her vibe! the necklace and the tattoos on her arm). Bubbah reminds me of Kura on s3 (which is a good thing) -- she's got a similar kind of cheerful "oh shit! :D" vibe that I enjoy. Ray I'm finding kind of annoying -- I don't enjoy the nebbishy vibe in Taskmaster. And Mel I don't have any feelings about as a contestant, but I did think she was vastly underscored in the "Be English" task. Overall, I didn't find this to be a strong opener, or a particularly good introduction to the contestants.
Episode 2 -- OK, that's more like it! First of all, damn, Bubbah! This blows Josh's tiny "GREG" tattoo out of the water, and leapfrogs Mike Wozniak's mohawk, and anything else anyone has done for a prize task. Just, like, respect, lady XD Dai is definitely the one I'm rooting for, so I have glad to see him get a win in early doors. I enjoyed the first team task, and especially Dai's clear enjoyment and mastery of the toast orchestration (the great idea of breaking the toast into smaller pieces!), and the To3's windmill was glorious, and the contrast was hilarious with the other team -- but: this is clearly a task where having an extra person is a big advantage! and isn't offset by any sort of handycap that I could see. The candle task was fun -- I appreciated the different approaches, enjoyed Karen's mad balloon dance, Dai's "Argentenian kumquat" shark therapy (although I don't know that I would've given it 5 points), and Ray's leafblower soap opera was both a neat idea and pretty funny execution. Bubbah gets bonus points from me for being an AtLA fan! Bowl of glitter fake was clever, but I wonder if that task would've made it if not for Bubbah's spectacular fail. But also it's refreshing to have a "if you do X you are disqualified" task where no-one gets disqualified. Glitter for everyone!
Episode 3 -- wow, harsh, 1s and 2s only for the prize task, although, yeah, this was not a great bunch. Leave NZ -- the Raypublic was a cool idea, as was Mel digging a hole to Spain (Spanish!Paul was pretty funny). Dai appears to go all serious whenever given a chance to meditate or do something else therapy-like, which I don't get as a Taskmaster approach but seems to be working for him with Jeremy. (I saw after watching this episode that he's been living with stage 4 cancer for 3 years, so I'm guessing the zen he taps into comes from learning to cope with that?) Ahaha, the fish tapes task! Good on Mel for fetching the poster from the shed and being systematic about it (edited out breakdowns and all). I really enjoyed getting to hear past TM NZ musical numbers, like Guy's Christmas song, Josh's sushi train, the song about Lybia, etc. Excellent trick with having the full task recorded on a CD that Ray eventually got to play. And Dai was a class act about his abject failure. I really enjoyed the horror movies, but completely disagree with Jeremy's scoring. I think I would've given Ray and Karen the lowest scores (2, I guess, feels right), maybe 3 for Karen for the knife suspense, 4 (or 3) for Mel, 5 for Bubbah and either 4 or 5 for Dai -- I thought the fact that Bubbah and Dai had to work with objects that weren't animals was an extra level of difficulty, but they did a great job -- and I enjoyed Dai's characters more, but appreciated Bubbah's puns.
Episode 4 -- another set of lackluster prizes this round, IMO, but I do enjoy the way contestants seem freer to taunt Jeremy vs everybody sucking up to Greg (in this case, Ray with the phone number in restrooms). I feel like Paul was the MVP of this episode, in a way that Alex very rarely puts himself forward in an active role (maybe the recent hotel task being the exception). The "improve Paul" stuff was hit or miss for me, but I was glad to have Karen win stuff. I really enjoyed the plays, but Paul was definitely a key factor in my enjoyment of the To2's Caesar one. For To3, I love how into everything Dai gets -- he just seems like the person most enjoying the proceedings, which makes me root for him even more. I also really liked his "approving rich people hubbub" noise -- he's got a lot of unexpected talents! Conversely, Ray absolutely knows his own talents; I can't say I was impressed by the Pokemon bet win, but that definitely deserved 5 points as the most definitive win. Dai's explanation for losing his bet, that he underestimated nature was great. But the best part of the bet task (I had to look away during the marshmallow bet with Karen) was definitely Bubbah's reaction to Paul's unexpected speed and endurance in running laps. The sign of her unironically cheering him on while eating chips at the side of the bathtub was just super wholesome and fun. The live task with the balloon dartboard and handicaps was amazing, and I'm waiting to see it show up in TM UK. It seems like the optimal strategy would be to throw your darts into the floor, since chances are clearly that you will hit balloons that will help your opponents, but I don't think anyone tried to do that on purpose. Best part was probably Ray putting his glasses on over two eyepatches, and also Ray exceeding the maximum number of penalties they'd planned for XD So all in all, this was an episode that started slow for me, but from Bubbah's bet onward, ended on a real high note. Also I'm glad that Karen won, because I feel like Jeremy tends to underscore her.
Episode 5 -- Not feeling this prize task either; my favorite part of it was Jeremy knowing Ray's landlord as his teacher. And I feel like his scoring made even less sense than usual. The balloon task was a lot of fun, and I love how proud Bubbah was of sussing it out, and that Mel managed to get her belt-of-balloons back onto the table in time, and the way Dai got really into naming and mourning his balloons (yep, stillmy favorite). I do think it's very unfair that Ray's balloons got counted, giving him third place. I mean, none of it matters, but I just don't think that was fair to any of the others. Impersonate another contestant task -- poor Dai, with all three youngsters going for him and getting on their knees. And I'm with Jeremy -- Ray was basically unrecognizable with his hair pulled back. Wedding task was an interesting idea, but with more baffling scoring. Obviously Karen deserved the 5 points for her sweet song and getting her actual partner on FaceTime, but I thought Mel's was the next best. I don't know why Bubbah decided to sit in a filled bath when marrying herself, and apparently neither does she XD And the live task was not very interesting, but I'm glad to see another win for Karen.
Halfway through the series: that is some close scores!
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I have also cleverly lured scytale into starting to watch series 7 of Taskmaster, aka what is probably my favorite of the seasons, and then I realized that, because I'd watched this series while I was binging TM last year, and did a write-up for the season as a whole, I had no idea which tasks took place in which episodes, and so couldn't talk about it nonspoiler-ly, and also couldn't necessarily follow when scytale was posting about skepticism for Phil's approach in the baked beans task, e.g. So of course the thing to do was a rewatch with better note-taking :)
Episode 1 -- I had forgotten how many iconic moments show up this early! Obviously the "quick change" task, which I find memorable for both Kerry's typically Bosh! approach -- perfect execution of a simple but clever and practical idea, no notes from Greg's, 5 points -- but especially, obviously, for Rhod stipping Alex and mostly himself and being unapologetic about his unorthodox interpretation of "quick change". But while I clearly remembered these, and Phil bumbling around with a poncho, 10x slower than anyone else, I'd forgotten about the madness of James's approach, and had COMPLETELY forgotten about Jess's effort, to the point where I saw a still of her in the exercise outfit on the YT video thumbnail, I was like, what was this? I also had forgotten that Phil's haggling in prize task backstory made an appearance in episode 1, and that Rhod bringing in Greg's teddy bear was also this early -- both beginning as they mean to go on, LOL. And it's episode 1, and they're already arguing and undercutting each other in the studio (e.g. Rhod backing Phil on the open box not being a box interpretation, and then Phil NOT backing him on the leaning tower with a stick inside being a tower, and Rhod's schaudenfreude when Phil ends up getting only one of his boxes counted as the twoer). Speaking of the tower task, more madness from James, trying to run up a tree and then to hoist a box up, as if either of those would've made a tower, and the first appearance of his little songs (and then Jess and Kerry taking very straightforward approaches, with various degrees of success). I had completely forgotten about the baked beans task -- I guess it was less cinamatic than the others, lol, but it was fun. The amazing irony of Rhod using allll the tools none of the others thought to (Kerry doing multiplication in her head in a panic, Jessica doing "carry the 1" math on the window in bean juice while Rhod blithely used a calculator, and a tape measure) and still doing very badly because he measured a dry bean as opposed to a juicy bean XD and whatever the hell Phil thought he was doing while complaining about the task making no sense (this was a fail in a different way than Phil's tasks usually fail, so I wonder if it was his first task or something and he hadn't found his failure groove yet XD) I had also forgotten that after the argument in the studio, Rhod and Phil collaborated in the live task, earning Rhod a victory in that task. This is such a chaotic bunch in general, but I feel like Rhod and Phil, my two favorites this season, are particularly willing to do a full turnaround in pursuit of the funniest thing. I'm also enjoying all of Kerry's expressions (and I like the "braid around her head" look that she has in this episode).
Episode 2 -- I remember Rhod's goat's head belt from the prize task, and James bringing in sweets, and had no memory of what anyone else did, which I guess kind of makes sense, as those were the top and bottom score. I also remember being skeptical, when I first watched the show, that Rhod actually wore the goat's head belt to weddings as he claimed; I find that a lot more plausible now, lol. I do like Phil's hot pink belt and the way he sells it, not just the return of the haggling joke, but the "are you sure" and the photo of the guy making it. I do think Jess was lucky to get 2 points for her definitely-not-a-belt seatbelt pillow -- I think her and James should've been swapped. Phil did such a great job with the jog + story task, both the ogre story itself and justifying it as oral tradition (like Homer's Iliad) when he just hadn't seen the pen and paper, but, really what a great task all around: James justifying his stilly story by retelling Forest Gump, Kerry saying her story about shoes was shallow and Greg then coaxing her into deeper narrative, which makes it turn into Willy Wonka, with Greg and Rhod getting in on the embellishments, and James piping up with "plagiarism isn't cool" -- what a great banter round! And then Rhod's self-fulfilling prophecy of a story, which did indeed lose. I had a pretty good memory of the first team task, although clearest among them was Kerry going "banana banana banana," which I find oddly hilarious. I did not remember that like 90% of what team of 3 was talking about before the task started was the effect of Phil's costume XD I had also forgotten that it was James himself (the blindfolded painter) who suggested the others just grab his arm and paint on his behalf -- that was very clever, and did pay off well, with the very detailed duck, which sealed the narrow victory for the guys. I had completely forgotten about the existence of the "predict what another person will do" task, although I did, of course, remember Jessica's impression of a party horn -- I just couldn't remember the context in which it came up. Because of the, like, bidirectionality of the task, I still had a hard time keeping track of who did what, but I think the three younger comedians correctly predicted what the others would do (Jess that Kerry would take the money, and James and Phil that Jess and Rhod, respectively, would blow the airhorn), and the older comedians failed at predicting what James and Phil would do. I do think predicting that James would blow the airhorn was easier than predicting Phil and the apple (let alone the weird specifics). I did have strong memories of parts of the circles task -- James's mad attempt with the bike, hula-hoop and "my eyes are circles" (in studio), plus Kerry's perfect circle in the snow. I had completeley forgotten about Rhod's lateral thinking with the map, or Phil managing technique well but ending up with an invisible circle because he tried to write with a highlighter on asphalt XD Kerry's indignation about being limited to small pieces of paper when most of the other people tried to do a circle outside was very funny, but I'm glad it paid off and that Greg gave it 5 points over Rhod's arguably bigger (metaphorically) circle, presumably because it was the best circle, since the task was both "biggest" and "best". What I also didn't remember was just how genuinely angry/disappointed Greg seemed to be by James's attempt, from the wordless "angry teacher" look he gave him in studio to "how dare you even speak" when James tried to pipe up when Rhod and Kerry were talking -- clearly Greg's "what do you have to say for yourself, young man" attitude towards James had started earlier than I'd marked on first watch. In the live task, it probably didn't end up mattering that much, but it was neat to see Rhod find a sort of loophole in the "stay in your hoop" limitation by picking up his hoop and taking it with him to get closer to the cans. But Kerry ended up winning the task, and then the episode after a tie-breaker with Jess. But it's interesting to see how close Rhod is to the top. I do think Ed on the podcast is right that Rhod cares much more about doing the funniest possible thing (and/or pissing off Greg) than he does about winning, unlike Kerry and I think Jessica, and that if he cared about winning more, he might've actually done even better.
Episode 3 -- god, this group is such chaos at all times XD Like, a fairly straightforward prize task ("best thing from the 90s") yield Jessica bringing in a book from the wrong decade, James (who was an adorable toddler) leading to Greg holding him upside down, Phil putting himself up for adoption (and James says his nephews still act like Phil belongs to him, and the two of them keep up this running joke), Rhod bringing in the first instance of that picture of Greg, and Kerry, the most straightforward one, drill-sergeant-ing the others into staging the Friends couch scene, which Rhod gleefully gets in on with the clapping. (I feel like Rhod, Phil, and James, minus some hissifits, are all really "yes and" committed, and that's part of why the studio bits are so fun for me this series.) I do recall the question of whether a boxset of friends counts as being from the 90s when it would've been made later than that, but I do feel like Kerry brought in the *airing* of Friends more than the physical object, which I for one am fine with. And this was one of the rare occasions where Alex spoke up to argue with Greg's points, and got Phil bumped up from 1 to 3, given the two disqualifications. Aha! the "raise Alex's heartrate" task. I remember nothing anyone did except Rhod's "fairly structured torture". I had forgotten that Rhod kicked off the task by thinking quietly in private with his face in Alex's crotch. His actual attempt still made me laugh, especially the bit at the end where Rhod says, "We've learned a lot more about you than we have about me" and Alex counters mildly, "We've learned a bit about you" (to Rhod cracking up). Rhod does actually apologize in studio, which I think might be the only time he does that in the entire show? XD Anyway, clearly the way to go was physical activity, but the funny thing to me about those straightforward attempts is what Greg points out about Kerry getting carried away and wanting to score -- she really is such a Dragonlord :D The noise task was actually the one I used to lure scytale in, by linking to Rhod's attempt with the dog shit and standee of Greg ("You know I give the points out on this show, don't you?"). The detail that makes it for me is Rhod petting the dog who was presumably the source of the shit after climbing down the ladder. The one entry I remembered before YouTube threw a clip of Rhod my way was Phil's winning "mlem mlem mlem" noise, so I guess I have to agree with Greg's scoring as far as that at least. I remembered Rhod's lateral thinking attempt for the ball-in-the-hole task, with digging out the hole (I had forgotten that as he is doing that he narrates, "Who says my ADHD makes me shit at problem solving?" -- and I actually have to agree with Rhod, I feel like he manages it pretty well, mostly by lying face down somewhere like in Alex's crotch to concentrate, but then goes and does the thing), but not that this was the origin of Kerry's "Bosh!" persona, or James taking a golf club to a camera. The mouthing facts task made me laugh so hard, everyone's facial expressions and the incorrect guesses, but actually Greg was really good at the lip-reading! I'm glad James got to win after a couple of rough episodes (and also it's nice to have a non-Kerry winner for a change, for the first time this series XD)
Episode 4 -- of course I remembered Phil's confusing little box, and especially the exchange between James and Greg around it, but my favorite prize entry, which I also remembered, was Kerry's wires behind the telly, which I think were very underscored, at 2 points. I also didn't remember that the box didn't win, Jessica's admittedly confusing T-shirt did. The switch task was, I think, the first I saw of Rhod Gilbert, in some kind of compilation. Having the context that he and Greg are mates adds a lot to his performance on the task! (I don't have a lot to say about it otherwise, although I'm glad that James's enthusiasm/running around paid off for once with a win.) Rhod was also the only person I remembered from the elevator task -- glad he won! James thinking he could trip the elevator and take all the time in the world is pretty funny, though. I do remember the OLLIE weighing task, especially Phil's super elegant -- but way too slow -- solution. And then he wanted a picture taken with it -- I didn't remember that, but that's so sweet! I also did not remember Rhod trying to produce 65g of spit to make up the difference in weight, ew XD Live task got all contentious! with Phil kicking Rhod's fez off his head, after Rhod kicked Phil's fez, which had rolled in his way, off the stage -- although I suspect it wouldn't have made a difference to either man. I did not remember this tie-breaker task between James and Rhod where Rhod chased a loo roll airplane with a leaf blower, but I'm glad Rhod ended up winning.
Episode 5 -- From this prize task, I remembered Jess's winning opera gloves (and the story that went with them) and James's calendar from his nephews, and that Rhod's was something Greg had given his wife, but had completely forgotten Kerry's earrings (yin-yang dreamcatchers, which were legitimate awful XD) or Phil's attempt at a clever loophole with used toilet paper that got him 1 point (deservedly). Rhod's javelin, which is one of my favorite moments in all of Taskmaster, eclipsed everything else about the "delivery" task (he did apologize for making a hole in the caravan -- I was wrong that apologizing for the "heartrate" task was the only time he said sorry), but on rewatch I ejoyed Kerry trying to argue that hers wasn't so bad before retiring from the field with "well, fuck you" XD and then relitigating that James got fireworks and better dancing out of the crew guy than she did. James's was pretty good though! (and hi, Richard Osman) -- although no way did he deserve 5 points over Rhod's INSANE approach. OK, maybe the fireworks were more spectacular per se, but come on! And I'd forgotten how pretty Jessica's balloon delivery was, and the sheer (ineffective) madness of Phil's, complete with a rivalry with James that he made up and then forgot about XD I had forgotten about the target circles task entirely -- both the format difference (4 vs Phil) and what anyone did. Kerry was definitely the MVP of the team, and poor Jess! (and for once, Rhod's lateral thinking approach didn't really pay off) I do think there's an issue with the design of the task that Phil kind of pointed out when he said why he was stopping -- he did have just the one canvas to work on, while the 4 had four times the surface area to cover with circles, without fear of connecting them up. I wonder if Phil argued about that in the studio (he's said on the podcast that he argued A LOT) and just lost that argument. I remembered the traffic warden task, and what Jess did, and that she got 5 points, but had completely forgotten what anyone else did, or that James tied with her for first place; I didn't think Jeff was as happy with him, but that was an elaborate effort. Also amusing was how terrible Kerry was at this task (unsurprisingly, because she couldn't just hector it into submission XD), Jeff unexpectedly clicking with Phil's bad puns, and Rhod thinking it was a timed task and walking out, and then successfully arguing that it was the best thing he could've done (but still only getting 2 points, which I do think is fair). For the forced perspective task, I would've expected the women to win, because I thought their "story" was more memorable (as in, I actually remembered what they did), but I did think both were pretty good. The live task, of course, was a massive anticlimax (not the last, though XD). What I was watching for this time was Jessica breaking Rhod's prize, the ceramic thingy Greg had given his wife -- because I'd heard in some video appearance of his that he was genuinely upset by that and glued the thing back together. Knowing what to look for, you can see Rhod out of his chair after Jess drops it, and I think Jess's horrified reaction may in part be due to her being able to see his face.
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I haven't been consuming anything fannish with any sort of concerted effort, but a couple of cool things that came my way via various flist links, Best Chat, etc.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Gorgeous Edgin/Xenk fanart (rated T) from FIAB: Beating Hearts by IridescentLily
- Terra Ignota: "Sorting Hat" song for the Hives, in the form of a comic. I especially love the Gordian and Utopia images, and the last panel is just great all around. (This is from Involuntary Book Club, who has a lot of overlap in reading taste with me but sadly hasn't posted a new comic in over 2 years. My other favorites are the (slightly NSFW) DresdenFiles #1, Raven Tower (correct about the mosquitoes!), AtLA, and Piranesi)
- Two Vorkosiverse fics:
1) AITA: Six Daughters?!? (~4k) -- spoilery for Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (including the summary and tags). Also from the FIAB crop, fic in the format of an Am I the Asshole post and comments, which works really fun for this topic.
2) Nikki Vorsoisson and the Vorkosigan Legacy (12k, Nikki gen) -- one of those things I really enjoy about fic as a thing, looking at canon characters and events from the POV of a very different character than what we see in canon. This was both funny and poignant and felt lik the right blend of the two.
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Finally, memes are a great way to chat about fandom when I'm not consuming any new canons, so:
Ask me my top 5 fannish anything
For reference, fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA(/Korra), Babylon 5, Blake's 7, Buffy (through s6), Chronicles of Amber, Community, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Farscape (2.5 seasons), Firefly, BBC Ghosts, The Good Place, Harry Potter, Killjoys (first two seasons), Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Lord of the Rings, Machineries of Empire, MCU, Murderbot, Rivers of London, Saga, Sherlock BBC (through s3), Taskmaster, Temeraire, Terra Ignota, Vorkosigan Saga, Warchild, White Collar (through s4), World of Five Gods (Chalion/Penric), and anything else you know I'm into.
You can find some past top 5 answers in this tag, though I don't at all mind revisiting them, as I always answer afresh and it's interesting to see how my answers change or stay the same.
I'm sure everyone has already seen the Murderbot-on-Apple TV news. I'm really curious to see this! It definitely seems like a canon that would lend itself well to a TV show, either the current arc or a case-of-the-week/adventure-of-the-week kind of thing after the initial setup. The fact that it's Apple TV is both annoying (we don't have Apple TV, although at some point we'll need to replace our phones, so maybe we will again...) but also suggests a healthy budget, so that's nice. The casting feels like the least interesting casting to me, in the sense of casting a generic-looking white guy, although if they are planning to stick with "it" pronouns for Muderbot, I can definitely see why some other casting choices could've been more fraught. Mostly I hope the cast will include ART, and am really curious to know who would be voicing it if so.
I was also happy to see that Good Omens was renewed for the 3rd and final season. I intentionally held off on watching s2 because of the cliffhanger, so my plan is to watch the whole of s2-s3 once s3 is out.
More near-term than either of those was the teaser for Taskmaster Champion of Champions III, and I am suddenly a lot more excited for TM CoC III because Kiell is going to be subbing in for Mae! Now, I enjoyed series 11-15 a lot, but in most cases the winner of those series was not my favorite or even second-favorite contestant, and in some cases, like s12 and s15 (which I loved a lot on the whole), the winner was actually my least favorite of the five. And in particular I was not looking forward to very serious, competitive Mae going head to head against very serious, competitive Dara. Kiell easily ends up my favorite on the new lineup (previously it would've been Sophie, probably; and I do like Sophie, but she is quite intense, and I thin would be more fun to watch if she is not competing against a particularly intense line-up). Also, note to self: the New Year Treat will be airing on Jan 2, which is annoying, because I'm back to work at that point, but fine.
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Speaking of Taskmaster, nothing is airing currently, but I've definitely felt in need of some Taskmaster goodness, so I've been doing two things, kind of in parallel:
I started watching Taskmaster NZ series 4 (which I missed watching live because I was in Europe for the start of it, and then decided I would save it for after series 16). spoilers as they come
Episode 1 -- Man, I have not missed Jeremy's baffling scoring. He is my least favorite Taskmaster by some distance. I don't have a strong impression of this gang yet, but I think at this point Dai is my favorite, followed by Karen (I like her vibe! the necklace and the tattoos on her arm). Bubbah reminds me of Kura on s3 (which is a good thing) -- she's got a similar kind of cheerful "oh shit! :D" vibe that I enjoy. Ray I'm finding kind of annoying -- I don't enjoy the nebbishy vibe in Taskmaster. And Mel I don't have any feelings about as a contestant, but I did think she was vastly underscored in the "Be English" task. Overall, I didn't find this to be a strong opener, or a particularly good introduction to the contestants.
Episode 2 -- OK, that's more like it! First of all, damn, Bubbah! This blows Josh's tiny "GREG" tattoo out of the water, and leapfrogs Mike Wozniak's mohawk, and anything else anyone has done for a prize task. Just, like, respect, lady XD Dai is definitely the one I'm rooting for, so I have glad to see him get a win in early doors. I enjoyed the first team task, and especially Dai's clear enjoyment and mastery of the toast orchestration (the great idea of breaking the toast into smaller pieces!), and the To3's windmill was glorious, and the contrast was hilarious with the other team -- but: this is clearly a task where having an extra person is a big advantage! and isn't offset by any sort of handycap that I could see. The candle task was fun -- I appreciated the different approaches, enjoyed Karen's mad balloon dance, Dai's "Argentenian kumquat" shark therapy (although I don't know that I would've given it 5 points), and Ray's leafblower soap opera was both a neat idea and pretty funny execution. Bubbah gets bonus points from me for being an AtLA fan! Bowl of glitter fake was clever, but I wonder if that task would've made it if not for Bubbah's spectacular fail. But also it's refreshing to have a "if you do X you are disqualified" task where no-one gets disqualified. Glitter for everyone!
Episode 3 -- wow, harsh, 1s and 2s only for the prize task, although, yeah, this was not a great bunch. Leave NZ -- the Raypublic was a cool idea, as was Mel digging a hole to Spain (Spanish!Paul was pretty funny). Dai appears to go all serious whenever given a chance to meditate or do something else therapy-like, which I don't get as a Taskmaster approach but seems to be working for him with Jeremy. (I saw after watching this episode that he's been living with stage 4 cancer for 3 years, so I'm guessing the zen he taps into comes from learning to cope with that?) Ahaha, the fish tapes task! Good on Mel for fetching the poster from the shed and being systematic about it (edited out breakdowns and all). I really enjoyed getting to hear past TM NZ musical numbers, like Guy's Christmas song, Josh's sushi train, the song about Lybia, etc. Excellent trick with having the full task recorded on a CD that Ray eventually got to play. And Dai was a class act about his abject failure. I really enjoyed the horror movies, but completely disagree with Jeremy's scoring. I think I would've given Ray and Karen the lowest scores (2, I guess, feels right), maybe 3 for Karen for the knife suspense, 4 (or 3) for Mel, 5 for Bubbah and either 4 or 5 for Dai -- I thought the fact that Bubbah and Dai had to work with objects that weren't animals was an extra level of difficulty, but they did a great job -- and I enjoyed Dai's characters more, but appreciated Bubbah's puns.
Episode 4 -- another set of lackluster prizes this round, IMO, but I do enjoy the way contestants seem freer to taunt Jeremy vs everybody sucking up to Greg (in this case, Ray with the phone number in restrooms). I feel like Paul was the MVP of this episode, in a way that Alex very rarely puts himself forward in an active role (maybe the recent hotel task being the exception). The "improve Paul" stuff was hit or miss for me, but I was glad to have Karen win stuff. I really enjoyed the plays, but Paul was definitely a key factor in my enjoyment of the To2's Caesar one. For To3, I love how into everything Dai gets -- he just seems like the person most enjoying the proceedings, which makes me root for him even more. I also really liked his "approving rich people hubbub" noise -- he's got a lot of unexpected talents! Conversely, Ray absolutely knows his own talents; I can't say I was impressed by the Pokemon bet win, but that definitely deserved 5 points as the most definitive win. Dai's explanation for losing his bet, that he underestimated nature was great. But the best part of the bet task (I had to look away during the marshmallow bet with Karen) was definitely Bubbah's reaction to Paul's unexpected speed and endurance in running laps. The sign of her unironically cheering him on while eating chips at the side of the bathtub was just super wholesome and fun. The live task with the balloon dartboard and handicaps was amazing, and I'm waiting to see it show up in TM UK. It seems like the optimal strategy would be to throw your darts into the floor, since chances are clearly that you will hit balloons that will help your opponents, but I don't think anyone tried to do that on purpose. Best part was probably Ray putting his glasses on over two eyepatches, and also Ray exceeding the maximum number of penalties they'd planned for XD So all in all, this was an episode that started slow for me, but from Bubbah's bet onward, ended on a real high note. Also I'm glad that Karen won, because I feel like Jeremy tends to underscore her.
Episode 5 -- Not feeling this prize task either; my favorite part of it was Jeremy knowing Ray's landlord as his teacher. And I feel like his scoring made even less sense than usual. The balloon task was a lot of fun, and I love how proud Bubbah was of sussing it out, and that Mel managed to get her belt-of-balloons back onto the table in time, and the way Dai got really into naming and mourning his balloons (yep, stillmy favorite). I do think it's very unfair that Ray's balloons got counted, giving him third place. I mean, none of it matters, but I just don't think that was fair to any of the others. Impersonate another contestant task -- poor Dai, with all three youngsters going for him and getting on their knees. And I'm with Jeremy -- Ray was basically unrecognizable with his hair pulled back. Wedding task was an interesting idea, but with more baffling scoring. Obviously Karen deserved the 5 points for her sweet song and getting her actual partner on FaceTime, but I thought Mel's was the next best. I don't know why Bubbah decided to sit in a filled bath when marrying herself, and apparently neither does she XD And the live task was not very interesting, but I'm glad to see another win for Karen.
Halfway through the series: that is some close scores!
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I have also cleverly lured scytale into starting to watch series 7 of Taskmaster, aka what is probably my favorite of the seasons, and then I realized that, because I'd watched this series while I was binging TM last year, and did a write-up for the season as a whole, I had no idea which tasks took place in which episodes, and so couldn't talk about it nonspoiler-ly, and also couldn't necessarily follow when scytale was posting about skepticism for Phil's approach in the baked beans task, e.g. So of course the thing to do was a rewatch with better note-taking :)
Episode 1 -- I had forgotten how many iconic moments show up this early! Obviously the "quick change" task, which I find memorable for both Kerry's typically Bosh! approach -- perfect execution of a simple but clever and practical idea, no notes from Greg's, 5 points -- but especially, obviously, for Rhod stipping Alex and mostly himself and being unapologetic about his unorthodox interpretation of "quick change". But while I clearly remembered these, and Phil bumbling around with a poncho, 10x slower than anyone else, I'd forgotten about the madness of James's approach, and had COMPLETELY forgotten about Jess's effort, to the point where I saw a still of her in the exercise outfit on the YT video thumbnail, I was like, what was this? I also had forgotten that Phil's haggling in prize task backstory made an appearance in episode 1, and that Rhod bringing in Greg's teddy bear was also this early -- both beginning as they mean to go on, LOL. And it's episode 1, and they're already arguing and undercutting each other in the studio (e.g. Rhod backing Phil on the open box not being a box interpretation, and then Phil NOT backing him on the leaning tower with a stick inside being a tower, and Rhod's schaudenfreude when Phil ends up getting only one of his boxes counted as the twoer). Speaking of the tower task, more madness from James, trying to run up a tree and then to hoist a box up, as if either of those would've made a tower, and the first appearance of his little songs (and then Jess and Kerry taking very straightforward approaches, with various degrees of success). I had completely forgotten about the baked beans task -- I guess it was less cinamatic than the others, lol, but it was fun. The amazing irony of Rhod using allll the tools none of the others thought to (Kerry doing multiplication in her head in a panic, Jessica doing "carry the 1" math on the window in bean juice while Rhod blithely used a calculator, and a tape measure) and still doing very badly because he measured a dry bean as opposed to a juicy bean XD and whatever the hell Phil thought he was doing while complaining about the task making no sense (this was a fail in a different way than Phil's tasks usually fail, so I wonder if it was his first task or something and he hadn't found his failure groove yet XD) I had also forgotten that after the argument in the studio, Rhod and Phil collaborated in the live task, earning Rhod a victory in that task. This is such a chaotic bunch in general, but I feel like Rhod and Phil, my two favorites this season, are particularly willing to do a full turnaround in pursuit of the funniest thing. I'm also enjoying all of Kerry's expressions (and I like the "braid around her head" look that she has in this episode).
Episode 2 -- I remember Rhod's goat's head belt from the prize task, and James bringing in sweets, and had no memory of what anyone else did, which I guess kind of makes sense, as those were the top and bottom score. I also remember being skeptical, when I first watched the show, that Rhod actually wore the goat's head belt to weddings as he claimed; I find that a lot more plausible now, lol. I do like Phil's hot pink belt and the way he sells it, not just the return of the haggling joke, but the "are you sure" and the photo of the guy making it. I do think Jess was lucky to get 2 points for her definitely-not-a-belt seatbelt pillow -- I think her and James should've been swapped. Phil did such a great job with the jog + story task, both the ogre story itself and justifying it as oral tradition (like Homer's Iliad) when he just hadn't seen the pen and paper, but, really what a great task all around: James justifying his stilly story by retelling Forest Gump, Kerry saying her story about shoes was shallow and Greg then coaxing her into deeper narrative, which makes it turn into Willy Wonka, with Greg and Rhod getting in on the embellishments, and James piping up with "plagiarism isn't cool" -- what a great banter round! And then Rhod's self-fulfilling prophecy of a story, which did indeed lose. I had a pretty good memory of the first team task, although clearest among them was Kerry going "banana banana banana," which I find oddly hilarious. I did not remember that like 90% of what team of 3 was talking about before the task started was the effect of Phil's costume XD I had also forgotten that it was James himself (the blindfolded painter) who suggested the others just grab his arm and paint on his behalf -- that was very clever, and did pay off well, with the very detailed duck, which sealed the narrow victory for the guys. I had completely forgotten about the existence of the "predict what another person will do" task, although I did, of course, remember Jessica's impression of a party horn -- I just couldn't remember the context in which it came up. Because of the, like, bidirectionality of the task, I still had a hard time keeping track of who did what, but I think the three younger comedians correctly predicted what the others would do (Jess that Kerry would take the money, and James and Phil that Jess and Rhod, respectively, would blow the airhorn), and the older comedians failed at predicting what James and Phil would do. I do think predicting that James would blow the airhorn was easier than predicting Phil and the apple (let alone the weird specifics). I did have strong memories of parts of the circles task -- James's mad attempt with the bike, hula-hoop and "my eyes are circles" (in studio), plus Kerry's perfect circle in the snow. I had completeley forgotten about Rhod's lateral thinking with the map, or Phil managing technique well but ending up with an invisible circle because he tried to write with a highlighter on asphalt XD Kerry's indignation about being limited to small pieces of paper when most of the other people tried to do a circle outside was very funny, but I'm glad it paid off and that Greg gave it 5 points over Rhod's arguably bigger (metaphorically) circle, presumably because it was the best circle, since the task was both "biggest" and "best". What I also didn't remember was just how genuinely angry/disappointed Greg seemed to be by James's attempt, from the wordless "angry teacher" look he gave him in studio to "how dare you even speak" when James tried to pipe up when Rhod and Kerry were talking -- clearly Greg's "what do you have to say for yourself, young man" attitude towards James had started earlier than I'd marked on first watch. In the live task, it probably didn't end up mattering that much, but it was neat to see Rhod find a sort of loophole in the "stay in your hoop" limitation by picking up his hoop and taking it with him to get closer to the cans. But Kerry ended up winning the task, and then the episode after a tie-breaker with Jess. But it's interesting to see how close Rhod is to the top. I do think Ed on the podcast is right that Rhod cares much more about doing the funniest possible thing (and/or pissing off Greg) than he does about winning, unlike Kerry and I think Jessica, and that if he cared about winning more, he might've actually done even better.
Episode 3 -- god, this group is such chaos at all times XD Like, a fairly straightforward prize task ("best thing from the 90s") yield Jessica bringing in a book from the wrong decade, James (who was an adorable toddler) leading to Greg holding him upside down, Phil putting himself up for adoption (and James says his nephews still act like Phil belongs to him, and the two of them keep up this running joke), Rhod bringing in the first instance of that picture of Greg, and Kerry, the most straightforward one, drill-sergeant-ing the others into staging the Friends couch scene, which Rhod gleefully gets in on with the clapping. (I feel like Rhod, Phil, and James, minus some hissifits, are all really "yes and" committed, and that's part of why the studio bits are so fun for me this series.) I do recall the question of whether a boxset of friends counts as being from the 90s when it would've been made later than that, but I do feel like Kerry brought in the *airing* of Friends more than the physical object, which I for one am fine with. And this was one of the rare occasions where Alex spoke up to argue with Greg's points, and got Phil bumped up from 1 to 3, given the two disqualifications. Aha! the "raise Alex's heartrate" task. I remember nothing anyone did except Rhod's "fairly structured torture". I had forgotten that Rhod kicked off the task by thinking quietly in private with his face in Alex's crotch. His actual attempt still made me laugh, especially the bit at the end where Rhod says, "We've learned a lot more about you than we have about me" and Alex counters mildly, "We've learned a bit about you" (to Rhod cracking up). Rhod does actually apologize in studio, which I think might be the only time he does that in the entire show? XD Anyway, clearly the way to go was physical activity, but the funny thing to me about those straightforward attempts is what Greg points out about Kerry getting carried away and wanting to score -- she really is such a Dragonlord :D The noise task was actually the one I used to lure scytale in, by linking to Rhod's attempt with the dog shit and standee of Greg ("You know I give the points out on this show, don't you?"). The detail that makes it for me is Rhod petting the dog who was presumably the source of the shit after climbing down the ladder. The one entry I remembered before YouTube threw a clip of Rhod my way was Phil's winning "mlem mlem mlem" noise, so I guess I have to agree with Greg's scoring as far as that at least. I remembered Rhod's lateral thinking attempt for the ball-in-the-hole task, with digging out the hole (I had forgotten that as he is doing that he narrates, "Who says my ADHD makes me shit at problem solving?" -- and I actually have to agree with Rhod, I feel like he manages it pretty well, mostly by lying face down somewhere like in Alex's crotch to concentrate, but then goes and does the thing), but not that this was the origin of Kerry's "Bosh!" persona, or James taking a golf club to a camera. The mouthing facts task made me laugh so hard, everyone's facial expressions and the incorrect guesses, but actually Greg was really good at the lip-reading! I'm glad James got to win after a couple of rough episodes (and also it's nice to have a non-Kerry winner for a change, for the first time this series XD)
Episode 4 -- of course I remembered Phil's confusing little box, and especially the exchange between James and Greg around it, but my favorite prize entry, which I also remembered, was Kerry's wires behind the telly, which I think were very underscored, at 2 points. I also didn't remember that the box didn't win, Jessica's admittedly confusing T-shirt did. The switch task was, I think, the first I saw of Rhod Gilbert, in some kind of compilation. Having the context that he and Greg are mates adds a lot to his performance on the task! (I don't have a lot to say about it otherwise, although I'm glad that James's enthusiasm/running around paid off for once with a win.) Rhod was also the only person I remembered from the elevator task -- glad he won! James thinking he could trip the elevator and take all the time in the world is pretty funny, though. I do remember the OLLIE weighing task, especially Phil's super elegant -- but way too slow -- solution. And then he wanted a picture taken with it -- I didn't remember that, but that's so sweet! I also did not remember Rhod trying to produce 65g of spit to make up the difference in weight, ew XD Live task got all contentious! with Phil kicking Rhod's fez off his head, after Rhod kicked Phil's fez, which had rolled in his way, off the stage -- although I suspect it wouldn't have made a difference to either man. I did not remember this tie-breaker task between James and Rhod where Rhod chased a loo roll airplane with a leaf blower, but I'm glad Rhod ended up winning.
Episode 5 -- From this prize task, I remembered Jess's winning opera gloves (and the story that went with them) and James's calendar from his nephews, and that Rhod's was something Greg had given his wife, but had completely forgotten Kerry's earrings (yin-yang dreamcatchers, which were legitimate awful XD) or Phil's attempt at a clever loophole with used toilet paper that got him 1 point (deservedly). Rhod's javelin, which is one of my favorite moments in all of Taskmaster, eclipsed everything else about the "delivery" task (he did apologize for making a hole in the caravan -- I was wrong that apologizing for the "heartrate" task was the only time he said sorry), but on rewatch I ejoyed Kerry trying to argue that hers wasn't so bad before retiring from the field with "well, fuck you" XD and then relitigating that James got fireworks and better dancing out of the crew guy than she did. James's was pretty good though! (and hi, Richard Osman) -- although no way did he deserve 5 points over Rhod's INSANE approach. OK, maybe the fireworks were more spectacular per se, but come on! And I'd forgotten how pretty Jessica's balloon delivery was, and the sheer (ineffective) madness of Phil's, complete with a rivalry with James that he made up and then forgot about XD I had forgotten about the target circles task entirely -- both the format difference (4 vs Phil) and what anyone did. Kerry was definitely the MVP of the team, and poor Jess! (and for once, Rhod's lateral thinking approach didn't really pay off) I do think there's an issue with the design of the task that Phil kind of pointed out when he said why he was stopping -- he did have just the one canvas to work on, while the 4 had four times the surface area to cover with circles, without fear of connecting them up. I wonder if Phil argued about that in the studio (he's said on the podcast that he argued A LOT) and just lost that argument. I remembered the traffic warden task, and what Jess did, and that she got 5 points, but had completely forgotten what anyone else did, or that James tied with her for first place; I didn't think Jeff was as happy with him, but that was an elaborate effort. Also amusing was how terrible Kerry was at this task (unsurprisingly, because she couldn't just hector it into submission XD), Jeff unexpectedly clicking with Phil's bad puns, and Rhod thinking it was a timed task and walking out, and then successfully arguing that it was the best thing he could've done (but still only getting 2 points, which I do think is fair). For the forced perspective task, I would've expected the women to win, because I thought their "story" was more memorable (as in, I actually remembered what they did), but I did think both were pretty good. The live task, of course, was a massive anticlimax (not the last, though XD). What I was watching for this time was Jessica breaking Rhod's prize, the ceramic thingy Greg had given his wife -- because I'd heard in some video appearance of his that he was genuinely upset by that and glued the thing back together. Knowing what to look for, you can see Rhod out of his chair after Jess drops it, and I think Jess's horrified reaction may in part be due to her being able to see his face.
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I haven't been consuming anything fannish with any sort of concerted effort, but a couple of cool things that came my way via various flist links, Best Chat, etc.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Gorgeous Edgin/Xenk fanart (rated T) from FIAB: Beating Hearts by IridescentLily
- Terra Ignota: "Sorting Hat" song for the Hives, in the form of a comic. I especially love the Gordian and Utopia images, and the last panel is just great all around. (This is from Involuntary Book Club, who has a lot of overlap in reading taste with me but sadly hasn't posted a new comic in over 2 years. My other favorites are the (slightly NSFW) DresdenFiles #1, Raven Tower (correct about the mosquitoes!), AtLA, and Piranesi)
- Two Vorkosiverse fics:
1) AITA: Six Daughters?!? (~4k) -- spoilery for Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (including the summary and tags). Also from the FIAB crop, fic in the format of an Am I the Asshole post and comments, which works really fun for this topic.
2) Nikki Vorsoisson and the Vorkosigan Legacy (12k, Nikki gen) -- one of those things I really enjoy about fic as a thing, looking at canon characters and events from the POV of a very different character than what we see in canon. This was both funny and poignant and felt lik the right blend of the two.
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Finally, memes are a great way to chat about fandom when I'm not consuming any new canons, so:
Ask me my top 5 fannish anything
For reference, fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA(/Korra), Babylon 5, Blake's 7, Buffy (through s6), Chronicles of Amber, Community, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Farscape (2.5 seasons), Firefly, BBC Ghosts, The Good Place, Harry Potter, Killjoys (first two seasons), Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Lord of the Rings, Machineries of Empire, MCU, Murderbot, Rivers of London, Saga, Sherlock BBC (through s3), Taskmaster, Temeraire, Terra Ignota, Vorkosigan Saga, Warchild, White Collar (through s4), World of Five Gods (Chalion/Penric), and anything else you know I'm into.
You can find some past top 5 answers in this tag, though I don't at all mind revisiting them, as I always answer afresh and it's interesting to see how my answers change or stay the same.