Taskmaster (s17 finale + assorted)
Our sidewalk fish seem to be doing OK, btw, one week in. Thanks, all, for the good thoughts and advice :)
Also, before I descend into Taskmaster nonsense, I was reminded that Rebecca Fraimow's delightful Lady Eve's Last Con, which I had so much fun with in ARC back in February is out now, and if you read it (you should!), come talk to me about it at at that post :D
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John Robins Taskmaster obsession level: refreshing the finale's Reddit thread as it was airing in the UK for a play-by-play experience, which is something I've previously only done for World Cup/Euro games when my particular favorites are playing. Taskmaster Reddit sadly does not provide a live update of the scores, but I could glean enough from the comments to SPOILER first be a bit worried and then reassured. But anyway, so I went into the episode with the knowledge that Sophie had won the episode (yay! that means everyone had at least one win, which looked improbable in the first half of the series!) and that John had broken Dara's record for total points scored (and also won the series), which was .
The episode was a lot of fun! First, it's always nice when a panel makes the effort to dress up for the final, and while this wasn't s9's black tie or s15's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band regalia, this was a nice bit of effort. Someone on Reddit pointed out it looked like Steve & Sophie and John & Joanne were two couples out on a date and Nick as their waiter (would read that fic. Waiter!Nick would probably be trying to do magic tricks throughout dinner.) My favorite outfit upgrade was Steve's -- what an elegant way to reproduce his tasking outfit but for real, and Sophie looked great in her dress (although it turned out to be a somewhat risque outfit for celebratory slutdropping XD Nick's reaction to her wardrobe malfunction was also great). Nick looked very cute in his bow-tie and jacket and vest. Joanne's zebra-print ?jumpsuit made me think primarily of Sophie's grandma prize, but, like, it was a good fit. And John's concession to dressing up was putting a jacket on over his usual sort of getup, I guess? Although it might've been a plain T-shirt underneath rather than a band tee and trousers rather than jeans? (He did mention on I think an Elis & John podcast that because he blew his entire wardrobe budget on the second Freddie Mercury jacket, his studio outfits were all just things he already owned for the most part. Elis pointed out that some nicer clothes popped up now and again, and John said this happened over time as his new girlfriend had more influence over his wardrobe. I wonder if the nice blue sweater was her idea, and this jacket.) Oh, and a surprisingly worthwhile observation from the YouTube comment section on the finale outfits: "4 of them look like they could be in an Agatha Christie murder mystery, while John looks like a boy who made a wish to go inside a Agatha Christie novel to solve crime." Yep! XD
Prize task -- this was a weird category, and so while I don't necessarily agree with Greg's scoring, I can't say I have firm opinions on what should have won either. My favorite was Nick's concept of fate -- I do find it reassuring, actually -- and of course he capped it off with the magic trick, which was extra neat. (Though I wonder if John did feel like Nick once again stole his thunder/attention away from him by having the memorable scores reveal thing be his magic trick and not John finally getting his hands on the trophy. That hadn't occurred to me until Reddit mentioned it (and John did not complain about it on Ed's podcast), but John HAS complained about Nick's Dracula costume upstaging his Freddie Mercury jacket I think every time the question of Taskmaster costumes has come up, so it wouldn't surprise me if he did feel that way.) Anyway, I think I would've scored Nick highly, and Steve, with his audacious "nothing" prize and that amazing monologue (featuring "John Robins probably winning Taskmaster" on his list of disasters (climate change, Brexit, pandemics, and the like) and John giving this kind of "yeah, probably" shrug, which seemed like a good way to handle it). If Steve had gotten 5 points (which I think he should have; that was an audacious gambit), Jack says he would've become the person who earned the most points from prize tasks; as it is, he is tied with Mawaan and Desiree for that top spot, and Lolly (in a shorter series) has a higher average prize score (which is hard to believe, given how phenomenal so many of Steve's prize tasks were). Sophie's "AI as hope for the future" take, represented by a little robot, was overscored, I think, but I enjoyed her having another dig at Greg. John (as he admitted on the podcast) did kind of flub that one -- it did sound like he was advocating for putting Kathy Burke in charge, not that everyone should be more like her (at least in the cut that went out); that's only the second 1 point score on ANY task for John this entire series, along with two DQs (one justified, on the chopping board, and one I think not, with the loo roll live task), which is pretty impressive. Oh, also, when Alex pipes up with Kathy Burke's Desert Island Disks choice being the first song at his wedding and John very much does not smile, that was kind of a telling moment, haha. I enjoyed Joanne's "basic bitch starter kit", which stood for putting women like her in charge of the world; I think it was overscored to get 5 points (although of the ones that I thought were good, it was the only really tangible one, which probably helped), but it was very Joanne. But the funniest thing about it was how Joanne then completely crashed and burned in the next task, rather spoiling her pitch for running the world (Greg: "Set the feminist movement back by years, I would say."). Greg's solution to give Nick fairly low points but reward him monetarily was definitely not something I had anticipated, and the exchange: "Do I have to donate it to charity?" "Nope!" was very funny. I wonder what Nick ended up doing with his 300 pounds.
Peg the tasks task -- So, Joanne, as mentioned, had a hilarious disaster, and then lost even her 1 point to DQ, which, as she said, didn't really matter all that much. Sophie's performance was very funny, but it was nice when she finally saw the arrow and was able to tidily complete the task. The guys all picked up on the clues fairly quickly (when I was rewatching, I kept an eye on John's face as Alex introduced the three of them being grouped together; John mentioned on Ed's podcast that he thought this was the task he had nailed and probably won, so I think this is his realization that the other two had also done it quickly), and it was interesting to see who alighted on which clue and did what with it. Nick noticed there were some underlined letters and eventually unscrambled them; John immediately noticed all the underlined letters in the task but couldn't figure them out and eventually just noticed the arrow and followed that -- no, noticed the arrow, yelled "Is it an arrow, Alex?!" demandingly for a bit (side note: I weirdly love John's demanding "Alex!" tone -- which is actually very similar to his demanding "Elis!" tone on the radio show/podcast; I don't even know what about it is so cute to me -- I think it's just the overones of "I'm displeased by a thing and I want you to pay attention to me and fix it!" sounds very little kid-calling-for-his-mom), concluded it was an arrow, and followed it to the shed -- and Steve instantly noticed the underlined letters and instantly unscrambled them into "SHED" and went ("Fuck this, I'm going to the shed"). So actually John and Sophie were the only ones who relied on the arrow vs the SHED unscrambling -- even Joanne eventually hot the SHED, not from underlined letters on the task, but from finding the large letters after opening all the pegged tasks. John on the podcast attributed Steve doing that faster than him to Steve's cryptic crossword prowess, and explained that he, John, has gotten into cryptic crosswords since. I wonder if that was in direct response to Steve's prize and therefore means the crossword prize actually paid off even more then, since it was "something you should get into." Anyway, phenomenal, and it sounds like John is already training for CoC with that XD) One final bit of DQ trolling from Alex ("All three were very pleased with themselves. [...] Sophie, you're safe"), which John rises to the bait of beautifully ("Oh, don't, don't, don't!", although he does look a bit less terrified than in the beginning of the series), but in the end it's 5-4-3 for Steve-John-Sophie, which feels fair. Oh, oh, and Nick's little smiley "Is that good?" before getting disqualified, too XD Poor Nick! (Nick is baffling to me as a contestant, I have to say. How is he dead last in a series that includes Sophie? He is so good at so many things -- he is very creative (second only to Steve, I think -- at least in terms of creativity that appeals to Greg, which is what matters for subjective tasks), he is musical (no competition), he can do magic, he clearly has an excellent memory, and he is FAST and agile -- I feel like he should've been a serious contender, and also, unlike someone like Nish, he doesn't get angry at failure and spiral/self-sabotage that way -- AND Greg is hugely partial to him. I think quite possibly the main thing hampering him is that he just doesn't care if he does well (per his philosophy that you learn more from failure than success), decided to do Taskmaster just to spend time with Steve (he basically said that on the podcast), and therefore just isn't trying to do well although he's trying hard.)
Hug your special friend -- I'm not sure I would've realized it without Reddit pointing it out before I watched, but this is a sort of less exciting take on "hide your special friend's body" task from NZ (which was epic! this is not nearly so epic). Sophie wanders into her 5 points by sheer luck; amazing XD Also, that she was expecting it to be her friend Amy again, as in the Mr Blobby task (Greg: "Have you not seen Amy for a while?" Alex, pointedly: "Or this show, ever.") The contrast between John and Nick was really funny (to the point I'm a bit surprised the two of them didn't get paired together) -- the biscuit! John's grumpiness even though he did quite well vs Nick's cheerful assessment that this "wasn't too bad. I feel I did middling on that" when he turned over every card XD I perked up when John found the compass, because I heard all about his bushcraft interests on the Elis & John podcast, so when he claimed that the compass was broken, I actually believed him! (didn't NZ have a task where they supplied them a compass that did not point north? yes!). But apparently John just forgot how to use a compass (he admitted on the Ed podcast, with some embarrassment) -- but "I'm right, your tools are just faulty" is also something I tend to default to, so I had to smile/facepalm at that. He also said that if he'd stuck with the rope approach, he thinks he would have found the mannequin faster, but it was too hot to run around (take off your leather jacket, John. Keeping that thing on in 38C heat is INSANE). John did grumpily eke out 3 points, and Greg's line to him about being "a Taskmaster nerd" and having "no time for whimsy; he wants to complete the task quickly and get the delicious points" made me laugh almost as much as it made John laugh (although his final grin there was a bit of a grimace XD). I also agree with Ed that John would win for "most tender hug" (and that it's nice to see John hugging a version of himself). Steve once again seemed to lose track of the parameters of the task, which seems to be his downfall a lot. But oh, production surprising Steve with a person inside the mannequin -- nicely played! XD Oh, and it was so funny Joanne being apprehensive about the walkie-talkie because "there was something earlier in the series that I thought was a walkie-talkie but it was a barbecue lighter. [laughter from the audience] I'm not in the army, OK!" XD Also, it's interesting that Nick and Steve, and to some extent Joanne, all tried to make some sense of the letters, looking for clues to guide them towards which to turn over. I guess if they had guessed the special friend was their MANNEQUIN, that woould've led them to all the useful things hidden under the letters?
Team task (American game show) -- oh god, Steve's "Poo Do You Think You Are?" idea XD and Nick going along with it under duress because Steve would just not be swayed XD Since I knew this obviously could not be real poo, I found it a lot less gross than the tasks which involve eating gross things for real, gorging, or flobber, but I can't say I ENJOYED watching that. Greg's taking-the-glasses-off levels of dismay and disappointment were beautiful though. I think team of 3 were slightly overscored on this -- I definitely think "Poo" had the better (if disgusting) catchphrases ("it's time to trade turds", "get the scoop on the poop") and deserved the bonus point, at least. Ed on the podcast said the team of 3's show idea sounded familiar, and John admitted it was a variation of a Made Up Game he and Elis played on a live show (which feels like cheating a bit, tbh, since it was a game made up by a listener -- ETA: John on the Elis & John podcast (#340) claims it's his own idea, that he personally came up with for Made Up Games, which, OK, I agree it's not cheating then.). (Elis: "This seems familiar." John: "This seems improved.") I did find John's American presenter (in a gold jacket!) persona, Chad Whopper (XD), extremely appropriate, even if his accent was... not great (where did you get "applaurse" John XD there is no R in "applause"). Hilarious that Nick just presented in his Dracula getup (I mean, why not XD); his American accent was much better, although it did tend to wander. The difference in enthusiasm levels between Nick and John as presenters was also hilarious. Random bit: someone on Reddit and then also Neil Talks pointed out (in that intro shot of the team of 3 standing together on the stage) that they are dressed in primary colors, which I hadn't noticed before. But actually they look like they could be a trio of children's entertainers, lol, Sophie in her dungarees and Joanne's colorful jump suit and even John would not look too much out of place.)
Live task -- LOL, what a note to end on, everyone crawling around back there XD I do really like live tasks where Greg gets in on the action, so that was nice to have, even if the task was not all that exciting. But more exciting than I was expecting, with Greg figuring Steve would not have moved more than 2 lanes because they're men of a similar age, and guessing correctly, and Steve indignantly retorting, "I went all the way over there and then came back!" Greg: "Sure you did." And nice to have Nick secure 5 points with his mind games with some final debonair winks at Greg -- Jack said, the first time Nick own a live task -- (while still coming in dead last in this episode (by 5 points to Steve) as well as the series (13 points between him and Sophie, 61 points (!!!) between him and John -- the biggest gap between first and last place of any series, I think). Oh, actually, my favorite thing about the live task might have been Steve "reading" it as "Guess the five ingredients of the stool of your neighbor" -- well played, Steve XD
Nick's score of 131 (which of course he guessed correctly/engineered/magicked into place -- I'm actually not sure how he did that, but people on Reddit who seem to know more about sleight of hand than I do are suggesting the latter, with switched envelopes during non-televised breaks and maybe some assistance) is tied with Ivo, and a little ahead of Lucy (129) and David Baddiel (128), and more ahead of Charlotte (125), Victoria (121), and Katherine Parkinson (118). Which is impressive in several different ways, lol. Oh, and Nick had tweeted 131 (sans context) on the day filming wrapped on the finale, and then re-tweeted it when the finale aired. John's final score, of course, is the highest ever. Ed mentioned Jack's stats on the podcast, and John said he's been enjoying them -- and indeed he'd reblogged the post-e9 stats Jack posted that showed all the metrics by which John was at the top of the lists.
John is tall and lanky enough that he is a rare winner who does not look ridiculous and Hobbit-like standing next to Greg at the end. I ejoyed the almost-reverent kiss on the mouth of the trophy (he's definitely not the first to do that, but still), and the hugs he got from his teammates, as well as the little hand-clasp thing with Joanne when he first went up to claim the head. It's nice to see the people who were probably most at risk of having their time spoiled by John's intensity/competitiveness rooting for him/happy that he won, including his nearest (admittedly not that near) competition.
I continue to be surprised that people don't like this series, and some were listing it on part with s8 (which I also don't like, although it's not my least favroite; that's s3) and s6 (which, hm. I have a soft spot for s6 because it was the very first series I watched, but I think even without that, it would not be anywhere near the bottom of my list because Liza is one of my favorite contestants ever, and was my favorite winner at least until this one -- I need to let my John obsession settle a bit to see if I can compare them fairly. I think while I was rooting harder for John (because he CARED about 1e10 more -- yes, I need to use scientific notation to express the disparity) -- and probably also because I was watching this real time and couldn't just reassure myself that he won right away -- I do think Liza was the more entertaining winner -- I think, 16 series on, I will remember a lot fewer of John's attempts than I do hers (though, again, my first Taskmaster memories are of her series, so maybe it's not a fair comparison -- but it's also true of her CoC appearance, so I do think it's just that she is brilliant). I do think s6 was relatively weak other than that; I didn't much like Russell Howard, Tim Vine, or Asim, and I did like Alice a lot, but she didn't seem to be enjoying herself after a while, which makes it harder for me to enjoy someone's performance. But this series, s17 -- in addition to John's unstoppable performance (which I can see some people finding a bit light on entertainment value, that's fair; my enjoyment of it comes from a different place than my enjoyment of most of my favorite Taskmaster contestants) -- but you've got the combination of incredible charm, sweetness, talent, and surprising incompetence that is Nick! you've got Sophie's adorable and good-natured bumbling (up through the very end, emphasis on "bum")! the flashes of brilliance and consistent hilarious phrases from Joanne! Steve's next-level prize tasks and cinematic masterpieces! Meanwhile, Reddit clearly loved s16 more than I did; I mean, I enjoyed it, and the Team of Sue and both of the Sues individually were definitely highlights for me, but it is nowhere near the top of my list of favorite series, the way it seems to be for a lot of people. I get the concept of differences in taste, just, huh.
I was looking forward to Ed's podcast, with the winner's traditional appearance, almost as much as I was looking forward to the finale (especially since it was John's first appearance on Ed's podcast that sent me down the John-obsession rabbit hole -- I think it was when they talked about the spreadsheet XD), and it didn't disappoint. I think I've captured most of the things I noted down above, but among the things that weren't specific to the episode: Sometimes Ed talks to a winner and they've forgotten a lot of the tasks (Morgana was a particularly remarkable example of this). Not John! John had a perfect recollection, especially of his failures, and/or had his spreadsheet open in front of him (and probably both; I think Ed said he had the spreadsheet, but it didn't sound like he needed to consult it for the tasks where he thought he could've done better). He is definitely not over the loo roll disqualification, or the chopping board failure. And John said he texted Alex about 20 times about the shaking hands task, lol (to no avail). He is also clearly not over the alcohol-free rum, which I do feel is quite fair to be annoyed about. John and Ed commiserated that earning the most points tends to correlate inversely with entertainment value. John's rankings of entertainment value were Sophie (narrowly), Nick and Joanne as a tie, then Steve, and then himself. I was surprised to hear that John had not watched Ed's CoC II appearnace, when he'd made a point of cramming for Taskmaster. That aired in late June 2022. John said the studio taping had been 9 months ago (so, kinda mid 2023), and it sounds like the tasks are filmed 5-6 months before the studio records (based on how long Alex said Kearns had had to live with the secret of his betrayal), so, early 2023? Which would've been plenty of time to watch CoC II. It also sounds like John did not watch the international TM series. The one that would've been helpful, the orange juice task on TM AU s1, would not have been aired yet (even to be pirated), but still -- you can never have too much data! Oh, and John raved about Nick's thigh, which Ed said he's going to have to squeeze at the next opportunity, and again talked about how naturally funny Joane was, comparing her gift for impromptu comedic phrasing with Ivo's (and another person whom I don't know). It sounds like John would make a good "Taskmaster coach", were that a thing that anyone was in the market for, LOL. But also, I found it really interesting to hear him talk about how being focused on a task in that time-bound space was almost therapeutic, and how he'd love to live his life that way (and also with the addition of people to bring him lunch and make his hair look nice) -- because being focused on tasks was a respite from thoughts (in a similar way he talked about cryptic crosswords). In conclusion: "I was ready for Taskmaster when Taskmaster came, And if it had come any earlier, I might have disgraced myself." Oh, John ♥
I was also looking forward to the Friday edition of the Elis & John podcast (#338), because I figured there would be some Taskmaster chat. I did not expect Elis and Dave to have turned like 80% of the episode into a celebration of John's performance, with bespoke John-centric Taskmaster stats from the guy who does the stats for their Made Up Games, taped congrats from past winners, and a surprise appearance (live in the studio) from Sophie -- so now both of John's team mates have appeared on the podcast. (As a side note, I've been periodically sharing John facts with L, from the standpoint of "this is the guy who is as competitive about nonsense as I am", and made her watch the darts-Twister task, and when I told her John's cohost arranged for a special celebration for John's win, she said, "He invited Freddie Mercury's ghost?" And she didn't even watch the series, she just recognized the jacket XD) There was also just a lot of Taskmaster chat among the three regulars. Elis continues to be very amused by what he descries as John's "death mask" face of intense concentration ("I'll tell you one thing I'll miss: the look of glazed focus on your face."), and which John concedes is the appearance of "ferocious mental arithmetic" (called it!). John complained a little that he smiled and laughed more in the studio than the edit showed, presumably because they were trying to create a particular narrative. John (not even very defensively) said he thought he was OK in the studio, "I was never rude to anyone, never angry; I was scared sometimes" when Alex and Greg would troll him about DQs (aww, bless XD), not arguing about people's points (whispers: "there might've been a bit of that that didn't make the edit"). Elis asked him where he was keeping the trophy, since it had to be out of sight to preserve the secrecy; apparently in his bedroom (lol). Dave: "Where is it going to go now? on your roof?" "I might have to get a plinth made" (because it's too big to go on his awards shelf). He also mentioned the possibility of acquiring the Greg's body CoC trophy to hold it ("like a Transformer"), but also said that Richard Herring was the only one who took it home, lol. Meanwhile, I was very amused to see, via John's Instagram, that he dragged the Taskmaster head to the live show he and Elis were doing a couple of days after the finale.
Speaking of, the past champions greetings were from Richard Herring (who joked/preened about winning CoC), Lou, Sarah Kendall (which was the one John seemed to be the most touched by/excited about), Sam (being his completely gonzo self, with many bleeps), Josh (who also mentioned CoC), and Kerry (with fellow Dragonlord advice about people who comment to quibble over which points were fair or not, and "no day has been as happy as the day I won Taskmaster", awww XD). Ed, of course, had already congratulated John on the podcast. But notably absent were the other two most competitive recent winners, Mae and Dara, heh. John remarked that the two CoC winners who left greetings seemed to be the least humble and began reflecting on whether he even wants to win CoC given that: "Do I want to win Champion of Champions, because... Well obviously I want to, but do I want to BE that person?" Elis: "You've been that person your whole life." "But do I want a 6 foot statue to remind me I'm that person?" Elis (in tones of stating the obvious): "Yeah?" John: "Yeah, yeah, I do. You're absolutely right." XD <3
John was really excited to see Sophie, as was Elis -- apparently Isy, his wife, loved watching her best. And Elis also told Sophie he's more like Sophie in his approach and "John batters me every week" -- which does not seem to actually reflect reality, as Elis has been winning the Made Up Games since I've started listening. Elis asked for some behind-the-scenes dirt on the team tasks, but Sophie was quite complimentary, and only called out the greenscreen task -- "there was one moment where he got a little bit stressed, where he got intense" where John started a long discussion with the production crew, and Joanne and Sophie went on a smoke break, came back, he was still having the chat, so they went off to have another cigarette (Elis: "Did you smoke before Taskmaster?"). John thought his grumpiest moment ("where I was really struggling to be surfer dude John" Elis: "Would love to meet him." Sophie: "Have you got surfer dude John? I've never met him" XD) was in the darts task, when Joanne tried to usurp his rightful position, and we did get to see that. Sophie also provided some great background commentary for the stats nerdery: "This is like your love language, this. You look so happy." John: "Maybe my obituary can just be an enormous volume of statistics." Sophie: "And a graph." The stats guy also mentioned that John's score of 22 out of a possible 25 (88%) in his highest ep was equaled by Adrian Chiles (who frequently appears on Elis & John's show); John, breezily, "New Year's Treat doesn't count, carry on" -- but of course Dara had his perfect 30 episode, which John has not come close to equaling. The stats guy also calculated a "Robins complaint ratio" of 11% on Taskmaster vs 40% on Made Up Games XD Moving on from stats, horses come up and, and John mentioned being uncomfortable around horses since seeing one running mad in a field. Sophie also told a completely unrelated (it was for a different segment she stuck around for) but hilarious anecdote about being caught having sex outside.
And there was a lot of House of Games talk, because Elis, John, and Sophie had all appeared. I've watched the John and Elis ones and now have to track down the Sophie one, I guess (ETA: oh, it hasn't aired yet, looks like she's on series 8, as is Sam Campbell) -- she thought it was going to be a different show XD kind of like Taskmaster John won his week, and I was surprised to hear that he filmed the first 3 episodes -- all filmed on the first day, and featuring two of his wins -- "catastrophically hungover". Apparently he also donated his smoking jacket and tie to a charity shop, but kept the suitcase. He said that Dom Joly, whom he was competing against him, is the only person he's met in real life who is more competitive than him -- and he was certainly less gracious. And John sounds a bit bitter that he hasn't been invited back for the House of Champions ROHOG.
In conclusion: "They all [the other contestants] were so lovely. [...] I wish I could do it all again." Dave: "Do you? No you don't." John: "Yeah. I would've done better on the hanging the thing on the--" Elis and Dave talking over each other and over John -- Elis: "John... you did well." Dave: "I can't believe--" John: "Yeah, but if I hadn't gotten disqualified, I could've gotten 10 more points--" [Was he aiming to break 200???] Dave: "John! Stop talking!" Elis: "It doesn't matter. That minor failure over the course of the series does not define you. What defines you is your death mask stare of concentration." (And this is why I've been completely won over by Elis and their podcast (including Producer Dave), as a side effect of my John obsession/stalking. Because John clearly needs a chorus to follow him around, telling him "it doesn't matter" and "you did well" and occasionally "stop talking" XD)
And then John mentioned on the podcast with Elis that he also went on the People's Podcast, so then I was even more excited to hear that -- which I was already excited because I wanted to hear all the record-breaking stats from Jack -- but turns out that's NEXT WEEK's episode of the Jack & Jenny poodcast (Jenny: "What are we going to talk about, Jack?" Jack: "Spreadsheets, baby!" CANNOT WAIT, genuinely, and I hope that the reason John hasn't shared his Taskmaster spreadsheet in full yet is that it's waiting for this episode of The People's Podcast), and this was just the regular episode review and stats. (That makes sense, actually. Unlike Ed's podcast, they do the show weekly whether there's a new series airing or not, so it makes sense to have a special guest on a no-new-episode week.)
Which was also very interesting, of course (Bluesky thread, although I'm referencing the longer Twitter thread, it's just annoying to link to; Jack's spreadsheet link). I'm sure John will enjoy going into all of that during his appearance on the podcast, but his records are largest ever margin of victory (and I was thinking that even in a relatively "bad" episode for him as this last one was, where Greg started off giving him 1 point to Joanne's 5, John STILL managed to increase his lead over her, albeit by just one point), highest objectively judged task score (4.04!!), highest points per task score (3.84), highest percentage of points won in a series (24.27%). And he never got less than 17 points in ANY of the 10 episodes, which is also a new record; previous record holder was Sarah Millican with 15 (which is also damn impressive). And this is not a metric Jack tracks, but I got curious and looked myself: in his worst episodes (ep 2 where he was disqualified and came in tied for 3rd after the DQ, ep 6 where he was 3rd, and ep 10 where he was 2nd but with a relatively large gap to the winner) -- he was NEVER more than 4 points short of the winning score. Dara, by contrast, had some episodes where he was 9 or even 12 points behind (episode 6, episode 8). That consistency again. Jack makes the very interesting point that John WON (got 5 on) many fewer solo tasks than Dara and than a lot of other contestants, both winners (Liza, Bob, Sam, Noel, Ed, Mae) and non-winners who tended to be brilliant as often as they crashed and burned (Bridget, Rhod, James, Daisy, Iain) -- he is tied with Russell Howard, Desiree, Chris Ramsey, and Sarah Millican at 12 tasks won, while Dara won 17 (!). But unlike a lot of these other people, John just didn't tend to LOSE tasks. Jack pointed out that other than the DQ on the chopping board, John had scored 3+ points on every filmed task. Jack didn't do that stat, but other than the (frankly unfair) DQ in the loo roll task, John also got 3+ in every live task (for an impressive 3.90 point per task in the live tasks, which puts him 5th (tied with Jenny and Richard Herring) behind Guz, Doc Brown, Dara, and Katherine Ryan but the rabbits points were weird so one can't really compare Katherine -- and again, I think that would've been more like tied with Dara if the loo roll task had been scored properly, because I think he was set to get 4 points behind Steve on that one; and yes, I'm possibly as hung up on that as John himself is). His solo filmed task PPT is 3.78, just behind Ed, Dara, and Chris (who has an amazing 4.04, even with that one disastrous episode he had), and his prize score is a fairly respectable 3.20, which is not a top 10 kind of score but puts him around the same place as Ed and Sarah Millican -- but he was also competing against one of the best prize taskers of all time in Steve and I do think Greg WAS judging down some of his prize tasks towards the end -- I mean, they were not unassailably great or anything, but I do think there were prize tasks where John got 1-2 points where he deserved a bit more (not the farthings, though; dunno what that was but that one absolutely deserved 1 point).
Jack makes the point that where John really had an advantage over Dara were the team tasks -- Dara actually outscored John on solo tasks (per task AND total, despite having one less solo task, Jack says, but I'd kind of like to see his numbers on the two-parters and how he is counting those, because while s17 had several two-parters, only one part of those things like the hamper task got an actual score) but John got 14 points more than Dara from team tasks and John's PPT score from team tasks was 4.88 vs Dara's 2.78 (OUCH). Now, there were factors there -- there were 3 bonus points in s17 that happened to fall on team tasks (which I wonder if Jack is counting in these totals; I'm too lazy to do the math myself), and Dara's series had the team betrayal task which introduced an unusual dynamic. But it is very true that John's team of 3 was very successful (in terms of points per task it is second only to Mae's team of 3 in s15, and the two are tied for gap to the other team -- but Mae's team also had that weird opportunity to earn 10 points in a live team task, which skews things considerably), and Dara's was a disaster. But some of the disaster was Dara himself -- he was the one who screwed up the elephants/giraffees task, although I'm sure having to work with Kearns and Fern would drive anyone to confusion. Meanwhile, I do think John's team of 3 had good synergy, like I said above, but they would've been rudderless withot John. So I don't know that it's fair to say that the team brought John's points average up -- it can just as easily be that team tasks were another thing John was consistently good at. (It is, however, absolutely fair to say that the team brought Dara's points DOWN. There is the literal case of Kearns's betrayal, but also "which aircraft crashes more into mountains" might as well have been deliberate sabotage for all that it was just Kearns.) Of course, the true controlled experiment would be to have John (Robins) saddled with a team of Fern and John Kearns, and I would love to see what wold happen in that scenario. JR actually listed Kearns as one of the comics he'd like to live with (for a laugh), but I'm not confident that even this new, relatively chill, best-behavior-on-national-television John Robins would not murder Kearns at some point during a team task XD
Some more fascinating stats from Jack on the series: the POINTS gap between first and last (61 points) is record-breaking and 14 more than the previous largest gap (47 is S12, lol, poor VCM), but -- and this is the fascinating part -- John only won 5 more solo tasks than Nick (12 to 7), which is the smallest gap by that metric. This is another testament, I think, to how important it is to be consistent (like John) vs occasionally brilliant (like Nick and Steve). This was clearly a deliberate strategy (to hear John talk about it on podcasts), and it clearly works. There were more subjective than objective tasks this series (only s9 had more subjectively judged tasks) -- which I do think makes John's win even more impressive, because he was clearly stronger on objective ones and had much stronger competition there, between Steve's Spielbergean skillz and Greg's crush on Nick. Sophie received the lowest PPT on subjective tasks, which is also not surprising -- Greg just didn't seem to "get" her, as has happened in the past with some contestants like Munya. Jack claims points inflation is back, with 15.82 total points per task, and that being the highest in all series (counting double tasks as two tasks), which is interesting, because I don't think it "felt" like that, except in team tasks, where Greg seems to be pretty consistently giving the top team 5 points now, and the other team also 2-3, which is a lot more generous. I think the other thing is that this series had a lot of bonus points up for grabs -- everyon got the 2 bonus secret task points, and the team of 3 got the game show bonus point, so that's 13 bonus points -- that's a lot added to the total (the most ever, according to Jack's spreadsheet, if I'm using column BJ correctly). Jack also pointed out that there were no (solo or team) winner-takes-all tasks this series, which probably helped both with the points per task and also helped John given his "just don't lose" strategy would not work well in a winner-takes-all task.
John Robins Taskmaster deep dive that nobody asked for:
So I've been thinking about my John obsession and how the ways in which he appeals to me are different from the way most of my favorite contestants do. I have a lot of favorites at this point, but if I were to name the top couple where it's not even a doubt they're in my top 5, it would be Rhod, Ivo, Liza, and Victoria -- which, you know, it's a pretty different bunch, except that Ivo and Victoria -- and John, who seems very likely to join this level of favorite even once the recency bias wears off -- all went to Oxford (University College, St John's, and St Anne's respectively) [Liza apparently attended RADA, and Rhod Exeter]. I mean, John shares a few traits with some of the others, but not a ton, and the strongest thing is probably the desperation to do well with Ivo -- but in other respects they are very different (I forget on which podcast that was, but John talked about if he could harness Ivo's energy and just, like, point him in a coherent direction, and, you know, a John-Ivo team of two is one I would be very curious to see on AU!Taskmaster. I think they'd get carried away and aim too high and crash, though, because I think their worst tendencies would compound.) I was talking to lunasariel about this (who has not seen this series yet), and I/we came to the conclusion that while Ivo clearly wanted to "get a good grade in Taskmaster" (as lunasariel put it) -- he wanted to get it from Greg, the authority figure, while John, I think, wants to get a good grade in Taskmaster from the universe. But, anyway, so I started trying to deconstruct the different portions of the show and the ways in which John comes through in them; this is a totally mad undertaking, but since I have reached the end of John Taskmaster "canon" [until the next CoC, which won't be for a while], it seemed like the thing to do XD
Prize tasks -- this brings out racconteur John, which I really enjoy. I feel like there's a marked difference in how Nick, Sophie, and Joanne approach prize tasks vs Steve and John. I don't even mean the quality of the prize, though it often correlates, but with Joanne, Nick, and Sophie, they often lead with excuses/explanations, which is setting themselves up for failure, while John and Steve have a mini-presentation with each prize. Steve is obviouly the king of this category, both in terms of the effort put into the thing he brings in (most of the time) and in how he presents it -- cinematically, with dramatic tension. But John also always tries, and there's always a little story/pitch, even when it doesn't work, like with farthings or Faberge egg or memes or Kathy Burke. Prize tasks "salesman" John is one of my favorite Johns on the show, even if that's not the category where he dominates, or where his personality comes through most clearly -- I think maybe it's something he feels fairly comfortable doing, and that's why?
Pre-task (Alex's intro of the tasks, from entering the room to opening the task or occasionally "time starts now") -- I don't think I've ever noticed a contestant in this "segment" specifically or that it even was a separate segment, but this is actually my favorite John. Which is kind of weird on the one hand, but also kind of makes sense -- this is John in a fun-house with his friend Alex, anticipating the competition (which he seems to thrive on), without the pressure of doing well on the task (although based on what he's said on the Elis & John podcast and on Ed's podcast, I'm sure his brain is going at full RPM trying to guess what the task might be, from the way the envelope is presented, the location, etc.) And it's possible that some of the laughter while reading the tasks is tactical, buying himself a few extra fractions of a second to form a strategy (the way he read the task which had "your time started when Alex interrupted you" was definitely strategic, according to him). But I do think the laughter and enjoyment are also genuine -- he's just not that good at faking stuff, based on the rest of the show XD I feel like the moments of John looking happiest are all from these segments (and also some post-task segments when he thinks he's done well, like the throwing-back-his-head-and-laughing when Alex says he was just kidding about having to switch places for the darts-Twister task) -- coming up to give Alex a hug in the tension task, his delight at guessing the thumb war setup, holding hands with Alex in the mannequin task, the "interrupt" chase through the garden. He is so focused on performing (most of the time) in the actual tasks, and I think on trying not to look smug or upset in the studio, but this feels like John at his least guarded/most open, and it's adorable.
Objective tasks (including tie-breakers, I guess) -- This included: hoopla Gary (3, due to hubris in starting with the small hoops), chess piece tiebreaker (was second of three), rescue Patatas (4, thanks to a hack), stick the heaviest thing (0/DQ), Mr Blobby (4), jobstacle course (5, thanks to a hack), handshake (3), ties (3), fishing line (4), orange juice (5), flick-flip-flap (5), peg-bin-don (5), pegged tasks (4), hug special friend (3). This is interesting, because I was thinking that John performed more consistently top in the objective tasks, but while he did get a bunch of 5's, it's actually not as many as I thought, and also his worst performance was also in an objective task (the DQ). I did come away with the impression that John enjoyed the objective tasks more, but I don't know if that's true or if it's just that you get to see more of the process with the objective tasks, and John comes alive while competing. Anyway, I like watching objective-tasks!John, I think out of competence kink -- even when someone outscores him (hoopla, chess piece, Patatas, Mr Blobby, pegged tasks e.g.) he is being very efficient and focused, and rarely does stupid things, which is nice to watch (in a different way than people flailing uselessly, which of course can also be really fun). I find I especially enjoy watching him do the tasks with a physical component (oranges, flick-flip-flap, peg-bin-don), because you can really see him going full-out. From the podcasts, it sounds like he wanted more word games, but he clearly excels at physical tasks and also enjoys them, so those were fun to watch.
Subjective tasks -- This included: riskiest egg (5), tension (3), dot-to-dot (5, joint with Sophie), load bearer (4), dramatic photo (4, three-way tie), thumb war (3, tie with Nick), hamper picture (3), perform classical music (4), mannequin (3, tie with Nick), Assistant Day (3), back of head character (5). This is where John is least entertaining for me (on average), because I feel like these types of things play less well to his strengths. I loved his dot-to-dot picture, but I think part of that was also just the strategic thinking of picking a relatively simple picture and doing it at scale vs anything like artistic expression. He said on the podcast with Elis that back-of-head Freddie was his favorite task, and that was incredible, but: as I look over this list, I don't think any of these efforts made me laugh. I love his dramatic photo and rubber band harp tasks (and I think the former was underscored), but I love them not because they are funny or necessarily even all that entertaining compared to some of the madness the others got up to, but because they are so very John: very high effort, wanting things to be just right (trying to tune the rubber bands is the epitome of this, lol) -- but kind of compensating with effort for (lack of) natural flair (which is something I personally relate to a lot! because I feel like I'm a "creativity through thoroughness" person, too). (On a side note, I was rewatching something that included the "mid-air picture" task, and for the first time I heard not only Sophie saying "You really want this, don't you?" but also John going "Yeah" ruefully (which got lost under the general laughter the first times I watched it).) Some of these tasks I feel end up being kind of muddled (tension, thumb war, Assistant Day suit) because not everything can be accomplished with effort/attempt at lateral thinking, and some of the tasks that do end up scoring well I'm a bit meh on because they are clearly the result of strategic thinking rather than pure creative vision (the egg-driving task is the prime example of that, and I think gutter of Gregs also to some degree, though that one was the best of a lackluster bunch and should've actually won IMO -- and John said that was one of his favorite ones to do, because he thought he handled well something he didn't feel confident about being able to do -- be creative without preparation in front of other people --and it was an early task, so he found it reassuring). Even before I heard him say that, I got the sense that John feels less confident about the subjective tasks (which makes sense, they are subjective and harder to estimate, and it's not like you can get disqualified from them, so merely completing one is not a good indication that you are likely to get at least 2-3 points, the way it is with a lot of objective tasks, cf Joanne's scores) -- I'd love to get a look at his full spreadsheet and see if he more consistently underestimates subjective tasks, which would be my guess. But anyway, I think that combination of him wanting to do well but not really being in control of how he does makes John's subjective tasks less fun for me. And also when I think of the great subjective tasks over the series, the ones that stand out to me are either just plain shocking ones like Rhod's javelin, amazing performances from normally shit contestants (e.g. Mark and Nish's song, James's GTA game), or compelling mini-sketches (e.g. Liza and the box of masculinity) -- and the latter is not where John's strength is, and he is also quite predictable -- predictably quite good! but without the OMGWTF who let you do that or flights of genius that make for memorable high-scoring subjective tasks for me.
Team tasks -- this is the part I was most surprised by, because I was sort of expecting the Dara/Fern/Kearns combo of one very competitive, competent person trying to drag along a team that does not care NEARLY as much as he does. But whether because Joanne is actually quite good, despite her no-fucks approach, or because the producers have miraculously assembled a team-of-three that actually complements each other nicely as far as strengths and weaknesses vs the given tasks, or because John was trying very hard to be a gentleman (probably some combination) -- they seem to work together very nicely? I do think there are complementary strengths, because John does seem to have a tendency to overthink and second-guess, and Sophie and Joanne's more intuitive approach to the tasks provides a nice balance (while he tempers their impulsiveness) -- it's a nice synergy, when they are actually able to work together (i.e. not in the first team task). As John said on this last podcast about Sophie, "What she lacks in strategic thinking, she makes up for in gusto and good instincts" -- which is an excellent way to sum up Sophie, but I think that can be equally applied to Joanne, and that's why they made such a good team (as John himself agrees). [I think it was Jack on the People's podcast who proposed an alternate universe where John got saddled with both Sophie and Nick, but hm, I don't know that even that would've been all that terrible, though I do think Steve and Joanne would've made a similarly formidable team to the John-Joanne core of the current team of 3, because they would be similarly complementary. Someone -- I think also Jack, on another episode -- also proposed a Steve-Nick-Sophie team, which would've been completely non-functional, but they would've had so much fun!] Anyway, as a result of whatever team alchemy, team tasks!John is also a favorite of mine. In direct contrast to Dara, who always looked on edge of apoplexy when he had to work with Kearns and Fern, he seems weirdly more relaxed in the team tasks? (outside of the mad first one, and, well, we don't get to see the process at all for the greenscreen one, just the result). Like, John stuffing his face with cake (after he's already eaten enough for the task) is one of my favorite John moments on the series, and I don't see solo task!John doing that (see him refusing the biscuits in the "hug a friend" task) -- he's just too tightly wound. And, OK, it's easy to be in a good mood when executing a task that uniquely plays to your strengths, but he also seems so happy during the darts/Twister task, and more chill than in his solo efforts. And the watermelon task was chaotic, with all the bonus tasks going on, but I feel like even there John was less frantic than he normally is. Dunno if it's the company of others playing along on his side that's good for him, or if he was tapping into some coping strategies to deal with the mismatch in teammate attitudes and this was the result/side effect, but it was lovely to see.
Studio tasks -- John actually talked about this on the podcast with Elis, how when they go up on stage, his mind is going at top speed trying to figure out what the task will be, and that his mental monologue is like "WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN be calm WIN WIN WIN be nice WINWINWINWINWIN" But I think it's not coincidental that you don't get to see a lot of John in studio tasks except when it's turn by turn tasks and it's his turn -- he's just focused on efficiently doing the thing, so the camera lingers on others.
Studio non-task segments -- keeping in mind that he might've smiled and laughed more than was shown, as he claims (although I do think it's shown a fair bit, actually), and that some of the arguing about points did not make the edit -- I definitely sensed the most arc here, because (at least per the broadcast bits) he starts out very tense, and gradually relaxes and starts to smile and laugh more as the show goes on -- I do think in direct proportion to his mounting lead. Having now watched John throwing tantrums about Made Up Games -- even the present-day, sober John, who seems considerably chilled out relative to some of the older clips I listened to -- I was surprised (along with a lot of Reddit folks familiar with the podcast) at how little he was complaining about points on Taskmaster. I think the Reddit people have a good point, though -- on Made Up Games, he's playing against / complaining about a friend of 20 years who is very used to John being John -- as opposed to four strangers/near strangers (and in front of a much larger audience). I was definitely glad to see John relax a bit over the 10 episodes, and when he does reach a point where he's comfortable throwing back his head and laughing and clapping, in that way he has, it's rather nice.
Do I have a conclusion? I don't think I have a conclusion, except that I think my fondness for John comes from a different place than for my other favorite contestants -- for Rhod and Liza it was definitely dominated by filmed tasks, especially subjective ones, and that played more of a part with Victoria and Ivo, too, although for Ivo and Victoria the studio chat segments were a huge part of it as well. Whereas with John it seems to be the little interstitial moments that sold me on him the most.
Favorite John moments for the series, just going off memory: the entirety of the darts-Twister task, but with special callouts for the quietly smug "I was captain of the..." in the studio and John's face as he is watching Sophie's bottle flip attempts and "WHAT that was the first one?!" in reaction to Alex's trolling; getting kicked out of the Queens fan club outtake; John eating cake in the half-task team task; Alex chasing John to interrupt him physically (it's such a five-year-old-boys setup XD); John's face at the revelation of Greg's malteaser eating technique and subsequent adaptation for his giant one; flip-flap-flick albatross interlude (someone write me albatross-shifter!John XD No, seriously, it would be extremely fitting, and he would make Coleridge references, you know he would); John tuning the rubber-band harp; and weirdly John lying in the camp bed and attempting to turn his belt into a tie lasso or whatever he thought he could do with it.
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Series 18 cast: I actually recognize some of these names. I saw Babatunde on Richard Osman's House of Games (redemption week with Sophie Duker, I think?) I did not recognize Emma Sidi, but looked up the people when Reddit started talking about Ghosts alums, and I guess she was Kitty's sister. I don't really have any opinions on either of them based on that exposure, so knowing the names doesn't really help. The one name I recognized and had a reaction to was Rosie Jones. I've seen Rosie Jones on several panel-type things, although I can't remember which ones -- WILTY and QI maybe? -- and I found that I don't enjoy panels with her on them very much... but Ed and John were both really excited about her on Taskmaster, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised! In any case, I'm really curious to see what accommodations Taskmaster will be making / what sorts of tasks will be included to level the playing field for someone with CP (although someone on Reddit says she did comedian wrestling or something else that sounds fairly physically intensive, so maybe it's not as much of a problem as I was projecting based on some folks with CP I knew IRL (a friend of my brother's in elementary school, a classmate in uni, and a girl in one of B's classes a couple of unis ago). They navigated around Lenny's height and mobility pretty seamlessly, I thought, but that was just for one episode. As for the other two, I've heard of Jack Dee but don't think I've seen him in anything, and never even heard of Andy Zaltzman, but based on what John said on the podcast, that sounds like something to look forward to.
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Taskmaster Australia s02e02: Oh man, this is a raucous crew, especially compared to the UK s17 lineup. (Obviously I loved UK s17, but the contrast in vibe is pretty striking.) I mean, SPOILERS I don't think Greater Tom and Josh insulting each other's mothers is the height of comedy (although Lloyd putting in "From all the sex!" was pretty funny), but it was a very unexpected thing to witness on ?mainstream TV. The Wil and G.Tom banter was also quite fun, though I did feel a bit sorry for Wil in this episode, and thought he was being underscored on the subjective tasks.
Prize task (thing that makes your parents tut-tut): I did think Anne's deb dress was a worthy winner, and Lloyd's fireworks photo a worthy runner-up. I liked the general idea Jenny had, but I did think she made her own life harder by casting herself as the mean nurse.
Team task (lemons): Discount Wiggles had a great first team task and seem like an adorable team overall. Reddit dubbed Wil "Task Dad" for how encouraging he was being of his teammates, which cemented him being a favorite for me. G.Tom: "Have we accidentally invented a task that's a Welsh national sport?" Lloyd: "I think I was born to hoick citrus out of waste receptacles." to-- but that really was impressive. And the Anne/Lloyd/Wil threesome lore deepens with Wil saying "I was really attracted to him" and Anne getting out of her chair. I do think the team of two (Anne and Josh) were overscored with 3 points to the others' 5, when team of three had more than twice the quantity, but sure, why not. (I had to look up the hooley Dooleys when G.Tom mentioned them (although I prefer it when the teams are nicknamed for something they do, rather than just in opposition to the other team) and then "lemon party" after scrolling Reddit revealed there was a reference there I wasn't getting.)
Root vegetables -- OMG, they actually took Lloyd up on his smack talk, and then everyone did better at his chosen parsnip-throwing task than him -- beautiful XD (Also, I kept thinking of Kearns when he kept running around with his parsnip.) I'm glad Jenny wasn't penalized for using the other root vegetables to offset the glory of her celeriac. But yeah, Anne's song was definitely the most breathtaking. Also, the key to doing well was clearly googly eyes, since both Jenny (4 points) and Anne (5 points) used them. Josh had a nice idea with the battery, but of course it didn't actually work. And poor Wil with his beet proposal XD
Ball jars -- oho, G.Tom is employing negative points as punishment for quitting! which, yeah, I definitely did think that Jenny needed to be rewarded in some way for still completing the task, and while I figured he'd give her a bonus point, I suppose taking a point away from the quitters (Anne and Josh) is basically the same thing. I was also surprised that Wil, who used a funnel and did not scatter any balls, was only a little bit quicker than Lloyd, who had to gather all those scattered ones. Well, I'm glad Wil got to win a solo task, after poor scoring on the other ones.
Live task (painting with random crap from bathtub) -- I liked this task a lot! The two kinds of difficulty -- how hard it was to draw with the thing and how hard it was to find an easily-recognizable rhyming thing to draw was I think an interesting challenge. It's pretty clear Lloyd had lucked out on both counts, and Jenny I think did too, but I was impressed how well Anne managed to draw with her hat. No idea what a sponger is (Reddit says basically like what we'd call a moocher here), or how G.Tom guessed that, but glad that Wil got some points. Josh had a hard thing to rhyme and looks like also a hard thing to draw tih, so not surprised Tom didn't guess that one, but walking off (in a snit, but true to his word, and escorted by a celebrating Wil) cost him another point for no good reason. Well, I guess it's clear who's going to be the butt monkey this season.
I'm liking the mad energy of this series; people on Reddit have compared it to my beloved UK s7, and I can see why it's reminding people of that. So far no-one's massively won me over as a top favorite) (which is honestly a bit of a relief after being so invested in the victory of one contestant for the last 10 weeks XD), but Wil joins Jenny as a top favorite (maybe even overtaking her, though I do like them both), and Lloyd also grew on me over the course of this episode, and is thus solid third among my favorites. I said after the last episode that Josh made me laugh the most, but not in this one; he might be a diminishing returns kind of contestant for me, I'm starting to suspect, but we'll see.
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And there's some more Taskmaster content over on DW, and some nattering about Nebula nominees and Locus lists, , but this post got too large for LJ, so I'm skipping that.
Also, before I descend into Taskmaster nonsense, I was reminded that Rebecca Fraimow's delightful Lady Eve's Last Con, which I had so much fun with in ARC back in February is out now, and if you read it (you should!), come talk to me about it at at that post :D
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John Robins Taskmaster obsession level: refreshing the finale's Reddit thread as it was airing in the UK for a play-by-play experience, which is something I've previously only done for World Cup/Euro games when my particular favorites are playing. Taskmaster Reddit sadly does not provide a live update of the scores, but I could glean enough from the comments to SPOILER first be a bit worried and then reassured. But anyway, so I went into the episode with the knowledge that Sophie had won the episode (yay! that means everyone had at least one win, which looked improbable in the first half of the series!) and that John had broken Dara's record for total points scored (and also won the series), which was .
The episode was a lot of fun! First, it's always nice when a panel makes the effort to dress up for the final, and while this wasn't s9's black tie or s15's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band regalia, this was a nice bit of effort. Someone on Reddit pointed out it looked like Steve & Sophie and John & Joanne were two couples out on a date and Nick as their waiter (would read that fic. Waiter!Nick would probably be trying to do magic tricks throughout dinner.) My favorite outfit upgrade was Steve's -- what an elegant way to reproduce his tasking outfit but for real, and Sophie looked great in her dress (although it turned out to be a somewhat risque outfit for celebratory slutdropping XD Nick's reaction to her wardrobe malfunction was also great). Nick looked very cute in his bow-tie and jacket and vest. Joanne's zebra-print ?jumpsuit made me think primarily of Sophie's grandma prize, but, like, it was a good fit. And John's concession to dressing up was putting a jacket on over his usual sort of getup, I guess? Although it might've been a plain T-shirt underneath rather than a band tee and trousers rather than jeans? (He did mention on I think an Elis & John podcast that because he blew his entire wardrobe budget on the second Freddie Mercury jacket, his studio outfits were all just things he already owned for the most part. Elis pointed out that some nicer clothes popped up now and again, and John said this happened over time as his new girlfriend had more influence over his wardrobe. I wonder if the nice blue sweater was her idea, and this jacket.) Oh, and a surprisingly worthwhile observation from the YouTube comment section on the finale outfits: "4 of them look like they could be in an Agatha Christie murder mystery, while John looks like a boy who made a wish to go inside a Agatha Christie novel to solve crime." Yep! XD
Prize task -- this was a weird category, and so while I don't necessarily agree with Greg's scoring, I can't say I have firm opinions on what should have won either. My favorite was Nick's concept of fate -- I do find it reassuring, actually -- and of course he capped it off with the magic trick, which was extra neat. (Though I wonder if John did feel like Nick once again stole his thunder/attention away from him by having the memorable scores reveal thing be his magic trick and not John finally getting his hands on the trophy. That hadn't occurred to me until Reddit mentioned it (and John did not complain about it on Ed's podcast), but John HAS complained about Nick's Dracula costume upstaging his Freddie Mercury jacket I think every time the question of Taskmaster costumes has come up, so it wouldn't surprise me if he did feel that way.) Anyway, I think I would've scored Nick highly, and Steve, with his audacious "nothing" prize and that amazing monologue (featuring "John Robins probably winning Taskmaster" on his list of disasters (climate change, Brexit, pandemics, and the like) and John giving this kind of "yeah, probably" shrug, which seemed like a good way to handle it). If Steve had gotten 5 points (which I think he should have; that was an audacious gambit), Jack says he would've become the person who earned the most points from prize tasks; as it is, he is tied with Mawaan and Desiree for that top spot, and Lolly (in a shorter series) has a higher average prize score (which is hard to believe, given how phenomenal so many of Steve's prize tasks were). Sophie's "AI as hope for the future" take, represented by a little robot, was overscored, I think, but I enjoyed her having another dig at Greg. John (as he admitted on the podcast) did kind of flub that one -- it did sound like he was advocating for putting Kathy Burke in charge, not that everyone should be more like her (at least in the cut that went out); that's only the second 1 point score on ANY task for John this entire series, along with two DQs (one justified, on the chopping board, and one I think not, with the loo roll live task), which is pretty impressive. Oh, also, when Alex pipes up with Kathy Burke's Desert Island Disks choice being the first song at his wedding and John very much does not smile, that was kind of a telling moment, haha. I enjoyed Joanne's "basic bitch starter kit", which stood for putting women like her in charge of the world; I think it was overscored to get 5 points (although of the ones that I thought were good, it was the only really tangible one, which probably helped), but it was very Joanne. But the funniest thing about it was how Joanne then completely crashed and burned in the next task, rather spoiling her pitch for running the world (Greg: "Set the feminist movement back by years, I would say."). Greg's solution to give Nick fairly low points but reward him monetarily was definitely not something I had anticipated, and the exchange: "Do I have to donate it to charity?" "Nope!" was very funny. I wonder what Nick ended up doing with his 300 pounds.
Peg the tasks task -- So, Joanne, as mentioned, had a hilarious disaster, and then lost even her 1 point to DQ, which, as she said, didn't really matter all that much. Sophie's performance was very funny, but it was nice when she finally saw the arrow and was able to tidily complete the task. The guys all picked up on the clues fairly quickly (when I was rewatching, I kept an eye on John's face as Alex introduced the three of them being grouped together; John mentioned on Ed's podcast that he thought this was the task he had nailed and probably won, so I think this is his realization that the other two had also done it quickly), and it was interesting to see who alighted on which clue and did what with it. Nick noticed there were some underlined letters and eventually unscrambled them; John immediately noticed all the underlined letters in the task but couldn't figure them out and eventually just noticed the arrow and followed that -- no, noticed the arrow, yelled "Is it an arrow, Alex?!" demandingly for a bit (side note: I weirdly love John's demanding "Alex!" tone -- which is actually very similar to his demanding "Elis!" tone on the radio show/podcast; I don't even know what about it is so cute to me -- I think it's just the overones of "I'm displeased by a thing and I want you to pay attention to me and fix it!" sounds very little kid-calling-for-his-mom), concluded it was an arrow, and followed it to the shed -- and Steve instantly noticed the underlined letters and instantly unscrambled them into "SHED" and went ("Fuck this, I'm going to the shed"). So actually John and Sophie were the only ones who relied on the arrow vs the SHED unscrambling -- even Joanne eventually hot the SHED, not from underlined letters on the task, but from finding the large letters after opening all the pegged tasks. John on the podcast attributed Steve doing that faster than him to Steve's cryptic crossword prowess, and explained that he, John, has gotten into cryptic crosswords since. I wonder if that was in direct response to Steve's prize and therefore means the crossword prize actually paid off even more then, since it was "something you should get into." Anyway, phenomenal, and it sounds like John is already training for CoC with that XD) One final bit of DQ trolling from Alex ("All three were very pleased with themselves. [...] Sophie, you're safe"), which John rises to the bait of beautifully ("Oh, don't, don't, don't!", although he does look a bit less terrified than in the beginning of the series), but in the end it's 5-4-3 for Steve-John-Sophie, which feels fair. Oh, oh, and Nick's little smiley "Is that good?" before getting disqualified, too XD Poor Nick! (Nick is baffling to me as a contestant, I have to say. How is he dead last in a series that includes Sophie? He is so good at so many things -- he is very creative (second only to Steve, I think -- at least in terms of creativity that appeals to Greg, which is what matters for subjective tasks), he is musical (no competition), he can do magic, he clearly has an excellent memory, and he is FAST and agile -- I feel like he should've been a serious contender, and also, unlike someone like Nish, he doesn't get angry at failure and spiral/self-sabotage that way -- AND Greg is hugely partial to him. I think quite possibly the main thing hampering him is that he just doesn't care if he does well (per his philosophy that you learn more from failure than success), decided to do Taskmaster just to spend time with Steve (he basically said that on the podcast), and therefore just isn't trying to do well although he's trying hard.)
Hug your special friend -- I'm not sure I would've realized it without Reddit pointing it out before I watched, but this is a sort of less exciting take on "hide your special friend's body" task from NZ (which was epic! this is not nearly so epic). Sophie wanders into her 5 points by sheer luck; amazing XD Also, that she was expecting it to be her friend Amy again, as in the Mr Blobby task (Greg: "Have you not seen Amy for a while?" Alex, pointedly: "Or this show, ever.") The contrast between John and Nick was really funny (to the point I'm a bit surprised the two of them didn't get paired together) -- the biscuit! John's grumpiness even though he did quite well vs Nick's cheerful assessment that this "wasn't too bad. I feel I did middling on that" when he turned over every card XD I perked up when John found the compass, because I heard all about his bushcraft interests on the Elis & John podcast, so when he claimed that the compass was broken, I actually believed him! (didn't NZ have a task where they supplied them a compass that did not point north? yes!). But apparently John just forgot how to use a compass (he admitted on the Ed podcast, with some embarrassment) -- but "I'm right, your tools are just faulty" is also something I tend to default to, so I had to smile/facepalm at that. He also said that if he'd stuck with the rope approach, he thinks he would have found the mannequin faster, but it was too hot to run around (take off your leather jacket, John. Keeping that thing on in 38C heat is INSANE). John did grumpily eke out 3 points, and Greg's line to him about being "a Taskmaster nerd" and having "no time for whimsy; he wants to complete the task quickly and get the delicious points" made me laugh almost as much as it made John laugh (although his final grin there was a bit of a grimace XD). I also agree with Ed that John would win for "most tender hug" (and that it's nice to see John hugging a version of himself). Steve once again seemed to lose track of the parameters of the task, which seems to be his downfall a lot. But oh, production surprising Steve with a person inside the mannequin -- nicely played! XD Oh, and it was so funny Joanne being apprehensive about the walkie-talkie because "there was something earlier in the series that I thought was a walkie-talkie but it was a barbecue lighter. [laughter from the audience] I'm not in the army, OK!" XD Also, it's interesting that Nick and Steve, and to some extent Joanne, all tried to make some sense of the letters, looking for clues to guide them towards which to turn over. I guess if they had guessed the special friend was their MANNEQUIN, that woould've led them to all the useful things hidden under the letters?
Team task (American game show) -- oh god, Steve's "Poo Do You Think You Are?" idea XD and Nick going along with it under duress because Steve would just not be swayed XD Since I knew this obviously could not be real poo, I found it a lot less gross than the tasks which involve eating gross things for real, gorging, or flobber, but I can't say I ENJOYED watching that. Greg's taking-the-glasses-off levels of dismay and disappointment were beautiful though. I think team of 3 were slightly overscored on this -- I definitely think "Poo" had the better (if disgusting) catchphrases ("it's time to trade turds", "get the scoop on the poop") and deserved the bonus point, at least. Ed on the podcast said the team of 3's show idea sounded familiar, and John admitted it was a variation of a Made Up Game he and Elis played on a live show (which feels like cheating a bit, tbh, since it was a game made up by a listener -- ETA: John on the Elis & John podcast (#340) claims it's his own idea, that he personally came up with for Made Up Games, which, OK, I agree it's not cheating then.). (Elis: "This seems familiar." John: "This seems improved.") I did find John's American presenter (in a gold jacket!) persona, Chad Whopper (XD), extremely appropriate, even if his accent was... not great (where did you get "applaurse" John XD there is no R in "applause"). Hilarious that Nick just presented in his Dracula getup (I mean, why not XD); his American accent was much better, although it did tend to wander. The difference in enthusiasm levels between Nick and John as presenters was also hilarious. Random bit: someone on Reddit and then also Neil Talks pointed out (in that intro shot of the team of 3 standing together on the stage) that they are dressed in primary colors, which I hadn't noticed before. But actually they look like they could be a trio of children's entertainers, lol, Sophie in her dungarees and Joanne's colorful jump suit and even John would not look too much out of place.)
Live task -- LOL, what a note to end on, everyone crawling around back there XD I do really like live tasks where Greg gets in on the action, so that was nice to have, even if the task was not all that exciting. But more exciting than I was expecting, with Greg figuring Steve would not have moved more than 2 lanes because they're men of a similar age, and guessing correctly, and Steve indignantly retorting, "I went all the way over there and then came back!" Greg: "Sure you did." And nice to have Nick secure 5 points with his mind games with some final debonair winks at Greg -- Jack said, the first time Nick own a live task -- (while still coming in dead last in this episode (by 5 points to Steve) as well as the series (13 points between him and Sophie, 61 points (!!!) between him and John -- the biggest gap between first and last place of any series, I think). Oh, actually, my favorite thing about the live task might have been Steve "reading" it as "Guess the five ingredients of the stool of your neighbor" -- well played, Steve XD
Nick's score of 131 (which of course he guessed correctly/engineered/magicked into place -- I'm actually not sure how he did that, but people on Reddit who seem to know more about sleight of hand than I do are suggesting the latter, with switched envelopes during non-televised breaks and maybe some assistance) is tied with Ivo, and a little ahead of Lucy (129) and David Baddiel (128), and more ahead of Charlotte (125), Victoria (121), and Katherine Parkinson (118). Which is impressive in several different ways, lol. Oh, and Nick had tweeted 131 (sans context) on the day filming wrapped on the finale, and then re-tweeted it when the finale aired. John's final score, of course, is the highest ever. Ed mentioned Jack's stats on the podcast, and John said he's been enjoying them -- and indeed he'd reblogged the post-e9 stats Jack posted that showed all the metrics by which John was at the top of the lists.
John is tall and lanky enough that he is a rare winner who does not look ridiculous and Hobbit-like standing next to Greg at the end. I ejoyed the almost-reverent kiss on the mouth of the trophy (he's definitely not the first to do that, but still), and the hugs he got from his teammates, as well as the little hand-clasp thing with Joanne when he first went up to claim the head. It's nice to see the people who were probably most at risk of having their time spoiled by John's intensity/competitiveness rooting for him/happy that he won, including his nearest (admittedly not that near) competition.
I continue to be surprised that people don't like this series, and some were listing it on part with s8 (which I also don't like, although it's not my least favroite; that's s3) and s6 (which, hm. I have a soft spot for s6 because it was the very first series I watched, but I think even without that, it would not be anywhere near the bottom of my list because Liza is one of my favorite contestants ever, and was my favorite winner at least until this one -- I need to let my John obsession settle a bit to see if I can compare them fairly. I think while I was rooting harder for John (because he CARED about 1e10 more -- yes, I need to use scientific notation to express the disparity) -- and probably also because I was watching this real time and couldn't just reassure myself that he won right away -- I do think Liza was the more entertaining winner -- I think, 16 series on, I will remember a lot fewer of John's attempts than I do hers (though, again, my first Taskmaster memories are of her series, so maybe it's not a fair comparison -- but it's also true of her CoC appearance, so I do think it's just that she is brilliant). I do think s6 was relatively weak other than that; I didn't much like Russell Howard, Tim Vine, or Asim, and I did like Alice a lot, but she didn't seem to be enjoying herself after a while, which makes it harder for me to enjoy someone's performance. But this series, s17 -- in addition to John's unstoppable performance (which I can see some people finding a bit light on entertainment value, that's fair; my enjoyment of it comes from a different place than my enjoyment of most of my favorite Taskmaster contestants) -- but you've got the combination of incredible charm, sweetness, talent, and surprising incompetence that is Nick! you've got Sophie's adorable and good-natured bumbling (up through the very end, emphasis on "bum")! the flashes of brilliance and consistent hilarious phrases from Joanne! Steve's next-level prize tasks and cinematic masterpieces! Meanwhile, Reddit clearly loved s16 more than I did; I mean, I enjoyed it, and the Team of Sue and both of the Sues individually were definitely highlights for me, but it is nowhere near the top of my list of favorite series, the way it seems to be for a lot of people. I get the concept of differences in taste, just, huh.
I was looking forward to Ed's podcast, with the winner's traditional appearance, almost as much as I was looking forward to the finale (especially since it was John's first appearance on Ed's podcast that sent me down the John-obsession rabbit hole -- I think it was when they talked about the spreadsheet XD), and it didn't disappoint. I think I've captured most of the things I noted down above, but among the things that weren't specific to the episode: Sometimes Ed talks to a winner and they've forgotten a lot of the tasks (Morgana was a particularly remarkable example of this). Not John! John had a perfect recollection, especially of his failures, and/or had his spreadsheet open in front of him (and probably both; I think Ed said he had the spreadsheet, but it didn't sound like he needed to consult it for the tasks where he thought he could've done better). He is definitely not over the loo roll disqualification, or the chopping board failure. And John said he texted Alex about 20 times about the shaking hands task, lol (to no avail). He is also clearly not over the alcohol-free rum, which I do feel is quite fair to be annoyed about. John and Ed commiserated that earning the most points tends to correlate inversely with entertainment value. John's rankings of entertainment value were Sophie (narrowly), Nick and Joanne as a tie, then Steve, and then himself. I was surprised to hear that John had not watched Ed's CoC II appearnace, when he'd made a point of cramming for Taskmaster. That aired in late June 2022. John said the studio taping had been 9 months ago (so, kinda mid 2023), and it sounds like the tasks are filmed 5-6 months before the studio records (based on how long Alex said Kearns had had to live with the secret of his betrayal), so, early 2023? Which would've been plenty of time to watch CoC II. It also sounds like John did not watch the international TM series. The one that would've been helpful, the orange juice task on TM AU s1, would not have been aired yet (even to be pirated), but still -- you can never have too much data! Oh, and John raved about Nick's thigh, which Ed said he's going to have to squeeze at the next opportunity, and again talked about how naturally funny Joane was, comparing her gift for impromptu comedic phrasing with Ivo's (and another person whom I don't know). It sounds like John would make a good "Taskmaster coach", were that a thing that anyone was in the market for, LOL. But also, I found it really interesting to hear him talk about how being focused on a task in that time-bound space was almost therapeutic, and how he'd love to live his life that way (and also with the addition of people to bring him lunch and make his hair look nice) -- because being focused on tasks was a respite from thoughts (in a similar way he talked about cryptic crosswords). In conclusion: "I was ready for Taskmaster when Taskmaster came, And if it had come any earlier, I might have disgraced myself." Oh, John ♥
I was also looking forward to the Friday edition of the Elis & John podcast (#338), because I figured there would be some Taskmaster chat. I did not expect Elis and Dave to have turned like 80% of the episode into a celebration of John's performance, with bespoke John-centric Taskmaster stats from the guy who does the stats for their Made Up Games, taped congrats from past winners, and a surprise appearance (live in the studio) from Sophie -- so now both of John's team mates have appeared on the podcast. (As a side note, I've been periodically sharing John facts with L, from the standpoint of "this is the guy who is as competitive about nonsense as I am", and made her watch the darts-Twister task, and when I told her John's cohost arranged for a special celebration for John's win, she said, "He invited Freddie Mercury's ghost?" And she didn't even watch the series, she just recognized the jacket XD) There was also just a lot of Taskmaster chat among the three regulars. Elis continues to be very amused by what he descries as John's "death mask" face of intense concentration ("I'll tell you one thing I'll miss: the look of glazed focus on your face."), and which John concedes is the appearance of "ferocious mental arithmetic" (called it!). John complained a little that he smiled and laughed more in the studio than the edit showed, presumably because they were trying to create a particular narrative. John (not even very defensively) said he thought he was OK in the studio, "I was never rude to anyone, never angry; I was scared sometimes" when Alex and Greg would troll him about DQs (aww, bless XD), not arguing about people's points (whispers: "there might've been a bit of that that didn't make the edit"). Elis asked him where he was keeping the trophy, since it had to be out of sight to preserve the secrecy; apparently in his bedroom (lol). Dave: "Where is it going to go now? on your roof?" "I might have to get a plinth made" (because it's too big to go on his awards shelf). He also mentioned the possibility of acquiring the Greg's body CoC trophy to hold it ("like a Transformer"), but also said that Richard Herring was the only one who took it home, lol. Meanwhile, I was very amused to see, via John's Instagram, that he dragged the Taskmaster head to the live show he and Elis were doing a couple of days after the finale.
Speaking of, the past champions greetings were from Richard Herring (who joked/preened about winning CoC), Lou, Sarah Kendall (which was the one John seemed to be the most touched by/excited about), Sam (being his completely gonzo self, with many bleeps), Josh (who also mentioned CoC), and Kerry (with fellow Dragonlord advice about people who comment to quibble over which points were fair or not, and "no day has been as happy as the day I won Taskmaster", awww XD). Ed, of course, had already congratulated John on the podcast. But notably absent were the other two most competitive recent winners, Mae and Dara, heh. John remarked that the two CoC winners who left greetings seemed to be the least humble and began reflecting on whether he even wants to win CoC given that: "Do I want to win Champion of Champions, because... Well obviously I want to, but do I want to BE that person?" Elis: "You've been that person your whole life." "But do I want a 6 foot statue to remind me I'm that person?" Elis (in tones of stating the obvious): "Yeah?" John: "Yeah, yeah, I do. You're absolutely right." XD <3
John was really excited to see Sophie, as was Elis -- apparently Isy, his wife, loved watching her best. And Elis also told Sophie he's more like Sophie in his approach and "John batters me every week" -- which does not seem to actually reflect reality, as Elis has been winning the Made Up Games since I've started listening. Elis asked for some behind-the-scenes dirt on the team tasks, but Sophie was quite complimentary, and only called out the greenscreen task -- "there was one moment where he got a little bit stressed, where he got intense" where John started a long discussion with the production crew, and Joanne and Sophie went on a smoke break, came back, he was still having the chat, so they went off to have another cigarette (Elis: "Did you smoke before Taskmaster?"). John thought his grumpiest moment ("where I was really struggling to be surfer dude John" Elis: "Would love to meet him." Sophie: "Have you got surfer dude John? I've never met him" XD) was in the darts task, when Joanne tried to usurp his rightful position, and we did get to see that. Sophie also provided some great background commentary for the stats nerdery: "This is like your love language, this. You look so happy." John: "Maybe my obituary can just be an enormous volume of statistics." Sophie: "And a graph." The stats guy also mentioned that John's score of 22 out of a possible 25 (88%) in his highest ep was equaled by Adrian Chiles (who frequently appears on Elis & John's show); John, breezily, "New Year's Treat doesn't count, carry on" -- but of course Dara had his perfect 30 episode, which John has not come close to equaling. The stats guy also calculated a "Robins complaint ratio" of 11% on Taskmaster vs 40% on Made Up Games XD Moving on from stats, horses come up and, and John mentioned being uncomfortable around horses since seeing one running mad in a field. Sophie also told a completely unrelated (it was for a different segment she stuck around for) but hilarious anecdote about being caught having sex outside.
And there was a lot of House of Games talk, because Elis, John, and Sophie had all appeared. I've watched the John and Elis ones and now have to track down the Sophie one, I guess (ETA: oh, it hasn't aired yet, looks like she's on series 8, as is Sam Campbell) -- she thought it was going to be a different show XD kind of like Taskmaster John won his week, and I was surprised to hear that he filmed the first 3 episodes -- all filmed on the first day, and featuring two of his wins -- "catastrophically hungover". Apparently he also donated his smoking jacket and tie to a charity shop, but kept the suitcase. He said that Dom Joly, whom he was competing against him, is the only person he's met in real life who is more competitive than him -- and he was certainly less gracious. And John sounds a bit bitter that he hasn't been invited back for the House of Champions ROHOG.
In conclusion: "They all [the other contestants] were so lovely. [...] I wish I could do it all again." Dave: "Do you? No you don't." John: "Yeah. I would've done better on the hanging the thing on the--" Elis and Dave talking over each other and over John -- Elis: "John... you did well." Dave: "I can't believe--" John: "Yeah, but if I hadn't gotten disqualified, I could've gotten 10 more points--" [Was he aiming to break 200???] Dave: "John! Stop talking!" Elis: "It doesn't matter. That minor failure over the course of the series does not define you. What defines you is your death mask stare of concentration." (And this is why I've been completely won over by Elis and their podcast (including Producer Dave), as a side effect of my John obsession/stalking. Because John clearly needs a chorus to follow him around, telling him "it doesn't matter" and "you did well" and occasionally "stop talking" XD)
And then John mentioned on the podcast with Elis that he also went on the People's Podcast, so then I was even more excited to hear that -- which I was already excited because I wanted to hear all the record-breaking stats from Jack -- but turns out that's NEXT WEEK's episode of the Jack & Jenny poodcast (Jenny: "What are we going to talk about, Jack?" Jack: "Spreadsheets, baby!" CANNOT WAIT, genuinely, and I hope that the reason John hasn't shared his Taskmaster spreadsheet in full yet is that it's waiting for this episode of The People's Podcast), and this was just the regular episode review and stats. (That makes sense, actually. Unlike Ed's podcast, they do the show weekly whether there's a new series airing or not, so it makes sense to have a special guest on a no-new-episode week.)
Which was also very interesting, of course (Bluesky thread, although I'm referencing the longer Twitter thread, it's just annoying to link to; Jack's spreadsheet link). I'm sure John will enjoy going into all of that during his appearance on the podcast, but his records are largest ever margin of victory (and I was thinking that even in a relatively "bad" episode for him as this last one was, where Greg started off giving him 1 point to Joanne's 5, John STILL managed to increase his lead over her, albeit by just one point), highest objectively judged task score (4.04!!), highest points per task score (3.84), highest percentage of points won in a series (24.27%). And he never got less than 17 points in ANY of the 10 episodes, which is also a new record; previous record holder was Sarah Millican with 15 (which is also damn impressive). And this is not a metric Jack tracks, but I got curious and looked myself: in his worst episodes (ep 2 where he was disqualified and came in tied for 3rd after the DQ, ep 6 where he was 3rd, and ep 10 where he was 2nd but with a relatively large gap to the winner) -- he was NEVER more than 4 points short of the winning score. Dara, by contrast, had some episodes where he was 9 or even 12 points behind (episode 6, episode 8). That consistency again. Jack makes the very interesting point that John WON (got 5 on) many fewer solo tasks than Dara and than a lot of other contestants, both winners (Liza, Bob, Sam, Noel, Ed, Mae) and non-winners who tended to be brilliant as often as they crashed and burned (Bridget, Rhod, James, Daisy, Iain) -- he is tied with Russell Howard, Desiree, Chris Ramsey, and Sarah Millican at 12 tasks won, while Dara won 17 (!). But unlike a lot of these other people, John just didn't tend to LOSE tasks. Jack pointed out that other than the DQ on the chopping board, John had scored 3+ points on every filmed task. Jack didn't do that stat, but other than the (frankly unfair) DQ in the loo roll task, John also got 3+ in every live task (for an impressive 3.90 point per task in the live tasks, which puts him 5th (tied with Jenny and Richard Herring) behind Guz, Doc Brown, Dara, and Katherine Ryan but the rabbits points were weird so one can't really compare Katherine -- and again, I think that would've been more like tied with Dara if the loo roll task had been scored properly, because I think he was set to get 4 points behind Steve on that one; and yes, I'm possibly as hung up on that as John himself is). His solo filmed task PPT is 3.78, just behind Ed, Dara, and Chris (who has an amazing 4.04, even with that one disastrous episode he had), and his prize score is a fairly respectable 3.20, which is not a top 10 kind of score but puts him around the same place as Ed and Sarah Millican -- but he was also competing against one of the best prize taskers of all time in Steve and I do think Greg WAS judging down some of his prize tasks towards the end -- I mean, they were not unassailably great or anything, but I do think there were prize tasks where John got 1-2 points where he deserved a bit more (not the farthings, though; dunno what that was but that one absolutely deserved 1 point).
Jack makes the point that where John really had an advantage over Dara were the team tasks -- Dara actually outscored John on solo tasks (per task AND total, despite having one less solo task, Jack says, but I'd kind of like to see his numbers on the two-parters and how he is counting those, because while s17 had several two-parters, only one part of those things like the hamper task got an actual score) but John got 14 points more than Dara from team tasks and John's PPT score from team tasks was 4.88 vs Dara's 2.78 (OUCH). Now, there were factors there -- there were 3 bonus points in s17 that happened to fall on team tasks (which I wonder if Jack is counting in these totals; I'm too lazy to do the math myself), and Dara's series had the team betrayal task which introduced an unusual dynamic. But it is very true that John's team of 3 was very successful (in terms of points per task it is second only to Mae's team of 3 in s15, and the two are tied for gap to the other team -- but Mae's team also had that weird opportunity to earn 10 points in a live team task, which skews things considerably), and Dara's was a disaster. But some of the disaster was Dara himself -- he was the one who screwed up the elephants/giraffees task, although I'm sure having to work with Kearns and Fern would drive anyone to confusion. Meanwhile, I do think John's team of 3 had good synergy, like I said above, but they would've been rudderless withot John. So I don't know that it's fair to say that the team brought John's points average up -- it can just as easily be that team tasks were another thing John was consistently good at. (It is, however, absolutely fair to say that the team brought Dara's points DOWN. There is the literal case of Kearns's betrayal, but also "which aircraft crashes more into mountains" might as well have been deliberate sabotage for all that it was just Kearns.) Of course, the true controlled experiment would be to have John (Robins) saddled with a team of Fern and John Kearns, and I would love to see what wold happen in that scenario. JR actually listed Kearns as one of the comics he'd like to live with (for a laugh), but I'm not confident that even this new, relatively chill, best-behavior-on-national-television John Robins would not murder Kearns at some point during a team task XD
Some more fascinating stats from Jack on the series: the POINTS gap between first and last (61 points) is record-breaking and 14 more than the previous largest gap (47 is S12, lol, poor VCM), but -- and this is the fascinating part -- John only won 5 more solo tasks than Nick (12 to 7), which is the smallest gap by that metric. This is another testament, I think, to how important it is to be consistent (like John) vs occasionally brilliant (like Nick and Steve). This was clearly a deliberate strategy (to hear John talk about it on podcasts), and it clearly works. There were more subjective than objective tasks this series (only s9 had more subjectively judged tasks) -- which I do think makes John's win even more impressive, because he was clearly stronger on objective ones and had much stronger competition there, between Steve's Spielbergean skillz and Greg's crush on Nick. Sophie received the lowest PPT on subjective tasks, which is also not surprising -- Greg just didn't seem to "get" her, as has happened in the past with some contestants like Munya. Jack claims points inflation is back, with 15.82 total points per task, and that being the highest in all series (counting double tasks as two tasks), which is interesting, because I don't think it "felt" like that, except in team tasks, where Greg seems to be pretty consistently giving the top team 5 points now, and the other team also 2-3, which is a lot more generous. I think the other thing is that this series had a lot of bonus points up for grabs -- everyon got the 2 bonus secret task points, and the team of 3 got the game show bonus point, so that's 13 bonus points -- that's a lot added to the total (the most ever, according to Jack's spreadsheet, if I'm using column BJ correctly). Jack also pointed out that there were no (solo or team) winner-takes-all tasks this series, which probably helped both with the points per task and also helped John given his "just don't lose" strategy would not work well in a winner-takes-all task.
John Robins Taskmaster deep dive that nobody asked for:
So I've been thinking about my John obsession and how the ways in which he appeals to me are different from the way most of my favorite contestants do. I have a lot of favorites at this point, but if I were to name the top couple where it's not even a doubt they're in my top 5, it would be Rhod, Ivo, Liza, and Victoria -- which, you know, it's a pretty different bunch, except that Ivo and Victoria -- and John, who seems very likely to join this level of favorite even once the recency bias wears off -- all went to Oxford (University College, St John's, and St Anne's respectively) [Liza apparently attended RADA, and Rhod Exeter]. I mean, John shares a few traits with some of the others, but not a ton, and the strongest thing is probably the desperation to do well with Ivo -- but in other respects they are very different (I forget on which podcast that was, but John talked about if he could harness Ivo's energy and just, like, point him in a coherent direction, and, you know, a John-Ivo team of two is one I would be very curious to see on AU!Taskmaster. I think they'd get carried away and aim too high and crash, though, because I think their worst tendencies would compound.) I was talking to lunasariel about this (who has not seen this series yet), and I/we came to the conclusion that while Ivo clearly wanted to "get a good grade in Taskmaster" (as lunasariel put it) -- he wanted to get it from Greg, the authority figure, while John, I think, wants to get a good grade in Taskmaster from the universe. But, anyway, so I started trying to deconstruct the different portions of the show and the ways in which John comes through in them; this is a totally mad undertaking, but since I have reached the end of John Taskmaster "canon" [until the next CoC, which won't be for a while], it seemed like the thing to do XD
Prize tasks -- this brings out racconteur John, which I really enjoy. I feel like there's a marked difference in how Nick, Sophie, and Joanne approach prize tasks vs Steve and John. I don't even mean the quality of the prize, though it often correlates, but with Joanne, Nick, and Sophie, they often lead with excuses/explanations, which is setting themselves up for failure, while John and Steve have a mini-presentation with each prize. Steve is obviouly the king of this category, both in terms of the effort put into the thing he brings in (most of the time) and in how he presents it -- cinematically, with dramatic tension. But John also always tries, and there's always a little story/pitch, even when it doesn't work, like with farthings or Faberge egg or memes or Kathy Burke. Prize tasks "salesman" John is one of my favorite Johns on the show, even if that's not the category where he dominates, or where his personality comes through most clearly -- I think maybe it's something he feels fairly comfortable doing, and that's why?
Pre-task (Alex's intro of the tasks, from entering the room to opening the task or occasionally "time starts now") -- I don't think I've ever noticed a contestant in this "segment" specifically or that it even was a separate segment, but this is actually my favorite John. Which is kind of weird on the one hand, but also kind of makes sense -- this is John in a fun-house with his friend Alex, anticipating the competition (which he seems to thrive on), without the pressure of doing well on the task (although based on what he's said on the Elis & John podcast and on Ed's podcast, I'm sure his brain is going at full RPM trying to guess what the task might be, from the way the envelope is presented, the location, etc.) And it's possible that some of the laughter while reading the tasks is tactical, buying himself a few extra fractions of a second to form a strategy (the way he read the task which had "your time started when Alex interrupted you" was definitely strategic, according to him). But I do think the laughter and enjoyment are also genuine -- he's just not that good at faking stuff, based on the rest of the show XD I feel like the moments of John looking happiest are all from these segments (and also some post-task segments when he thinks he's done well, like the throwing-back-his-head-and-laughing when Alex says he was just kidding about having to switch places for the darts-Twister task) -- coming up to give Alex a hug in the tension task, his delight at guessing the thumb war setup, holding hands with Alex in the mannequin task, the "interrupt" chase through the garden. He is so focused on performing (most of the time) in the actual tasks, and I think on trying not to look smug or upset in the studio, but this feels like John at his least guarded/most open, and it's adorable.
Objective tasks (including tie-breakers, I guess) -- This included: hoopla Gary (3, due to hubris in starting with the small hoops), chess piece tiebreaker (was second of three), rescue Patatas (4, thanks to a hack), stick the heaviest thing (0/DQ), Mr Blobby (4), jobstacle course (5, thanks to a hack), handshake (3), ties (3), fishing line (4), orange juice (5), flick-flip-flap (5), peg-bin-don (5), pegged tasks (4), hug special friend (3). This is interesting, because I was thinking that John performed more consistently top in the objective tasks, but while he did get a bunch of 5's, it's actually not as many as I thought, and also his worst performance was also in an objective task (the DQ). I did come away with the impression that John enjoyed the objective tasks more, but I don't know if that's true or if it's just that you get to see more of the process with the objective tasks, and John comes alive while competing. Anyway, I like watching objective-tasks!John, I think out of competence kink -- even when someone outscores him (hoopla, chess piece, Patatas, Mr Blobby, pegged tasks e.g.) he is being very efficient and focused, and rarely does stupid things, which is nice to watch (in a different way than people flailing uselessly, which of course can also be really fun). I find I especially enjoy watching him do the tasks with a physical component (oranges, flick-flip-flap, peg-bin-don), because you can really see him going full-out. From the podcasts, it sounds like he wanted more word games, but he clearly excels at physical tasks and also enjoys them, so those were fun to watch.
Subjective tasks -- This included: riskiest egg (5), tension (3), dot-to-dot (5, joint with Sophie), load bearer (4), dramatic photo (4, three-way tie), thumb war (3, tie with Nick), hamper picture (3), perform classical music (4), mannequin (3, tie with Nick), Assistant Day (3), back of head character (5). This is where John is least entertaining for me (on average), because I feel like these types of things play less well to his strengths. I loved his dot-to-dot picture, but I think part of that was also just the strategic thinking of picking a relatively simple picture and doing it at scale vs anything like artistic expression. He said on the podcast with Elis that back-of-head Freddie was his favorite task, and that was incredible, but: as I look over this list, I don't think any of these efforts made me laugh. I love his dramatic photo and rubber band harp tasks (and I think the former was underscored), but I love them not because they are funny or necessarily even all that entertaining compared to some of the madness the others got up to, but because they are so very John: very high effort, wanting things to be just right (trying to tune the rubber bands is the epitome of this, lol) -- but kind of compensating with effort for (lack of) natural flair (which is something I personally relate to a lot! because I feel like I'm a "creativity through thoroughness" person, too). (On a side note, I was rewatching something that included the "mid-air picture" task, and for the first time I heard not only Sophie saying "You really want this, don't you?" but also John going "Yeah" ruefully (which got lost under the general laughter the first times I watched it).) Some of these tasks I feel end up being kind of muddled (tension, thumb war, Assistant Day suit) because not everything can be accomplished with effort/attempt at lateral thinking, and some of the tasks that do end up scoring well I'm a bit meh on because they are clearly the result of strategic thinking rather than pure creative vision (the egg-driving task is the prime example of that, and I think gutter of Gregs also to some degree, though that one was the best of a lackluster bunch and should've actually won IMO -- and John said that was one of his favorite ones to do, because he thought he handled well something he didn't feel confident about being able to do -- be creative without preparation in front of other people --and it was an early task, so he found it reassuring). Even before I heard him say that, I got the sense that John feels less confident about the subjective tasks (which makes sense, they are subjective and harder to estimate, and it's not like you can get disqualified from them, so merely completing one is not a good indication that you are likely to get at least 2-3 points, the way it is with a lot of objective tasks, cf Joanne's scores) -- I'd love to get a look at his full spreadsheet and see if he more consistently underestimates subjective tasks, which would be my guess. But anyway, I think that combination of him wanting to do well but not really being in control of how he does makes John's subjective tasks less fun for me. And also when I think of the great subjective tasks over the series, the ones that stand out to me are either just plain shocking ones like Rhod's javelin, amazing performances from normally shit contestants (e.g. Mark and Nish's song, James's GTA game), or compelling mini-sketches (e.g. Liza and the box of masculinity) -- and the latter is not where John's strength is, and he is also quite predictable -- predictably quite good! but without the OMGWTF who let you do that or flights of genius that make for memorable high-scoring subjective tasks for me.
Team tasks -- this is the part I was most surprised by, because I was sort of expecting the Dara/Fern/Kearns combo of one very competitive, competent person trying to drag along a team that does not care NEARLY as much as he does. But whether because Joanne is actually quite good, despite her no-fucks approach, or because the producers have miraculously assembled a team-of-three that actually complements each other nicely as far as strengths and weaknesses vs the given tasks, or because John was trying very hard to be a gentleman (probably some combination) -- they seem to work together very nicely? I do think there are complementary strengths, because John does seem to have a tendency to overthink and second-guess, and Sophie and Joanne's more intuitive approach to the tasks provides a nice balance (while he tempers their impulsiveness) -- it's a nice synergy, when they are actually able to work together (i.e. not in the first team task). As John said on this last podcast about Sophie, "What she lacks in strategic thinking, she makes up for in gusto and good instincts" -- which is an excellent way to sum up Sophie, but I think that can be equally applied to Joanne, and that's why they made such a good team (as John himself agrees). [I think it was Jack on the People's podcast who proposed an alternate universe where John got saddled with both Sophie and Nick, but hm, I don't know that even that would've been all that terrible, though I do think Steve and Joanne would've made a similarly formidable team to the John-Joanne core of the current team of 3, because they would be similarly complementary. Someone -- I think also Jack, on another episode -- also proposed a Steve-Nick-Sophie team, which would've been completely non-functional, but they would've had so much fun!] Anyway, as a result of whatever team alchemy, team tasks!John is also a favorite of mine. In direct contrast to Dara, who always looked on edge of apoplexy when he had to work with Kearns and Fern, he seems weirdly more relaxed in the team tasks? (outside of the mad first one, and, well, we don't get to see the process at all for the greenscreen one, just the result). Like, John stuffing his face with cake (after he's already eaten enough for the task) is one of my favorite John moments on the series, and I don't see solo task!John doing that (see him refusing the biscuits in the "hug a friend" task) -- he's just too tightly wound. And, OK, it's easy to be in a good mood when executing a task that uniquely plays to your strengths, but he also seems so happy during the darts/Twister task, and more chill than in his solo efforts. And the watermelon task was chaotic, with all the bonus tasks going on, but I feel like even there John was less frantic than he normally is. Dunno if it's the company of others playing along on his side that's good for him, or if he was tapping into some coping strategies to deal with the mismatch in teammate attitudes and this was the result/side effect, but it was lovely to see.
Studio tasks -- John actually talked about this on the podcast with Elis, how when they go up on stage, his mind is going at top speed trying to figure out what the task will be, and that his mental monologue is like "WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN be calm WIN WIN WIN be nice WINWINWINWINWIN" But I think it's not coincidental that you don't get to see a lot of John in studio tasks except when it's turn by turn tasks and it's his turn -- he's just focused on efficiently doing the thing, so the camera lingers on others.
Studio non-task segments -- keeping in mind that he might've smiled and laughed more than was shown, as he claims (although I do think it's shown a fair bit, actually), and that some of the arguing about points did not make the edit -- I definitely sensed the most arc here, because (at least per the broadcast bits) he starts out very tense, and gradually relaxes and starts to smile and laugh more as the show goes on -- I do think in direct proportion to his mounting lead. Having now watched John throwing tantrums about Made Up Games -- even the present-day, sober John, who seems considerably chilled out relative to some of the older clips I listened to -- I was surprised (along with a lot of Reddit folks familiar with the podcast) at how little he was complaining about points on Taskmaster. I think the Reddit people have a good point, though -- on Made Up Games, he's playing against / complaining about a friend of 20 years who is very used to John being John -- as opposed to four strangers/near strangers (and in front of a much larger audience). I was definitely glad to see John relax a bit over the 10 episodes, and when he does reach a point where he's comfortable throwing back his head and laughing and clapping, in that way he has, it's rather nice.
Do I have a conclusion? I don't think I have a conclusion, except that I think my fondness for John comes from a different place than for my other favorite contestants -- for Rhod and Liza it was definitely dominated by filmed tasks, especially subjective ones, and that played more of a part with Victoria and Ivo, too, although for Ivo and Victoria the studio chat segments were a huge part of it as well. Whereas with John it seems to be the little interstitial moments that sold me on him the most.
Favorite John moments for the series, just going off memory: the entirety of the darts-Twister task, but with special callouts for the quietly smug "I was captain of the..." in the studio and John's face as he is watching Sophie's bottle flip attempts and "WHAT that was the first one?!" in reaction to Alex's trolling; getting kicked out of the Queens fan club outtake; John eating cake in the half-task team task; Alex chasing John to interrupt him physically (it's such a five-year-old-boys setup XD); John's face at the revelation of Greg's malteaser eating technique and subsequent adaptation for his giant one; flip-flap-flick albatross interlude (someone write me albatross-shifter!John XD No, seriously, it would be extremely fitting, and he would make Coleridge references, you know he would); John tuning the rubber-band harp; and weirdly John lying in the camp bed and attempting to turn his belt into a tie lasso or whatever he thought he could do with it.
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Series 18 cast: I actually recognize some of these names. I saw Babatunde on Richard Osman's House of Games (redemption week with Sophie Duker, I think?) I did not recognize Emma Sidi, but looked up the people when Reddit started talking about Ghosts alums, and I guess she was Kitty's sister. I don't really have any opinions on either of them based on that exposure, so knowing the names doesn't really help. The one name I recognized and had a reaction to was Rosie Jones. I've seen Rosie Jones on several panel-type things, although I can't remember which ones -- WILTY and QI maybe? -- and I found that I don't enjoy panels with her on them very much... but Ed and John were both really excited about her on Taskmaster, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised! In any case, I'm really curious to see what accommodations Taskmaster will be making / what sorts of tasks will be included to level the playing field for someone with CP (although someone on Reddit says she did comedian wrestling or something else that sounds fairly physically intensive, so maybe it's not as much of a problem as I was projecting based on some folks with CP I knew IRL (a friend of my brother's in elementary school, a classmate in uni, and a girl in one of B's classes a couple of unis ago). They navigated around Lenny's height and mobility pretty seamlessly, I thought, but that was just for one episode. As for the other two, I've heard of Jack Dee but don't think I've seen him in anything, and never even heard of Andy Zaltzman, but based on what John said on the podcast, that sounds like something to look forward to.
**
Taskmaster Australia s02e02: Oh man, this is a raucous crew, especially compared to the UK s17 lineup. (Obviously I loved UK s17, but the contrast in vibe is pretty striking.) I mean, SPOILERS I don't think Greater Tom and Josh insulting each other's mothers is the height of comedy (although Lloyd putting in "From all the sex!" was pretty funny), but it was a very unexpected thing to witness on ?mainstream TV. The Wil and G.Tom banter was also quite fun, though I did feel a bit sorry for Wil in this episode, and thought he was being underscored on the subjective tasks.
Prize task (thing that makes your parents tut-tut): I did think Anne's deb dress was a worthy winner, and Lloyd's fireworks photo a worthy runner-up. I liked the general idea Jenny had, but I did think she made her own life harder by casting herself as the mean nurse.
Team task (lemons): Discount Wiggles had a great first team task and seem like an adorable team overall. Reddit dubbed Wil "Task Dad" for how encouraging he was being of his teammates, which cemented him being a favorite for me. G.Tom: "Have we accidentally invented a task that's a Welsh national sport?" Lloyd: "I think I was born to hoick citrus out of waste receptacles." to-- but that really was impressive. And the Anne/Lloyd/Wil threesome lore deepens with Wil saying "I was really attracted to him" and Anne getting out of her chair. I do think the team of two (Anne and Josh) were overscored with 3 points to the others' 5, when team of three had more than twice the quantity, but sure, why not. (I had to look up the hooley Dooleys when G.Tom mentioned them (although I prefer it when the teams are nicknamed for something they do, rather than just in opposition to the other team) and then "lemon party" after scrolling Reddit revealed there was a reference there I wasn't getting.)
Root vegetables -- OMG, they actually took Lloyd up on his smack talk, and then everyone did better at his chosen parsnip-throwing task than him -- beautiful XD (Also, I kept thinking of Kearns when he kept running around with his parsnip.) I'm glad Jenny wasn't penalized for using the other root vegetables to offset the glory of her celeriac. But yeah, Anne's song was definitely the most breathtaking. Also, the key to doing well was clearly googly eyes, since both Jenny (4 points) and Anne (5 points) used them. Josh had a nice idea with the battery, but of course it didn't actually work. And poor Wil with his beet proposal XD
Ball jars -- oho, G.Tom is employing negative points as punishment for quitting! which, yeah, I definitely did think that Jenny needed to be rewarded in some way for still completing the task, and while I figured he'd give her a bonus point, I suppose taking a point away from the quitters (Anne and Josh) is basically the same thing. I was also surprised that Wil, who used a funnel and did not scatter any balls, was only a little bit quicker than Lloyd, who had to gather all those scattered ones. Well, I'm glad Wil got to win a solo task, after poor scoring on the other ones.
Live task (painting with random crap from bathtub) -- I liked this task a lot! The two kinds of difficulty -- how hard it was to draw with the thing and how hard it was to find an easily-recognizable rhyming thing to draw was I think an interesting challenge. It's pretty clear Lloyd had lucked out on both counts, and Jenny I think did too, but I was impressed how well Anne managed to draw with her hat. No idea what a sponger is (Reddit says basically like what we'd call a moocher here), or how G.Tom guessed that, but glad that Wil got some points. Josh had a hard thing to rhyme and looks like also a hard thing to draw tih, so not surprised Tom didn't guess that one, but walking off (in a snit, but true to his word, and escorted by a celebrating Wil) cost him another point for no good reason. Well, I guess it's clear who's going to be the butt monkey this season.
I'm liking the mad energy of this series; people on Reddit have compared it to my beloved UK s7, and I can see why it's reminding people of that. So far no-one's massively won me over as a top favorite) (which is honestly a bit of a relief after being so invested in the victory of one contestant for the last 10 weeks XD), but Wil joins Jenny as a top favorite (maybe even overtaking her, though I do like them both), and Lloyd also grew on me over the course of this episode, and is thus solid third among my favorites. I said after the last episode that Josh made me laugh the most, but not in this one; he might be a diminishing returns kind of contestant for me, I'm starting to suspect, but we'll see.
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And there's some more Taskmaster content over on DW, and some nattering about Nebula nominees and Locus lists, , but this post got too large for LJ, so I'm skipping that.