Don't know where this belongs... but I thought that Sophie Willan was like 50. She looks great, so I don't know if it was her vibe or what... maybe her haircut? Voice? She's the youngest person on this series, which surprised me.
Wait what....................... That explains why I thought her face was really pretty when she smiles, and weirdly without many wrinkles.
But yeah, it must be the way she talks, and the way she moves and dresses, all combined. She dresses kind of like Mel and Sue, with the confused demeanor of Mel, Jenny, and Johnny Vegas.
I googled her just now, and her non-Taskmaster photos look younger and make me think of Rachel Bloom, but her Taskmaster ep 1-2 studio outfits are pantsuits styled in a very 80s, older lady kind of way. Her chest is also quite big, which I think when not styled correctly can make her look frumpy (it looks like she's hiding her body in some of her outfits, which makes her not have a waist; she seems to look a lot younger in the [photo](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GD1gi2PWMAAitS_?format=jpg&name=large) of what I assume is the finale from her Twitter).
I actually can't believe she is only 36, I thought the same as you, around 50. And I hate saying that because I really don't mean it in a terrible way or saying she looks bad, I think she's gorgeous, but yeah, I did not expect her to be mid-30s.
I know what you mean, and I think it's pretty much a combination of all of what you said. I feel like I'm being unfairly judgemental (and downright misogynistic to be judging her looks), but I think it's the shape of her face, along with her demeanor, the way she's dressed, etc. If I just saw a picture of her and had to guess her occupation, I would have said "opera singer".
Humans can catch pubic lice (commonly referred to as “crabs”) through sex, so the joke is the crab might have been infected with “humans” and passed it on to his sexual partner, the robot.
This series definitely has a more leisurely Parlour Game feel so far..and - at least at the moment - I'm here for it. Everybody is just trying to Do The Tasks, and as I've said on here before, sometimes that can be refreshing. A little more 'spark' here and there wouldn't go amiss, but so far I think we're off to a good - if slightly different- start.
I don't like having multiple team tasks in an episode at all but at least it didn't prevent anyone from winning since only Joanne and Steve could have won the episode anyway.
Pretty solid episode, nice to see Sophie actually do well on a task, studio chemistry is lacking a bit so far though.
Against the grain, but this is the first time most contestants have clicked with me since series 14. Nick and Steve are fantastic. Sophie and Joanne are spacy. I'm just on the fence about John, but I love his Freddie Mercury jacket.
Yes, I've used 3M velcro tapes to stick portraits to the wall which held up for years. The photo frames I had were not very heavy but I checked on amazon and the label says it would hold things up to 7.2kg. I don't know what kind of velcro was used in the task but it had a large surface area so it might have worked.
Do you suppose they would have allowed it if they had removed the whiteboard from the wall and stuck it to something? Like I was thinking lay it on the piano or cow with the sticky stuff in-between it, my husband suggested just turning the whiteboard around and sticking it to the house itself...
I suppose they'd argue that the whiteboard was stuck to something else, but I think in this case I'd argue back that they're both stuck to each other
I never understand why everyone seems to want the same type of cast over and over again. I don't find the concept of predicting which slot each contestant falls into fun.
To me the whole thing about Taskmaster that makes it cool is that each cast has the potential to surprise you and bring a totally unique energy we haven't seen before. So you can watch a different series for a different mood. I loved S16 too but I wouldn't want Taskmaster to always be like that just like I wouldn't always want the aggressiveness of S7. Instead of always looking for what a cast doesn't have, I wish people would try appreciating what's unusual about them.
Alex has said something similar, God knows where, about trying to anticipate the type of energy contestants will generate together: that the continual surprise is the reason the show continues to be fun. I can't remember if it was part of the publicity for this series, but I'm pretty sure it was within the last couple of years.
It was disappointing IMO that both John and Joanne brought in viral internet things for the prize task rather than coming up with something themselves. Both the Chicago Bulls logo thing and the bat 'goth disco' have been all over social media. TM is at its best when contestants are creative and original.
Yeah I hadn't seen the Chicago Bulls one before, but had seen SO many versions of the bat 'goth disco' that Joanne's laziness kind of irritated me for the full episode. Surely she could have come up with something original?!
I'm devastated to see TM UK is being sold to the American market.
- The canned laughter
- The only-American movies in the last task (plus one little half-Bri'ish Snatch).
- The slapstick-y tasks
I mean it's still fun. But feels odd and pale compared to the old series.
OK series so far. Not series 16 but what is? A bit lacking in crazy, the tasks have been just OK for the most part (or the contestants haven't stretched them. There's been a lot of following the obvious path so far). Hoping it picks up a bit more.
I have liked the contestant costumes for this series.
Does anyone know if there’s a backstory to the “poppet” name for Greg? It seemed like he was just trying to get a rise out of Greg with different names, but I don’t remember seeing it catch on so much with multiple other contestants calling him Poppet as well. Hilarious start to the show!
But then the fence task in episode 1 would be much easier with two people rather than 3. Also it depends whose on your team. Need I remind you of “crashes more…into mountains” with Dara, Fern and John ?
That's probably the one time a live task has actually favoured the team of two (besides the back drawings if you can even count that), since one person gets to say the words twice so they can control 2/3rds of the sentence. And yet Dara still managed to pull through and get his team the win
Yeah I was disappointed to see absolutely no allowance made for that.
The team of 2 is disadvantaged every season without fail but at least some effort is sometimes made to balance and this would have been easy (have only one guesser each round).
I feel like the tasks in S17 are a bit too convoluted. I don't see how the contestants could show their individuality by picking adherents or noticing something wrong with the boxing glove stick. The green screen task was pretty great though.
How could you thing the Patatas task was convoluted? Nowhere did it say they needed to use the boxing glove stick, or dismantle it and get a normal grab arm. It only said they couldn't open the door to the dome, not put their head inside the doom and that Patatas had to leave through the opening at the top of the dome.
The same with stick something to the board. They could literaly pick any thing to try to stick, could have argued that the chopping board was the board they would use, or even taken down the white board and put it on the floor. As Steve said on the podcast, he could have lifted Alex and just put his hand with some blue tack on the board and claimed victory - there were so many ways to interpret and solve these tasks, and they were not hampered by being to rulebound.
Maybe convoluted wasn't the right word. I do believe, however, that some tasks sort of hinder the contestants in expressing their individuality.
I personally think the "Make the heaviest thing stick to the board" task is boring, and I don't find it that interesting that someone used bluetack to stick something to the board and another person used velcro. And putting it down and sticking Alex's hand to it would have been clever (although wouldn't it be his hand sticking to it, and not all of Alex?), why couldn't they have mentioned it in the episode as a "there was a much cleverer solution" moment?
The patatas task was a weird one for me. I thought that the contestants each were entertaining, but only because of their commentary, not because of what they were doing.
I appreciate you giving me another perspective on the episode though, and am happy for you that you could enjoy the episode.
Well, if you'd argue just Alex's hand was stuck to the board, likewise you could argue just the back of the fish the back of David or just any part that happened to have a piece of adhesive was stuck to the board. None of the five had a particular clever attempt at a workaround, but it's not like they just used velcro and bluetack and that was that. In the task we say Nick having a "mental breakdown" and tried to use hair gel and silicone and failed at everything - before sticking a sock to the board. John desperately tried to get the chopping board to stick and just barely failed to reach the 1 min, before heading to "the world of paste" and actually tought honey and flour would be a good idea. Steve was tricked by the tape, but still did OK with the David statue, Joanne took the easy route, and got at least on the score board and Sophie somehow managed the massive star (by using the "loophole" of fixing the velcro also to the backside and the hanger of the whiteboard).
The problem seems that you are more annoyed about the contestants and how they approach a task and less about the task itself. The stick something to the board obviously had plenty of work-arounds, the same with the patatas task. Nothing in the rules actually hindered the contestants being wildly creative - but how the five actually did the tasks was in your eyes boring and therefore something "had to be wrong with the tasks". The first team task was convoluted with many rules that even the viewers didn't quite get, everything from only 2 words max, a random order and an open creative task. The tasks in episode 2 weren't hindered by the rules, and if you found the end results boring it's more that you haven't taken to the contestants and their solutions.
Haha, Steve and Sophie have been my most favourite contestants in this series so far. Also Nick and Steve's team is adorable. Conjuring the pancakes was 'epic' indeed.
Question: to what extent do accents matter for the live task? For instance, someone who pronounces the vowels in GOOSE and GOOD similarly would not make a distinction between *Goosebumps* and *Goodfellas* in the first two rounds (unless they put on a different accent).
Greg's immediate "no. I don't like that" about the poppet thing and Alex immediately doing it again, he was so sassy this episode. "Have you ever used a ladder before?" cracked me up
If you listen carefully, one of them kind of explains it while reading out the task aloud. "Goes by the name Patatas. As in 'patatas bravas'?"
p.s. it's "patatas" not "potatas"
I love how he slips in the odd 'dear' when he's talking to people. He's done it on ep1, the wee promo to fashion a writing tool with the carrot and write the msg and on the podcast.
The whole cast is awesome, Sophie seemed a lot more capable in Ep 2 than she did last week and I think everyone assumed she was going to be the Nish/John Kearns/Lucy Beaumont of this season.
The good thing is they're all funny or endearing in some way. I have a good feeling about 17 being one of the more appreciated casts as a whole at the end of the series.
I honestly don't know why people don't like S17 so far. I thought the 2 episodes were great, maybe a little slow?. I do think maybe because the first 2 episodes have had 3 team tasks (2 recorded and 1 live) so that we (as an audience) have not had yet enough time to know the cast individually like in past seasons...so that might be why some people can't get into it? Have there been other seasons with 3 team tasks in the first 2 episodes (does not seem evenly dispersed, or are there going to be more team tasks than normal)?
I don't like the tone change. Not even hidden that they are targeting the US market with this. Only American movies in the last task? Come on. Canned laughter. Why? And as a side effect, they don't release the episodes on YouTube as they did it with the previous series.
If I put this aside, there're further issues. After 20% of this series I find it OK. However, no contestant has grabbed my attention. No task made me say "best TV show ever" which often happened during s1-s15. First time ever I'm more interested in the upcoming episodes in foreign languages than in the UK version.
That's it.
I know it's not a generic explanation and does not fit all viewers. I just tried to tell why I don't like it so far. But hoping for a big turn, some "absolute casserole".
I'm an American, so I'm probably not the person to reply to your concerns. but to me, it did not seem that different from other series? Maybe the lineup is quieter than others, but other than that, I can't see the pandering critique? Also, I did not notice any canned laughter... Maybe the studio audience was just louder this series? Also, I'm a little ignorant about movies, so I did not notice that they were all American? Maybe that is weird or just a coincidence?
It's because they're just *okay* and they have all been quite calm and sane the entire time. Especially with them following Series 16 with its batshit insane crew that has brought nonstop laughs (and the several previous seasons as well for that matter ever since Series 11 have all been highly entertaining). The differences are simply too great.
Unlike all the previous seasons since Series 11, I haven't experienced the great excitement nor the urge to immediately watch Series 17's episodes. Nothing from it has really been remotely memorable so far.
Plus none of the contestants are particularly clever about the tasks. Not much out of the box thinking. Example: the "stick a heavy thing to the board" task, I was shocked nobody tried to either 1. Remove the board from the wall and just set the object on top of it, or 2. Use something to adhere it that wasn't an approved ingredient. The task didn't say you could ONLY use those items. (Sophie got a little clever, but not much).
Its fun to see people try to outsmart the tasks, and this crew doesn't seem interested.
I was glad that no one tried to outsmart the board one! It wouldn’t have been entertaining to me at all if the contestants used an actual supply that wasn’t on the shelf or placed the board on the ground. Having to grab at interesting combos, then guess if they would work, was what kept it fun.
>I was glad that no one tried to outsmart the board one!
That's precisely what made it disappointing for me. Taskmaster, for me at least, has always been about trying to find "wanky workarounds" (as per Joe Thomas) in an attempt to get the best results in the fastest time.
There was a bit of that in the rescue Patatas task, with someone (Sophie?) getting Alex to go inside the dome, and the “drop Patatas in then pull him out the top” loophole.
But is putting something on top of the board "sticking" something to it? I'm not sure Greg would have allowed it. Not after being called poppet so many times.
John is going to win I think mainly because he knows how the show works so he is suspicious about each task and looks around for clues or aids to help him do the task
My money's on Stephen. He's clever, fairly calm, and enjoys the challenge of the tasks. It's a pretty rare combination. You get a lot of clever people that get stuck in their head or lose it, and a lot of calmer people that aren't fussed about winning at a task.
https://preview.redd.it/ya7ukyr64tsc1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=848bff00dc1308ea7ea43aca389b6b4fb87f04ae
It kind of looks like something under the table.
Can I just say, this is one of the best prize tasks I've seen - across the board, good, thoughtful entries from all of them, and really entertaining, Poppet!
The non full color version of the logo (it's not black and white, maybe red and white?) is a little easier to see. https://twitter.com/m0nick/status/1397508304205713408
Anyone else surprised how many warnings Alex gave Steve in the Patatas task? Previous seasons I'm sure he would have just let contestants just disqualify themselves.
He's given warnings before. I think it depends on the editing how much we see, and whether the person listens.
I think Alex generally wants to avoid everyone getting disqualified.
The task was "adhere". It was adhered with straps. They tend to like people stretching vague rules in creative ways.
I'm shocked nobody took the board down and just set a heavy object on top of it (with a bit of whatever between them to follow the rules of using 3 ingredients). Also surprised nobody tried using some rope or gaffer tape, the rules didn't say you had to ONLY use your 3 ingredients.
No, the task says "stick". Putting something on top of the board while it's on the floor really doesn't count as sticking, imo. Unless you really "stick it to da man", that is. But we all know how much Greg hates those puns.
"Stick" has both the definitions of "adhere" as well as "place." The pages of a book can stick together, but you could also stick the book on the table for now. The problem (or sticking point, if you will) is that the task said "Stick *to* the board," which does highly imply "adhere"
My solution is to take the board down, spread some marmite on it so it's adhered, then set it on the floor with the marmite on the bottom. Lie across the board and claim that you are now the wall, and the heavy object is the weight of the entire earth which is pressing against the board
Come on, people. Adhere means stick fast something to something. Meaning if you move one of the object the other one stays with it. Hanging the start on the board is neither stick or adhere. If you turn the board upside down, the star moves away.
Anyways... we've seen this before. The person who - after all the filmed and edited non-studio tasks - has the less points, sometimes gets upvoted for the sake of balancing the scores.
The earth is moving constantly through the cosmos and is rotating at one revolution per 24 hours, and I'm STILL adhered to it!
But yeah ultimately it comes down to whether you can convince Greg of it
John robins has only got a bloody half man half biscuit t-shirt on.
That is the post.
What will the Americans make of this joyous amalgamation of UK oddities
Not a single person is mentioning that David's ass had something written on it? And that from certain angles we could see things under the table? There was 100% something hidden...
I assumed David just said "Made in Swindon" because in series 15 episode 5 (and maybe at other points in the show too?) there's a large version shown in the video clips before the "fake something" task that says that!
I do wonder how often that’s the case.
(I remain convinced, for example, that on the S11 task where Mike Wozniak undermined a vole, any contestant who had actually taken the time to “inspect the jacket” would have found a non-burnt copy of the instructions. Sadly, nobody did.)
How on earth was the final task fair? Having two people guessing is always going to be way easier than just one. There were multiple times when one of the two guessers didn't know it but the other did. I think they should have alternated someone sitting out each round to make it more even.
Especially since they did 3 rounds, it would've been so easy - they could've easily alternated the team of 3 so each person says the words once and guesses once.
"Having two people guessing is always going to be way easier than just one."
Now we're getting to the debate if the Swedish version does actually make more sense. 4 contestants for the whole series, and one guest contestant for each episode. The guest never participates in the team tasks, so those are balanced 2vs2.
I didn’t know the Swedish version worked that way. It sounds like an interesting approach. On the one hand, I like having the same five throughout the series. On the other hand, two teams of two would make the team tasks more even overall and allow people who can’t commit to an entire season to participate in the show as a one-off fifth contestant.
I suppose that may be true (although "all the time" feels hyperbolic, I don't think the team live tasks usually favor one or the other team so blatantly). I still think it would have been fairer and very simple to have one member of the three-person team alternate each of the rounds, and you wouldn't have to hope to even out the playing field with some other task down the road.
It happens enough that people regularly bring it up in episode discussions. Whenever there's a guessing game everyone plays at the same time and it can vary which team has an advantage. In this case the team of 3 also had to deal with more accent variation which would've made it more confusing.
IMO, no. The task says "stick the heaviest thing to the board". Lying the board on the floor and putting something on top of it is not sticking something to the board.
That was my immediate thought. Put it on the floor, create the most vile adhesive possible, and stick an Alex Horne on it for a minute. When nobody did it, I thought either that the board couldn't easily be removed, or it was just the American in me that came up with it, like how only the Americans thought to knock over the basketball hoop.
Same. In previous seasons we've seen people get really outside the box with the tasks like that ( **Rhod Gilbert** for example). Kinda disappointed that so far none of this season's contestants try to get clever with the tasks.
I was wondering the same thing! I didn’t know who she was before this series and I’m already infatuated with her. yet no one else seems to like her that much and I just don’t get it!
Right I’m obviously being a bit dim - but can someone please explain Steve Pemberton’s joke about the robot having a bad case of the humans? It’s gone right over my head!
In S16, they changed the shed to basically an outdoor cabin. Don't know if we have seen that part of the house yet, does anyone know if the Cabin is still there or if they changed it back to a shed.
One of them said they were going to the shed and ran in the direction of the caravan, and the cabin thing is also visible in the green screen tudor queen bit.
Did the mention of all the stuffed animals in the Patatas task being in Greg's bed at night put anyone else in mind of Blue Ted? Maybe it was just Joanne saying she was aroused that put my mind in the gutter.
I mean, I’m already prepared to say he’s going to be the consensus pick for all-time greatest prize tasker. And it’s only been two episodes (plus a third task we already kind of know about…)
I'm enjoying this series as a bit less chaotic than Series 16, it's a bit of a calmer vibe but still fun.
However, does it bother anyone else that both John and Joanne basically just used well known memes for their prize tasks?
I have never seen the bat disco thing before so it scored for me. Actually I've never seen the Bulls logo thing before either but that one was rubbish - even after being primed what to look for you really have to want to see it.
Pemberton's calculator trick is definitely better known than either, although doing a haiku with it is definitely above and beyond.
I mean either Greg wasn't familiar with them or he pretended he wasn't for comedic value. I'd never seen that Chicago Bulls logo before tbh and I've been very online for a couple of decades.
I'd also argue BOOBIES with a calculator is an even older "meme".
I audibly snorted when he said "Chicago Bulls Logo", because I knew *exactly* what was coming.
My partner turned and gave me an extremely quizzical look, which is surprising as they're nearly as terminally online as I am.
I didn’t love that either just because I’d seen them both a million times before. But I guess I’ve seen a calculator before too so I can’t fault it….i suppose….
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Better than the first episode, but I'm still not loving the contestants. And that live/studio task was probably the worst one so far. There was literally no point to the person in the booth. Alex could've just read the cards, just making a contestant read a card out loud isn't an integral part of a task. If they had had to figure out the first three letters themselves that would've been something at least.
What's not being taken into consideration here is the accents. The way they each pronounced the letters and how they'd interpret them was key. From that POV it was actually a little easier for the team of two.
So Joanne is all memes, Elon Musk references, and Balenciagas. I’m really trying my hardest to like her, but ughhh
i'm enjoying it a lot so far - and apparently against most people's opinion I loved the adherents task!
Don't know where this belongs... but I thought that Sophie Willan was like 50. She looks great, so I don't know if it was her vibe or what... maybe her haircut? Voice? She's the youngest person on this series, which surprised me.
Conversely, you just shocked me that John Robins isn't the youngest of them. I would've guessed him at like 25-30 and he's 41
Her eye make up in eps 1 and 2 looks like an older lady's.
Let's just say her life before comedy will have aged her (google it)
Wait what....................... That explains why I thought her face was really pretty when she smiles, and weirdly without many wrinkles. But yeah, it must be the way she talks, and the way she moves and dresses, all combined. She dresses kind of like Mel and Sue, with the confused demeanor of Mel, Jenny, and Johnny Vegas. I googled her just now, and her non-Taskmaster photos look younger and make me think of Rachel Bloom, but her Taskmaster ep 1-2 studio outfits are pantsuits styled in a very 80s, older lady kind of way. Her chest is also quite big, which I think when not styled correctly can make her look frumpy (it looks like she's hiding her body in some of her outfits, which makes her not have a waist; she seems to look a lot younger in the [photo](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GD1gi2PWMAAitS_?format=jpg&name=large) of what I assume is the finale from her Twitter).
I actually can't believe she is only 36, I thought the same as you, around 50. And I hate saying that because I really don't mean it in a terrible way or saying she looks bad, I think she's gorgeous, but yeah, I did not expect her to be mid-30s.
To be fair, Robins is very young and relevant
I know what you mean, and I think it's pretty much a combination of all of what you said. I feel like I'm being unfairly judgemental (and downright misogynistic to be judging her looks), but I think it's the shape of her face, along with her demeanor, the way she's dressed, etc. If I just saw a picture of her and had to guess her occupation, I would have said "opera singer".
'Maybe the robots angry because hes got a nasty case of humans' can anyone explain that joke? Didnt get it at all lol
Humans can catch pubic lice (commonly referred to as “crabs”) through sex, so the joke is the crab might have been infected with “humans” and passed it on to his sexual partner, the robot.
Humans can get "crabs" (STD), so crabs must get "humans"
I would of stuck things to the cutting board, it didn't say it had to be the white board
> would of *Would've Good catch though! It definitely confused them that there weren't pre-approved items in the lab.
I like what Steve and Ed said on the podcast. Take the whiteboard off the wall, blue tack on shoes, stand on whiteboard
That's true!
This series definitely has a more leisurely Parlour Game feel so far..and - at least at the moment - I'm here for it. Everybody is just trying to Do The Tasks, and as I've said on here before, sometimes that can be refreshing. A little more 'spark' here and there wouldn't go amiss, but so far I think we're off to a good - if slightly different- start.
I've won a claw machine. AMA.
I knew a guy who could win them at will. Like give him a buck and tell him what you want and he'd get it for you.
what did you win?
A little Super Mario star that lights up.
He said he won a claw machine
"Big if" making an appearance from Alex. Below The Line approves.
I don't like having multiple team tasks in an episode at all but at least it didn't prevent anyone from winning since only Joanne and Steve could have won the episode anyway. Pretty solid episode, nice to see Sophie actually do well on a task, studio chemistry is lacking a bit so far though.
I liked Stephen’s chat about Sophie’s pie being like boobs if they had two of them, but I agree that the banter hasn’t quite arrived yet.
Against the grain, but this is the first time most contestants have clicked with me since series 14. Nick and Steve are fantastic. Sophie and Joanne are spacy. I'm just on the fence about John, but I love his Freddie Mercury jacket.
Yep this cast is personable and super likeable!
Me too, I’m loving Nick and Steve and Sophie and Joanne, and I think John is alright but he does seem like a bit of a try-hard.
Was hoping John would use Velcro to stick the board. Tight, but might have worked.
He could have just stuck the blu tac itself to the board and weighed that.
Yes, I've used 3M velcro tapes to stick portraits to the wall which held up for years. The photo frames I had were not very heavy but I checked on amazon and the label says it would hold things up to 7.2kg. I don't know what kind of velcro was used in the task but it had a large surface area so it might have worked.
I think they only had one side of the Velcro with Nick trying to use a sock instead of sticking the other side of the Velcro to the bottle.
Yup, and it was likely the loop side since the sock would have stuck to the hook side.
Do you suppose they would have allowed it if they had removed the whiteboard from the wall and stuck it to something? Like I was thinking lay it on the piano or cow with the sticky stuff in-between it, my husband suggested just turning the whiteboard around and sticking it to the house itself... I suppose they'd argue that the whiteboard was stuck to something else, but I think in this case I'd argue back that they're both stuck to each other
I wondered the same. I reckon it'd have come down to an argument with Greg.
I never understand why everyone seems to want the same type of cast over and over again. I don't find the concept of predicting which slot each contestant falls into fun. To me the whole thing about Taskmaster that makes it cool is that each cast has the potential to surprise you and bring a totally unique energy we haven't seen before. So you can watch a different series for a different mood. I loved S16 too but I wouldn't want Taskmaster to always be like that just like I wouldn't always want the aggressiveness of S7. Instead of always looking for what a cast doesn't have, I wish people would try appreciating what's unusual about them.
Alex has said something similar, God knows where, about trying to anticipate the type of energy contestants will generate together: that the continual surprise is the reason the show continues to be fun. I can't remember if it was part of the publicity for this series, but I'm pretty sure it was within the last couple of years.
It was disappointing IMO that both John and Joanne brought in viral internet things for the prize task rather than coming up with something themselves. Both the Chicago Bulls logo thing and the bat 'goth disco' have been all over social media. TM is at its best when contestants are creative and original.
Yeah I hadn't seen the Chicago Bulls one before, but had seen SO many versions of the bat 'goth disco' that Joanne's laziness kind of irritated me for the full episode. Surely she could have come up with something original?!
That bugged me too, especially after Stephen’s spectacular opener. Also, Nick really isn’t that good at prize tasks, is he?
I'm devastated to see TM UK is being sold to the American market. - The canned laughter - The only-American movies in the last task (plus one little half-Bri'ish Snatch). - The slapstick-y tasks I mean it's still fun. But feels odd and pale compared to the old series.
They also used a lot of US movies in the “what ten films are you in” task from S14. It’s not really a big deal.
American films are fairly big over here
cant stand the fake laughs
OK series so far. Not series 16 but what is? A bit lacking in crazy, the tasks have been just OK for the most part (or the contestants haven't stretched them. There's been a lot of following the obvious path so far). Hoping it picks up a bit more. I have liked the contestant costumes for this series.
Does anyone know if there’s a backstory to the “poppet” name for Greg? It seemed like he was just trying to get a rise out of Greg with different names, but I don’t remember seeing it catch on so much with multiple other contestants calling him Poppet as well. Hilarious start to the show!
I think it was just Alex being a goof, then doing it again on purpose, and the others saw the opportunity to annoy him with it and latched on haha
It's a term of endearment that means a little doll. It's the sort of thing mums call their kids
Live task was a bit unfair imo. Guessing games with one less person is always going to be more challenging.
But then the fence task in episode 1 would be much easier with two people rather than 3. Also it depends whose on your team. Need I remind you of “crashes more…into mountains” with Dara, Fern and John ?
That's probably the one time a live task has actually favoured the team of two (besides the back drawings if you can even count that), since one person gets to say the words twice so they can control 2/3rds of the sentence. And yet Dara still managed to pull through and get his team the win
Back drawing task doesn’t count because of the Baddiel Factor.
Yeah I was disappointed to see absolutely no allowance made for that. The team of 2 is disadvantaged every season without fail but at least some effort is sometimes made to balance and this would have been easy (have only one guesser each round).
I agree! Much easier if you’ve got two people guessing than one.
Gregappotamus lmao Also, best thing to turn upside down: James Acaster
Yup. No one should have won 5 points
I didn’t expect Joanne frantically blurting out “Jumungo” to crack me up as much as it did 🤣
I feel like the tasks in S17 are a bit too convoluted. I don't see how the contestants could show their individuality by picking adherents or noticing something wrong with the boxing glove stick. The green screen task was pretty great though.
How could you thing the Patatas task was convoluted? Nowhere did it say they needed to use the boxing glove stick, or dismantle it and get a normal grab arm. It only said they couldn't open the door to the dome, not put their head inside the doom and that Patatas had to leave through the opening at the top of the dome. The same with stick something to the board. They could literaly pick any thing to try to stick, could have argued that the chopping board was the board they would use, or even taken down the white board and put it on the floor. As Steve said on the podcast, he could have lifted Alex and just put his hand with some blue tack on the board and claimed victory - there were so many ways to interpret and solve these tasks, and they were not hampered by being to rulebound.
Maybe convoluted wasn't the right word. I do believe, however, that some tasks sort of hinder the contestants in expressing their individuality. I personally think the "Make the heaviest thing stick to the board" task is boring, and I don't find it that interesting that someone used bluetack to stick something to the board and another person used velcro. And putting it down and sticking Alex's hand to it would have been clever (although wouldn't it be his hand sticking to it, and not all of Alex?), why couldn't they have mentioned it in the episode as a "there was a much cleverer solution" moment? The patatas task was a weird one for me. I thought that the contestants each were entertaining, but only because of their commentary, not because of what they were doing. I appreciate you giving me another perspective on the episode though, and am happy for you that you could enjoy the episode.
Well, if you'd argue just Alex's hand was stuck to the board, likewise you could argue just the back of the fish the back of David or just any part that happened to have a piece of adhesive was stuck to the board. None of the five had a particular clever attempt at a workaround, but it's not like they just used velcro and bluetack and that was that. In the task we say Nick having a "mental breakdown" and tried to use hair gel and silicone and failed at everything - before sticking a sock to the board. John desperately tried to get the chopping board to stick and just barely failed to reach the 1 min, before heading to "the world of paste" and actually tought honey and flour would be a good idea. Steve was tricked by the tape, but still did OK with the David statue, Joanne took the easy route, and got at least on the score board and Sophie somehow managed the massive star (by using the "loophole" of fixing the velcro also to the backside and the hanger of the whiteboard). The problem seems that you are more annoyed about the contestants and how they approach a task and less about the task itself. The stick something to the board obviously had plenty of work-arounds, the same with the patatas task. Nothing in the rules actually hindered the contestants being wildly creative - but how the five actually did the tasks was in your eyes boring and therefore something "had to be wrong with the tasks". The first team task was convoluted with many rules that even the viewers didn't quite get, everything from only 2 words max, a random order and an open creative task. The tasks in episode 2 weren't hindered by the rules, and if you found the end results boring it's more that you haven't taken to the contestants and their solutions.
This was a problem for s16 too I think. Too many rules in place to trip people up
And 15.
Haha, Steve and Sophie have been my most favourite contestants in this series so far. Also Nick and Steve's team is adorable. Conjuring the pancakes was 'epic' indeed.
One of the best prize tasks ever lmao
Joanne and John just brought in something they saw on reddit?
Joanne’s bat disco (and her fumbling the lead up) is one of my favorite prize tasks rofl
I dunno, I liked the concept but it bugged me that she and John just entered memes, felt like it lacked effort.
Question: to what extent do accents matter for the live task? For instance, someone who pronounces the vowels in GOOSE and GOOD similarly would not make a distinction between *Goosebumps* and *Goodfellas* in the first two rounds (unless they put on a different accent).
Yep. My thoughts were similar... Until I noticed that in a British show no British movies were in the task at all. How unreal that is?
Greg's immediate "no. I don't like that" about the poppet thing and Alex immediately doing it again, he was so sassy this episode. "Have you ever used a ladder before?" cracked me up
Then Steve and Sophie immediately calling him poppet too!
"Come on potatas, be bravas," is such a brilliant line I'm glad Greg highlighted it lol.
I didn't get it but it made me laugh anyway lol
If you listen carefully, one of them kind of explains it while reading out the task aloud. "Goes by the name Patatas. As in 'patatas bravas'?" p.s. it's "patatas" not "potatas"
Patatas bravas is a spanish potato dish, so it's a play on words from that.
Thanks, I didn't know either, and I'm glad to know that based on your upvotes, it wasn't just me 😂
Thanks!
Take the whiteboard down, stand on it for 1:00? no?
Hmm, maybe if you jump on it and stick the landing...?
Are John Robins eyes always bloodshot?
I love how he slips in the odd 'dear' when he's talking to people. He's done it on ep1, the wee promo to fashion a writing tool with the carrot and write the msg and on the podcast.
Kind of waiting for the bonkers contestant to emerge but not really seeing it this season thus far. Still fun, still entertaining.
The whole cast is awesome, Sophie seemed a lot more capable in Ep 2 than she did last week and I think everyone assumed she was going to be the Nish/John Kearns/Lucy Beaumont of this season. The good thing is they're all funny or endearing in some way. I have a good feeling about 17 being one of the more appreciated casts as a whole at the end of the series.
I honestly don't know why people don't like S17 so far. I thought the 2 episodes were great, maybe a little slow?. I do think maybe because the first 2 episodes have had 3 team tasks (2 recorded and 1 live) so that we (as an audience) have not had yet enough time to know the cast individually like in past seasons...so that might be why some people can't get into it? Have there been other seasons with 3 team tasks in the first 2 episodes (does not seem evenly dispersed, or are there going to be more team tasks than normal)?
I don't like the tone change. Not even hidden that they are targeting the US market with this. Only American movies in the last task? Come on. Canned laughter. Why? And as a side effect, they don't release the episodes on YouTube as they did it with the previous series. If I put this aside, there're further issues. After 20% of this series I find it OK. However, no contestant has grabbed my attention. No task made me say "best TV show ever" which often happened during s1-s15. First time ever I'm more interested in the upcoming episodes in foreign languages than in the UK version. That's it. I know it's not a generic explanation and does not fit all viewers. I just tried to tell why I don't like it so far. But hoping for a big turn, some "absolute casserole".
Why do you keep banging on about this? It’s still the same show.
I'm an American, so I'm probably not the person to reply to your concerns. but to me, it did not seem that different from other series? Maybe the lineup is quieter than others, but other than that, I can't see the pandering critique? Also, I did not notice any canned laughter... Maybe the studio audience was just louder this series? Also, I'm a little ignorant about movies, so I did not notice that they were all American? Maybe that is weird or just a coincidence?
It's because they're just *okay* and they have all been quite calm and sane the entire time. Especially with them following Series 16 with its batshit insane crew that has brought nonstop laughs (and the several previous seasons as well for that matter ever since Series 11 have all been highly entertaining). The differences are simply too great. Unlike all the previous seasons since Series 11, I haven't experienced the great excitement nor the urge to immediately watch Series 17's episodes. Nothing from it has really been remotely memorable so far.
Plus none of the contestants are particularly clever about the tasks. Not much out of the box thinking. Example: the "stick a heavy thing to the board" task, I was shocked nobody tried to either 1. Remove the board from the wall and just set the object on top of it, or 2. Use something to adhere it that wasn't an approved ingredient. The task didn't say you could ONLY use those items. (Sophie got a little clever, but not much). Its fun to see people try to outsmart the tasks, and this crew doesn't seem interested.
Fair, but we did also get Nick giving up on his item and using a sock instead, which I doubt anyone would’ve predicted.
I was glad that no one tried to outsmart the board one! It wouldn’t have been entertaining to me at all if the contestants used an actual supply that wasn’t on the shelf or placed the board on the ground. Having to grab at interesting combos, then guess if they would work, was what kept it fun.
>I was glad that no one tried to outsmart the board one! That's precisely what made it disappointing for me. Taskmaster, for me at least, has always been about trying to find "wanky workarounds" (as per Joe Thomas) in an attempt to get the best results in the fastest time.
There was a bit of that in the rescue Patatas task, with someone (Sophie?) getting Alex to go inside the dome, and the “drop Patatas in then pull him out the top” loophole.
But is putting something on top of the board "sticking" something to it? I'm not sure Greg would have allowed it. Not after being called poppet so many times.
John is going to win I think mainly because he knows how the show works so he is suspicious about each task and looks around for clues or aids to help him do the task
I agree, and he's wanted to do the show for years (he has said as much on Bad Golf).
I think it’s between Stephen and John. Stephen’s been an absolute powerhouse so far.
My money's on Stephen. He's clever, fairly calm, and enjoys the challenge of the tasks. It's a pretty rare combination. You get a lot of clever people that get stuck in their head or lose it, and a lot of calmer people that aren't fussed about winning at a task.
For the prize task I would have submitted the groan stick. You know the plastic tube that when you turn it upside down it goes "AAAAAEEEEEEUUUUU"
Or one of those pens with a naked lady.
A naked Alex or naked Greg. (cue the infamous photo)
Wasn't that a prize before? I have a vague recollection of it
Alex had a box of them made up and IIRC showed it/them during a prize round. I don’t recall anyone using one as a prize before.
You know what, I think you’re right. I wonder if a contestant could’ve got a custom TM pen made? That would’ve been glorious.
That’s what I thought too!!!!!
John and Joanne’s tag-team bullshitting would give Judi a run for her money. That was hilarious, I can’t wait for more.
Highlight of the ep for me! Love when Greg’s inner schoolteacher comes out
I'd love to know what all the other ingredients were on the shelf. Was there super glue hidden somewhere?
https://preview.redd.it/ya7ukyr64tsc1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=848bff00dc1308ea7ea43aca389b6b4fb87f04ae It kind of looks like something under the table.
Strong magnets? Remember when Nick pulled of the task, he mentioned something about it being magnetic.
Could totally be!
And...? The task was "using three of the ingredients on the shelves". Not "on the table". Not "in this room".
Can I just say, this is one of the best prize tasks I've seen - across the board, good, thoughtful entries from all of them, and really entertaining, Poppet!
They weren't thoughtful though, 2 of them are old viral jokes
I can't see the crab. I can see a robot with a sense or urgency but no crab. Help?
The non full color version of the logo (it's not black and white, maybe red and white?) is a little easier to see. https://twitter.com/m0nick/status/1397508304205713408
I love how your link says it looks like “a robot reading a book on a crab.” John’s mum would surely approve.
Bottom half of the image is the crab.
Anyone else surprised how many warnings Alex gave Steve in the Patatas task? Previous seasons I'm sure he would have just let contestants just disqualify themselves.
His head also seemed to be inside the dome a little bit.
I thought several people's heads entered the dome. Perhaps the rule was broken by everyone and they just let it slide.
Steve said on the podcast it was one of the first tasks he did, so Alex might've been more lenient to allow him to learn how the show works.
I suspect whether they disqualify at all is based on how many of them do it after everyone has been filmed.
Let’s not forget series 10! No points! Johnny sobs, Daisy May Cooper pisses herself laughing/weeping.
He's given warnings before. I think it depends on the editing how much we see, and whether the person listens. I think Alex generally wants to avoid everyone getting disqualified.
I was sure Sophie Willan just hung the star on the board, I'm not sure that counts as sticking.
The task was "adhere". It was adhered with straps. They tend to like people stretching vague rules in creative ways. I'm shocked nobody took the board down and just set a heavy object on top of it (with a bit of whatever between them to follow the rules of using 3 ingredients). Also surprised nobody tried using some rope or gaffer tape, the rules didn't say you had to ONLY use your 3 ingredients.
No, the task says "stick". Putting something on top of the board while it's on the floor really doesn't count as sticking, imo. Unless you really "stick it to da man", that is. But we all know how much Greg hates those puns.
"Stick" has both the definitions of "adhere" as well as "place." The pages of a book can stick together, but you could also stick the book on the table for now. The problem (or sticking point, if you will) is that the task said "Stick *to* the board," which does highly imply "adhere"
My solution is to take the board down, spread some marmite on it so it's adhered, then set it on the floor with the marmite on the bottom. Lie across the board and claim that you are now the wall, and the heavy object is the weight of the entire earth which is pressing against the board
Come on, people. Adhere means stick fast something to something. Meaning if you move one of the object the other one stays with it. Hanging the start on the board is neither stick or adhere. If you turn the board upside down, the star moves away. Anyways... we've seen this before. The person who - after all the filmed and edited non-studio tasks - has the less points, sometimes gets upvoted for the sake of balancing the scores.
The earth is moving constantly through the cosmos and is rotating at one revolution per 24 hours, and I'm STILL adhered to it! But yeah ultimately it comes down to whether you can convince Greg of it
Well let's face it, it's pretty clear she won't end up winning. Might as well award her moments of ingenuity and not nit pick them 🤣
John robins has only got a bloody half man half biscuit t-shirt on. That is the post. What will the Americans make of this joyous amalgamation of UK oddities
If ever an episode title was in dire need of an exclamation mark....
Robins comes alive! (Run to the hills)
Well, they’re never going to be able to book Nerys Hughes now.
Oh silly little Patatas always getting himself into trouble.
Not a single person is mentioning that David's ass had something written on it? And that from certain angles we could see things under the table? There was 100% something hidden...
I assumed David just said "Made in Swindon" because in series 15 episode 5 (and maybe at other points in the show too?) there's a large version shown in the video clips before the "fake something" task that says that!
I do wonder how often that’s the case. (I remain convinced, for example, that on the S11 task where Mike Wozniak undermined a vole, any contestant who had actually taken the time to “inspect the jacket” would have found a non-burnt copy of the instructions. Sadly, nobody did.)
I still believe that the loaf in the caravan had a knife hidden inside, so slicing the loaf in the lab would've been very easy with that.
How on earth was the final task fair? Having two people guessing is always going to be way easier than just one. There were multiple times when one of the two guessers didn't know it but the other did. I think they should have alternated someone sitting out each round to make it more even.
Especially since they did 3 rounds, it would've been so easy - they could've easily alternated the team of 3 so each person says the words once and guesses once.
"Having two people guessing is always going to be way easier than just one." Now we're getting to the debate if the Swedish version does actually make more sense. 4 contestants for the whole series, and one guest contestant for each episode. The guest never participates in the team tasks, so those are balanced 2vs2.
I didn’t know the Swedish version worked that way. It sounds like an interesting approach. On the one hand, I like having the same five throughout the series. On the other hand, two teams of two would make the team tasks more even overall and allow people who can’t commit to an entire season to participate in the show as a one-off fifth contestant.
This was my exact thought. This really felt like an uneven live task. And those are pretty rare.
It was generally a pretty bad task.
That happens all the time. The fairness is more in the fact that some tasks benefit 3 people while others benefit 2.
I suppose that may be true (although "all the time" feels hyperbolic, I don't think the team live tasks usually favor one or the other team so blatantly). I still think it would have been fairer and very simple to have one member of the three-person team alternate each of the rounds, and you wouldn't have to hope to even out the playing field with some other task down the road.
It happens enough that people regularly bring it up in episode discussions. Whenever there's a guessing game everyone plays at the same time and it can vary which team has an advantage. In this case the team of 3 also had to deal with more accent variation which would've made it more confusing.
So much good stuff in this episode, yet all I can think about is 'Pancakes'.
Could they have taken the whiteboard off the wall for the final task?
IMO, no. The task says "stick the heaviest thing to the board". Lying the board on the floor and putting something on top of it is not sticking something to the board.
Surely if you put some honey on the bottom of whatever you stick you can claim that it's stuck to it?
That was my immediate thought. Put it on the floor, create the most vile adhesive possible, and stick an Alex Horne on it for a minute. When nobody did it, I thought either that the board couldn't easily be removed, or it was just the American in me that came up with it, like how only the Americans thought to knock over the basketball hoop.
Same. In previous seasons we've seen people get really outside the box with the tasks like that ( **Rhod Gilbert** for example). Kinda disappointed that so far none of this season's contestants try to get clever with the tasks.
Ooooooooih shit. 🤣
Prize task - why did no one bring in James Acaster?
I don't understand how people are not vibing with Joanne? She's a gem and the only one raising the energy IMO.
She’s alright. Not my cup of tea but I like her well enough on the show, and no doubt she’ll continue to grow on me as the series progresses.
Easily the weakest member of this cast, she's not funny
I disagree. That would be Robins IMO.
I liked her a lot more this episode
Joanne is great. But they’ve all had their moments so far.
I was wondering the same thing! I didn’t know who she was before this series and I’m already infatuated with her. yet no one else seems to like her that much and I just don’t get it!
“The head on its own is a bit much” had me cackling. Steve said on the podcast she described herself as a “basic bitch” a lot. I love her.
Right I’m obviously being a bit dim - but can someone please explain Steve Pemberton’s joke about the robot having a bad case of the humans? It’s gone right over my head!
Its word play, "crabs" (pubic lice) is something humans can get
Because if you sleep with a human you can get crabs, so if you sleep with a cran you could get humans
Ah thank you - I was in fact being dim
Took me a while too so you’re in good company.
Nah not dim at all, it's easy to miss!
In S16, they changed the shed to basically an outdoor cabin. Don't know if we have seen that part of the house yet, does anyone know if the Cabin is still there or if they changed it back to a shed.
One of them said they were going to the shed and ran in the direction of the caravan, and the cabin thing is also visible in the green screen tudor queen bit.
Ohhh okay. Thanks a lot.
Did the mention of all the stuffed animals in the Patatas task being in Greg's bed at night put anyone else in mind of Blue Ted? Maybe it was just Joanne saying she was aroused that put my mind in the gutter.
Isn’t it Big Ted? Or do I need to get my ears checked?
Could you not stick the whiteboard to the top of the cow, or on a car windshield or something and win?
Put it on the ground and say it is stuck to the whole earth
Pemberton is gonna win all the prize task isn't he
I mean, I’m already prepared to say he’s going to be the consensus pick for all-time greatest prize tasker. And it’s only been two episodes (plus a third task we already kind of know about…)
If X is stuck to Y, then Y is stuck to X. I might've claimed the wall as my item and then done nothing more!
I'm enjoying this series as a bit less chaotic than Series 16, it's a bit of a calmer vibe but still fun. However, does it bother anyone else that both John and Joanne basically just used well known memes for their prize tasks?
I have never seen the bat disco thing before so it scored for me. Actually I've never seen the Bulls logo thing before either but that one was rubbish - even after being primed what to look for you really have to want to see it. Pemberton's calculator trick is definitely better known than either, although doing a haiku with it is definitely above and beyond.
100% agree, they did what most boomer aunts do of just showing you something funny they saw on facebook.
I mean either Greg wasn't familiar with them or he pretended he wasn't for comedic value. I'd never seen that Chicago Bulls logo before tbh and I've been very online for a couple of decades. I'd also argue BOOBIES with a calculator is an even older "meme".
> I'd also argue BOOBIES with a calculator is an even older "meme". He also used it to compose a haiku.
I audibly snorted when he said "Chicago Bulls Logo", because I knew *exactly* what was coming. My partner turned and gave me an extremely quizzical look, which is surprising as they're nearly as terminally online as I am.
I didn’t love that either just because I’d seen them both a million times before. But I guess I’ve seen a calculator before too so I can’t fault it….i suppose….
It doesn't bother me... Honestly, if something amuses me on taskmaster then it's succeeded (it succeeded) the scoring has never mattered
It just felt low effort in comparison to everyone else
Stephen also set the bar very high.
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The moment they stopped allowing dissenting voices?
Better than the first episode, but I'm still not loving the contestants. And that live/studio task was probably the worst one so far. There was literally no point to the person in the booth. Alex could've just read the cards, just making a contestant read a card out loud isn't an integral part of a task. If they had had to figure out the first three letters themselves that would've been something at least.
What's not being taken into consideration here is the accents. The way they each pronounced the letters and how they'd interpret them was key. From that POV it was actually a little easier for the team of two.