Lie mode engaged.

[cwickham]

Let it be known that Craig’s ep of WILTY TXes on 2 Feb

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/would_i_lie_to_you/episodes/17/6

Topic

[clem]

They had Bob and Suggs on episodes after I’d read their autobiographies, so I already knew that certain stories were true when they came up.

I knew Bill Oddie was telling the truth about nearly drowning and being rescued by Freddy Marks from Rod, Jane and Freddy, as I’d seen Bill’s This Is Your Life. I don’t remember a contestant ever admitting to knowing that a story is true but that’s bound to have happened isn’t it. They could just not let on, of course.

[Formica]

They had Bob and Suggs on episodes after I’d read their autobiographies, so I already knew that certain stories were true when they came up.

Well they have to get the stories from somewhere.

[Flap Jack]

Taskmaster definitely hasn’t gone downhill in my estimation. Things fluctuate of course, but most of my favourite series are from recent years (though I admit my perspective may be biased by the fact that I only started watching whole series as they went out in 2020, and caught up with earlier series after the fact).

Task briefs becoming more convoluted I consider a neutral development, as I find that they add to the fun of those tasks as much as they take away the simplicity – and you still get plenty of simple tasks regardless.

Series being 10 episodes long I see as an unambiguous positive. With the exception of the broadly agreed upon weakest series – 6 – the individual episodes were just as good after the change, and I’m still left wanting more at the end.

As for Greg phoning it in, I have no idea what that’s even in reference to. He seems just as good to me?

The one aspect which I think genuinely has gotten worse are the prize tasks. They’re still fun, but in the earliest series these were consistently items that the contestant owns and often ones they wouldn’t want to lose, but nowadays most prize submissions are just things they’ve specifically acquired or created for the show (or got the production team to acquire/create for them). I think one recent prize task even included the stipulation “which you’ve owned for a while” and still not all of the things were genuine possessions. Prize tasks used to have this personal dimension to them, but now they’re just an opportunity for the contestant to do A Bit – and sometimes not even one that’s connected to the brief, like Frankie Boyle bringing in a “Bee Gee Ouija Board” as a thing for the bathroom. Maybe the briefs getting increasingly specific and niche in order to be unique is partially to blame for this – I think the prize task is probably the one round where they could get away with just repeating briefs from earlier series.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Agree with everything Flapjack said 

Though I don’t mind too much that prize tasks aren’t always personal items (they sometimes are, Julian Clarey often bought his own stuff in) as it can be funnier seeing a contestant think they’ve thought up and nailed the perfect prize and getting slammed for it being shit. There’s just as much comedy in them making it up as not. 

[cwickham]

Craig has some kind of presence in the first of the two Unseen Bits episodes on 1 March.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001wt9c

[Podey]

I’m looking forward to all the memes about urine recyc.

[GlenTokyo]

I agree with Flapjack.
The only sort of bad series tbh was series 6, but it wasn’t unwatchable, but Liza Tarbuck did a lot of heavy lifting, but I’d put a lot of the 10 episode series’ above the first few series. 
The prize tasks are shocking though sometimes. I feel like they need to introduce negative points for the truly shit ones. 
It’s been really clear that some prize task prizes have been a product of a 10 minute phone conversation with the contestant and a producer rather than something concocted and sourced by the contestant. 

[Warbodog]

The first 2 TM series are dear to me because I started watching episode 1 at the end of a stressful day, found it to be 1000% what I needed and binged everything available within the next 24 hours, which I never normally do.

Maybe I overloaded by watching some of the NZ series too, which I found more appealing in their fresh simplicity than the equivalent UK runs in virus time. There’ll be plenty to binge next time I get stressed out anyway.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

New Zealand had the benefit of not being in lockdown so had a studio audience when the UK didn’t. 

[Flap Jack]

New Zealand had the benefit of not being in lockdown so had a studio audience when the UK didn’t. 

While true, Covid still meant that NZ Series 1 had a really small studio audience. It’s subjective, but I found the atmosphere from jokes just getting a small smattering of laughs (and sometimes no laughs when you’d expect some) a lot more awkward than UK Series 10-12’s full-sized audiences reacting to pre-recorded material.

[Formica]

I know I said several things Taskmaster is working against in recent series – and it absolutely works through them and puts out an incredible show consistently is spite of them, even though they are sometimes noticeable.

The only actually unbearable issue with modern Taskmaster is the fucking replay camera. Used constantly now and it’s shit editing. Rewatching the exact same moment endlessly isn’t that interesting. The fact that this replaces runtime that could be devoted to live reactions of the contestants – a real piece of charm in the old edits – boils me just about every fucking time.

(Note: this is only about when the one-second clip of a contestant Achieving Task is played like four or five times instantly when it happens. This is not about when they go back in review to show that the contestant broke the rules, which rocks every time.)

[RunawayTrain]

Taskmaster-adjacent news: Alex Horne has organised a Comedy Football match again this year, at Chesham United on the 11th May.  Players last year included Mark Watson, Hugh Dennis, Greg James, Ed Gamble, Alex Brooker, John Robins (although other than Mark and Alex I don’t yet know who will be playing this year).  Tickets mostly £12, from here https://cheshamunitedfc.ktckts.com/brand/events

               

And at risk of further derailment of the thread, I realised no Dwarfers have been played in No More Jockeys (or at least in the ones I’ve seen, not finished Set 5 or all the Live specials yet) but Craig Charles does get a mention:

(Daniel Craig was the play – no more people with two first names – and Craig Charles named as an example of someone who had Craig as a forename, but coincidentally another example of someone in that category like all the 4 core cast are.)  [Set 1 Game 14.]

[Author]

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