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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 3 years

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Nearly a week late due to life stuff, but excited to finally get to episode 100! Thoughts on Taskmaster s12e05, written as I watch it:

- Really enjoying Guz’s theme of bringing in pictures of himself, because I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose. In season 7, Phil Wang had a curated theme of prizes with stories about how he’d “haggled” for them. Rhod Gilbert obviously had the picture of Greg. But I think Guz really did just throw in his first thought as an answer to every prize task question, and it just happens to sometimes be a picture of himself.

- Wait. They give people dressing gowns on QI? Did they give that to him to wear during one specific episode, or does that just come with the dressing room? There were lots of episodes when they all showed up in costumes, so maybe it was for one of the Christmas episodes or something. But I prefer to image everyone who appears on QI just gets a dressing gown in their dressing room that they’re allowed to take home and keep.

- I can’t image what Morgana Robinson has brought in for her elegant prize, given that the most elegant thing I can think of is Morgana Robinson.

- So far we’ve had Morgana’s weird giraffe, Desiree’s flower, Alan’s dressing gown, and Guz’s picture of himself. I’d say Guz’s picture was fairly elegant, but the other ones weren’t. However, VCM should be able to nail this one. Surely she has some elegant things lying round. David’s “special dressing gown” comes to mind. It’s nicer than Alan’s, or at least it was when he brought it onto WILTY years ago.

- I genuinely wrote the above point before seeing Victoria’s prize, and genuinely meant it when I said I thought she’s bring something properly elegant. But I also am somehow not surprised by what she actually brought. VCM is an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

- I love hearing VCM and Greg Davies talk about her absolutely terrible prize while Alan just loses it with laughter in the background.

- I think Desiree got underscored here. Her flower should have come second. It should at least have beaten Victoria’s monstrosity.

- “Sit on a cake.” Oh God, now I understand the point of all imagery in the transition into this task, of themes from previous seasons and a clock going backwards. Are we doing a retrospective? For episode 100, are we doing tasks that pay homage to great previous tasks? I love it. I love it so much. I love Liza Tarbuck and I love Taskmaster I love this task. I love how well Alex knows his audience, and knows that Taskmaster is watched by a lot of weird people who want to see more of that time in season six when Liza Tarbuck made him sit on a fucking cake.

- Desiree has brought her A game, style-wise, to film the studio portion of the 100th episode. I like it. Attire to match the occasion.

- “There’s always a cake on the Taskmaster premises.” - Alex Horne

- “This is a very loose show with loose definitions.” Guz Khan has picked up on how Taskmaster works quite well, for a guy who has clearly not actually familiar with the show.

- Bonus points offered on the task’s instructions are often more of a distraction than anything else - contestants often fuck up the actual task more than is worth it in pursuit of just one extra point. But this one is five bonus points, that’s a lot. That’s a whole extra task. It’s worth really slowing down your time to not just get the five bonus points, but to make sure they don’t go to someone else. (I mean... it’s worth that if you’re thinking of this as a competitive sport rather than a comedy show. Which is a normal and reasonable thing to do.)

- Guz learned the importance of cake texture from Instagram. I’m sorry, everyone, but I think I may be developing a new celebrity crush.

- Quick piece of general advice: if you intend to sit on a cake, probably don’t light candles and put them on top of it.

- “It’s almost too high.” I think Morgana’s definition of “best cake” is “highest cake”.

Last week, Greg described Morgana as “unhinged”. I fucking love that word both in general, and as a descriptor for Morgana Robinson.

- Another piece of advice: If you intend to sit on a cake, don’t put lit candles and a sparkler on it. But God, I can’t begrudge anything done by Morgana Robinson when she does that fluttering her gaze up through her eyelashes thing. Unhinged and beautiful. What a combination.

- Fucking excellent job to the camera operator who captured this exact screenshot:

- “Croissants is croissants.” Rare title drop by Alex, they don’t normally name episodes after his quotes. I see why they did in this case. That line was delivered so well, quick and deadpan.

- I’m pretty sure I could make a cake that looks like Morgana in less than an hour and forty-five minutes even if I weren’t trying to work against the clock. But too be fair, maybe I’m not as concerned about rise as she is.

- Guz and Morgana first, Alan and Victoria next. Isolating Desiree. That’ll be fun.

- VCM said, “Your time starts now,” then immediately dropped the task and rushed out of the room. She is not fucking around.

- “I just need to find a cake, or something that looks like a cake.” Unlike Guz, I’m not sure Alan’s figured this show out. That’s... not how that works. It’s actually all right if it doesn’t look like a cake, as long as he can successfully argue that it is a cake. But it does have to be a cake.

- “I’m going inside to make a cake.”

Oh, Alan. What the fuck do you think a cake is?

- First of all, I enjoy VCM referencing the fact about herself that I’ve heard mentioned on several shows, which is that she bring her own food places so she has something to eat in case she doesn’t like the food provided. Secondly,

Oh, Victoria. What the fuck do you think a cake is?

- I assume there will be a debate in the studio about what a cake is. I often like to have strong opinions about debatable issues on Taskmaster, but I will admit to being a North American person who does not know what a flapjack is. I’ve Googled it, and the first result says: “A flapjack is a baked bar, cooked in a flat oven tin and cut into squares or rectangles, made from rolled oats, fat, brown sugar and usually golden syrup.” So... not a cake.

- Alex Horne: What flavour cake do you think this is? Alan Davies: It’s lemon. It’s a lemon cake, look at it. That’s a ridiculous question.

God, I love No Fucks Alan.

- Why do these people keep lighting things on fire before sitting on them?

- Okay, I think Alan Davies frantically singing, “Happy birthday Taskmaster,” means he’s taken the “most unhinged” crown from Morgana.

- “Everything that’s not, you know, meat, and... vegetables is a cake, isn’t it?” Okay, when VCM sat on the “flapjack”, I look at that thing and saw that it wasn’t a cake, and then Googled it and read that it wasn’t a cake. But I figured VCM, being the mighty VCM, might have some excellent logic to explain why it actually is a cake. Given her explanation to Alex in the house... I hope she’s had time to come up with something better for her defense to Greg in the studio.

- Wait, really? I just watched the whole studio discussion of this, and there was no debate whatsoever about whether Victoria’s flapjack is a cake. They discussed the fact that Alan’s coloured paper isn’t a cake. But seemed fine with VCM’s approach. Maybe they did discuss it, and the discussion just didn’t make the edit. But how could that not make the edit? How could they consider it unimportant to the narrative of this episode to point out that VCM obviously did not sit on a cake?

I’m beginning to suspect there may be a cultural difference at play here. Britain, and many English-speaking places besides North America (as I learned when I visited New Zealand a few years ago), has a much broader definition of the word “pie” than we do. I think of “pie” as a dessert that gets cut up and shared, while in other places it’s common to have individual savoury pies. Maybe cakes are like that. The word just means more things in Britain. But even in Britain, I’m pretty fucking sure it doesn’t mean construction paper.

- I love Desiree’s habit of repeating the task’s instructions with increasing disgust as she accomplishes it.

- “Do I have to make the cake first? Oh, fuck you if that’s the right answer.” Desiree’s utter contempt for all these tasks is such a great running plotline of this season. I am glad she’s choosing this approach, though. Alan has mentioned to other contestants that “There’s always a cake on the Taskmaster premises.” This suggests to me that they probably did hide a cake somewhere, and it would be a shame if they went to all that trouble just to have none of the contestants find it.

- Awwww....

I genuinely made that “aww” noise out loud when I saw it. They made a 100th birthday cake for the show’s 100th episode. Which doesn’t really work because the show isn’t 100 years old, but it’s fine.

I now realize it should have been obvious that this task was not just an homage to a previous Taskmaster task for Taskmaster’s 100th episode, but also an excuse to work an item generally associated with celebration into that 100th episode. Awww.

- I’m finally working from internet that will let me upload gifs again! And I’m so glad, because no single still image could capture the joy of Desiree launching herself onto that cake.

- “I mean, is this what I winner looks like, or what?” - Desiree Burch

I think... I’m not quite sure, but I think Desiree coming out of the caravan looking like that, her back half covered in cake and her space sweater’s hood poking out of the boiler suit... I think I just decided that Desiree Burch is the person I want to win this season.

I’m not saying VCM isn’t the most perfect human being in the world anymore. But I think Desiree Burch might be the person who most deserves take on Sarah Kendall in what I’m pretty sure is going to be an amazing Champion of Champions 3. I think she might also deserve to be, like, prime minister.

- Please enjoy Guz Khan’s shocked, amazed, and impressed reaction to Desiree managing to find a cake in the house in which, during his own task, Guz had been told that there was a cake.

- Oh, Alex has pulled a season 11 salt/sugar thing. He’s just announced that the cake was made of shaving cream, so once again, he has led contestants to think they’ve found the thing they need but actually it’s just a decoy that looks like that thing. This time, however, Greg is having none of it. He says it’s a cake. I suspect there may have been a longer discussion about this in the studio, which got edited down to Alex saying it’s shaving cream and Greg saying it’s a cake.

- Wait. Wait. They all get points? Alan gets points for sitting on some cardboard? VCM gets points for sitting on what seems to be basically a granola bar? And I think Desiree would be very justified in being pissed off if they tried to deny her points for finding that cake, but to be fair, shaving cream isn’t a cake. No one’s even getting marked down a bit for sitting on something that clearly isn’t a cake? Everyone’s just getting marked according to how much time they took? What is this bullshit? I want to call for a challenge and bring in the head ref for another opinion.

Fuck, we still can’t do that, it’s still a comedy show. I guess I’ll just have to do the next best thing, which is listen to Ed Gamble complain on the podcast about them not taking the rules seriously enough.

- Okay, fine, I guess I’ll accept this blatant disrespect for Taskmaster rules because it led to Victoria getting five points and that led to her literally rubbing her hands together with glee:

I don’t think she’s ever looked more like her husband.

- Morgana should have just brought in her fucking self for the “most elegant thing beginning with G” prize task. Pretend her middle name is Gertrude or some shit.

God, everyone on this season is fucking awesome. It has that season 4/5/7/9 quality of no weak links at all.

- Yes, team task! Vicotrialan and Morguziree! The individual contestants on this season are awesome, but the teams have dynamics that make them even more entertaining than the sums of their parts.

- Okay... so is Alex participating in this task with Victorialan? I don’t think they’ve ever done that on Taskmaster before. That’ll be... interesting. I feel like this will raise a lot of questions about whether that’s fair, but I’ll reserve judgement until I actually see the task.

- Morgana after saying a sexual innuendo and then laughing at her own joke (“So I can only touch balls”):

- One thing that’s fun about the team dynamics in this season is the contrast in competitiveness between Victoria and Alan (this is made even more fun by the fact that this is often inversely proportional to the contrast in their overall competence at the competitive tasks). I love Alan finishing reading the task, and VCM cutting him off with, “Don’t read the next line!” to get him to re-read the instructions before saying, “Your time starts now.”

- Okay, so the middle person is there to stand up and sit down at ten-second intervals. Are they marked on how well the person does that? Because that doesn’t seem fair, if Alex is playing for one team and Guz is playing for the other. But it all right if the middle person is just meant to be a distraction/obstacle for the other two.

- And then the next line wasn’t even, “Your time starts now.” It was, “Your time starts when Alex pretends his whistle isn’t working.” Because sometimes Alex Horne just wants to have fun.

- They’re talking like it’s complicated, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case to me. The first two people stay on their squares. Person 1 throws the balls to person 2, person 2 catches them in the net. Person 2 has to use the net to catch them, you get penalized if person 2 touches the ball. Person 3 stands between them and gets in the way. You’re penalized if you hit person 3 with a ball, or if any of the balls stop rolling before they pass person 3.

...Okay, I guess that is a bunch of a rules. But they don’t seem complicated or difficult to remember. Though I know I’m saying this from the comfort of my own home. If I were in that house and being asked to keep track of all this in my head while against the clock and being filmed for national television, this might quickly seem overwhelming.

- I wrote the above point, and then I continued the video and watched Morguziree do the task. I... can’t figure out what they’ve done wrong. I just wrote a whole point about how I think the rules were straightforward and there weren’t any tricks, and it didn’t even occur to me that there was no reason not to just pass the net down the line. So good for them, they saw a loophole that I missed completely even though they were working under pressure. I... I think that’s the case. But something’s off. I’m writing this before I watch the studio portion, so I don’t know if I’m right here. If we go back to the studio portion and it turns out they did it perfectly, I’ll commend them. But this doesn’t feel right. If they’d “hacked” the task successfully, their attempt would have been shown after the other team’s because they have to build up to a triumph like that. Unless both teams had “hacked” the task, but if that were the case then they probably wouldn’t have aired this one.

I think they must have broken some rule, but I can’t figure out what. Okay, I’m going to keep watching and see what’s going on.

- Ohhhhhhhhhh. Balls between the task reader and the middle person. Passing the net down was fine, Morgana just needed to put them on the other side of herself. I have to give Alex credit for this one, that was genuinely pretty clever. They did “hack” the task, but by the clearly stated instructions, still didn’t win. Accomplish the goal on a technicality but then have their entire attempt ruined on a technicality. Damn. This is Taskmaster trickery at its finest.

- Morgana: You asshole!

Desiree: Reading! Ugh! Wow. Wow.

Guz:

Alan:

- Somehow, until I started watching Victorialan’s task attempt, I didn’t think about how fucking funny it would be that Alan gets to spend this entire task just throwing balls at Alex.

- “You wonder why anglers have to actually catch live fish. This is all the joy, and none of the trauma.” - VCM, while putting balls in a net, giving us her perspective on the world as a vegan

- Hang on. I paused the video after Alex said they had ten seconds left in the task. If you combine the balls that are currently between Alan and Alex with the balls that have hit Alex, I think there are more of those than there are in the net. And some of those will count twice for negative points, if they hit Alex and then bounced into the space between Alan and Alex. Morguziree got negative one, but they might still win because I think Vicotrialan might get penalized down to a lower score than that.

- Negative 128. Yep, not surprising. And this is actually nice. Morguziree did find a clever way to do it, and I like that they’re getting the points.

- Wait. What? Zero points all around? That isn’t the letter of the law. There is so much precedent for tasks in which everyone finished with a negative score, but the ones who did the best still get the most points. A strict application of the letter of the law in this case would be five points for Morguziree and zero points for Victorialan. A less harsh ruling would be to split it 4-1 or even 3-2 or something. But the task never said they could be disqualified for hitting Alex too many times or having too many balls in the middle. It just said they were penalized.

- “He will get a lot of grief for that.” - Alex Horne

Damn right. I am looking forward to this podcast episode because I really hope Ed will object to this as much as I do. That was absolute bullshit. There must have been a longer discussion about it that got edited down, I don’t see how Greg stuck by that decision. I hope we get an outtake of that longer discussion someday. What the hell?

- I do enjoy Greg’s dislike of football. But I’m too mad at him for his bastardization of the sanctity of Taskmaster scoring to be pleased about that right now.

- Interesting task. Lots of room for strategy and different ways to go about it, which always makes for good viewing. I’m looking forward to seeing how everyone blocks that net. Still mad about the previous task’s scoring, though.

- “Oh, I just realized what I should have done. Okay, cool. Cool cool cool.”

I really want to know what Desiree thought of in that moment, after it was too late. Because I think just about anything would have been better than covering the net with Sara Wrap, which a soccer ball kicked with any force can easily break through.

- Desiree straight-up kicked that ball into the net. Amazing.

Yeah, this is getting saved to my reaction gifs folder. Feel free to save it to your own computers, in case you ever need a gif to use when you want to say something was an “own goal”.

- I love the difference in the way Alan and Morgana act after having the brilliant idea to turn the net around.

Morgana: Et Voila!

Alan:

- Morgana: Could you Google, how long is twelve… how long is a yar… ugh… twelve yards in metres, please!

Thank you, Morgana, I also have no good concept of how long a “yard” is, and don’t understand why it’s being used in this show that’s made in a country that uses metric. Apparently it’s 10.973 metres, so not far off.

- I laughed out loud when Alan brought the cow out. Then again when he dropped the bath tub on the ball. For episode 100, we’re bringing out all the classic props! Next he’s going to block it will OLLIE.

I also enjoy Alan’s straightforward way of doing things: put a bunch of stuff in front of the net so it’s harder to put the ball in it. Meanwhile, Morgana is measuring out twelve yards. I do not know why she’s doing this, but I’m sure she has an idea that will work either very well or very badly.

- This was all I wanted when it was announced that Alan Davies would be on Taskmaster. I just wanted to see him push a piano on what appears to be a skateboard (I assume it’s actually something that’s meant to transport the piano, but it looks like a skateboard) across the Taskmaster lawn to block a soccer net. Thank you, Alex Horne, for giving me this show.

- Alan is having such a good time on this show.

- Alex has started trying to score, and I still don’t know what Morgana’s plan was.

- “I think the cow saved it!” - Alan Davies

- I’ve now finished watching their task attempts, and I still don’t understand the point of anything Morgana did besides turn the net around. Why did she have to measure the yards? I realize she wanted to know exactly how close she could get to the ball’s spot, but she didn’t seem to do anything clever with that information.

- Wait, Morgana stopped the ball for longer than Alan did? Why? They both turned the net around. Alan also blocked it. I don’t understand. It’s possible that I do not understand soccer very well.

- Guz is debating the definition of “spot”. I’m not sure he’s correct here. When Rhod Gilbert moved the hole in season 7, he picked up the entire hole and brought it across the grounds. I think it’s fair to define “hole” as “the dirt that goes into the ground”. But “spot” isn’t defined as “that red piece of felt”. “Spot” is a particular area of the ground, marked by the piece of felt.

- Okay, I will forgive Guz for misunderstanding the definition of “spot” on the grounds that him locking Alex out of the house entirely is an amazingly Rhod Gilbert-like thing to do and I respect it so much.

- This is so fucking funny.

- I want Guz Khan and Rhod Gilbert to build a fort together.

- I love the contrast between Guz locking the hall in the house and burying it under furniture, versus VCM putting a barrel and some gargoyles in front of it. Also, where did she get the gargoyles?

- I think this is peak VCM on Taskmaster. The utter shock that Alex managed to kick a ball over a barrel. This epitomizes her entire experience on the show. Amazing.

- Did Guz just refer to shoes as “shit flickers”?

- “I didn’t know the ball could go upwards.” - Victoria Coren Mitchell, extremely intelligent and talented poker player and quiz show genius

- I understand very few of the things that happened during that task. But I’m glad everyone (or almost everyone, anyway) had a good time.

- Oh Jesus. They are not fucking around for the 100th studio task.

- Oh shit. Ten actual points. Plus another task with five bonus points. They’re really going big with the points this season. Except, you know, for that time when Greg decided to give a task no points even though that made no sense at all.

- I really hope they filled the “bad balloons” with something that will make it entertaining when they’re popped.

- Excellent, weird yellow powder. Just what I wanted. VCM getting eliminated in the first round seems quite fitting. Also, I love the visuals in this task when they show it from the camera in the ceiling.

- People getting disqualified from one task, which causes concern about them being banished from the entire show: a story in four pictures.

- I appreciate Greg’s dislike of soccer. Have less appreciation for his love of darts, but you do you, Greg.

- I’m really enjoying Morgana looking away and dancing around and using various flourishes when she throws, but I do feel like this may be a health and safety issue with Greg right there. I assume nothing hits him, because “Greg sustains a serious injury during a studio task” is a story I’d have heard by now if it were true. But still, he should be sitting somewhere else.

- I love the montage they’re doing with the slow motion and the music over dart throwing. This is what Taskmaster should be.

- Alex Horne: And that dart did hit a camera, we’re on four now. Greg Davies: Four cameramen?

Oh right. I got so taken in by the magic of television that worried about Greg safety, but forgot the studio is also covered in camera operators. That’s an interesting thing to remember while I watch Morgana turn her back to the balloons and throw a dart over her shoulder.

- This is one of my favourite screenshots I’ve ever taken of Taskmaster. I can’t decide whose face is my favourite. This whole task was filmed and edited so well. This would feel a lot more tense if the episode hadn’t aired a week ago and already accidentally saw something that said Guz is the episode’s winner (that’s the only spoiler I saw before getting to this episode, fortunately).

- Greg Davies: It’s got to be one and out, hasn’t it? That’s what I’m saying inside my head. Alex Horne: You’re saying it outside your head, I think, Greg.

I do enjoy the very rare moments when Greg and Alex break character a little and can just laugh at/with each other.

- God damn, this task is awesome. So many good screenshots. Nice, liberal use of effects. Going big for episode 100.

- I knew it was going to happen (at some point, I didn’t know when it would happen), and I still gasped out loud when Morgana hit the bad dart.

The little cartoon hedgehog really adds something to that second screenshot.

- Okay, I also said, “Aw” out loud when they announced that Guz had won and we got this:

- I like how much the overall scores have jumped around since this season started. There’s no runaway winner, but everyone’s competitive. Well, except Victoria. I mean, she is competitive, because that word can refer to a personality trait. It just also means “has a chance of winning”, and that doesn’t describe her so much.

- Next episode airs tomorrow! I should be able to actually watch this one right after it airs, so I’m pleased that I only have to wait a day between episodes this time. God, that one was good. This whole season is so fucking good.

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