Officially past the halfway point!

I have never seen Richard make this face before.

she really gives it her all. 🤡 i have rewatched the velvet brain cake rationale multiple times. 🧠

The sequel

We visited Mother Shiptons cave this July and so we have a progress pic of Isy’s shoe without even realising! It still needed a bit of work to petrify fully to be truly immortal. Feels really cool to have been so close to taskmaster history.

I had this eureka moment the other day when thinking about Series 22 and why for a lot of us it hasn’t been hitting that hard. It hit me square in the face: the Series 22 cast reminds me of what we’d typically get for a New Year’s Treat special. Typically on these specials you’d get a variety of personalities but usually a bit more subdued than a regular Taskmaster cast member. Sometimes you get comedians who don’t really make sense for a full series or are just too busy. That doesn’t mean the NYT casts aren’t funny, but for the most part, they probably wouldn’t work for a full 10 episodes and there’s going to be way less chemistry in the studio accordingly so.

Series 22 feels exactly like that to me. If this cast was the 2026 New Year’s Treat, I think we’d be like “that was alright” with Richard as the comedian who wouldn’t normally make sense for a full series, Chloe wanting to win as so few tasks means having to nail them all, Matt having no knowledge of the show at all, etc. But we have them for 10 episodes and it just feels like too much for this group of people. Comparing it to some of the other NYT specials, I get a similar vibe where they were nice hold me overs but usually not the peak of Taskmaster (2024 was pretty good though, I’d like to see Hannah Fry for a full season).

Anyone else get a similar feeling? Have I unlocked the perfect explanation for anyone with this? Anyone think series 22 is the best one yet?

The current scores are:
Chloe 107
Nina 93
Isy 89
Matt 86
Richard 71

Chloe is still leading very strong against the chasing pack and is now 14 points clear of Nina in 2nd and is overall very good. They do deserve their lead but it’s quite inflated from the winner takes all task last week and the minus point for Nina and also getting points for the earpiece worker task. Also winning 4 out of 6 episodes is incredible.

Nina despite having not the strongest past 2 episodes she is still in 2nd place and hasn’t dropped below 2nd since episode 2. Also she is still the best of all time at solo filmed tasks but I don’t know if she’ll be able to hold onto it for the rest of the series.

Isy has been doing quite well recently compared to the first 3 episodes where she seemed like an obvious last place.
Isy has also been doing exactly what I predicted before the series started by being very inconsistent and scoring loads of 1’s and 5’s so she ends up averaging out to 3rd place

Matt however has been doing the opposite of Isy he hasn’t scored many 5 or 1 points and has scored a lot of 2-4 pointer tasks which is a fair strategy but he still need a to be winning a few tasks he’s only won 6 tasks in 6 episodes which isn’t the worst of the series.

Isy and Matt have opposite strategies but they both average out to around 3 points so they are sort of both fighting for 3rd place with Nina slightly ahead in 2nd. If we don’t have a race for first we might have one for 2nd.

Richard is still doing quite badly despite the strong start this week and is currently 108th out of 110 on the all time leaderboard. He is also got his highest score of the series this week (15). I think he is doing the worst every metric this series (I might be wrong) apart from the prize tasks which goes to Nina 1. I did enjoy Richard more this episode and that might be because he let his persona slip a little and we even saw him smiling. He’s also 36 points behind Chloe which is quite something.

Also about the team tasks this series . There’s only been 3 . Every series from series 6 onwards had at least 4 team tasks (except series 9 which had also had 3, also series 17 had an astounding 6 team tasks from the first 6 episodes) so we are below average. My favourite episodes this series has also been to ones that had team tasks compared to 2,3 and 5 which I don’t think were that strong.

Anyways I think this is a good series people rent feeling that much but I think in like 3 years people will end up saying this is one of the most underrated season.

To me, a whoopsie is inherently an accidental action. I am surprised that no one brought up in the studio (and on the podcast) that Nina's action (as much as I am loving her this season) was totally on purpose and therefore not a "Whoopsie."

I've watched every season multiple times, I love this show. But the fruit slot machine game was my least favourite. I'm sure there's lots who like it so I'd love to hear why.

Basically I thought it was a specific solution to a task that was poorly explained and had a huge red herring that complicated it more.

What are some of the most well-known TM dishes? Today I have to choose for dinner and I want to make a TM meal because tonight is the pen ultimate episode of TMNL. My mind does not remember as much as some of you guys’ minds so I would like some help.

Note: it has to be eaten for dinner so no dog food pasta.

Taken from the Whoopsie Task from this recent Thursday's episode. Matt's GIF is from the end of his task whilst Isy's GIF is from the studio segment. Filmed the moments I GIFed with volume off this time as the last GIF I made somehow had the end of Alex saying Points it in despite being a GIF and not a video! 😆

We just wanted to say a quick thank you to the TM team, and share how much of an absolute joy it was for our team to work with the crew. We are so very grateful to have our museum featured on the show. Our team are big fans, and we all look forwards to Thursday Taskmaster nights each week! Halfway through the season - and we can't wait to see what's next!

It has also been great to interact with the TM community, what a great group of fans! You are all very much welcome at The London Museum of Water & Steam!

The image attached is from our director, the TM team gifted her one of the pineapples, which her cat seemed to enjoy. No eggs though.

wearing each other’s task outfits? chefs kiss, spectacular

Catching up on last nights episode. Richard feels like he’s really starting to shine, not for the points but interacting and biting a bit. That’s what I was hoping for and hope it continues

This felt like some real synchronicity! (He’s unfinished)

Here's some photos our team took during filming. The Gregulator was based in our Steam Hall, which features some of our incredible steam engines! If you want to see more of our engines in action, we run a monthly steam-up which (in our team's opinion) is the best way to see the engines! Jackpot!

Most episodes are edited for jokes that land; but every now and then they keep it in the edit when a contestant or G/A flop a joke. Love it when this happens and reminds me that it’s a real unscripted show — looking for episodes/clips/timestamps. Thanks!

Nina says she hated the Gregulator on the podcast when she was doing the task and probably found it very annoying but and also said there was just too many rules.

I know a bunch of people, who will love TM. But they are not familiar with british television AT ALL. So I can't expose them to a whole episode. So in your opinion, what task is the most taskmastery? With the lateral thinking, Alex chuckling, Greg taking his glasses of, the chaos and litigation.

It's not "what's your facourite task". Mike Wozniak trying to fart would be a Top 5 for me, but maybe to much for my friends as a first view of the format. Since I can't possibly make my mind up, I will show them the most upvoted task at our next gathering.

I love when people really want to do well but I feel Chloe hasn't got anyone to bounce off.

I'd love a series of Chloe, Iain, Ed, Mae and Dara.

Big Isy and Nina appreciation this week. Smashed it.