Taskmaster, “Science all your life” | Series 19, Episode 8

Taskmaster series 19 is nearly over, with just two more episodes left. Our warriors holding on for dear life are Fatiha El-Ghorri, who faces her balloon-based fears; Jason Mantzoukas, who chooses violence for the 12th time; Mathew Baynton, who uses the words “figurative masturbation”; Rosie Ramsey, who grosses me out more than Baynton did last week; and Stevie Martin, who wins her first episode.

During the pre-task banter, Little Alex Horne flashed a QR code for Taskmaster Bingo. I thought for sure there would be Easter Eggs, but as far as I could tell, it was pretty straightforward Bingo that celebrated a win with a burst of animated confetti. (If somebody did find Easter Eggs, please let me know in the comments!)

The Prize Task

This week’s prize task is to bring in the best object you’ve borrowed from a fairly close friend. Martin brought in a sword she’d borrowed for a wedding reception Lord of the Rings cosplay, and shout-out to the closed-captioning hero who correctly spelled, down to the diacritics, “Witch-King of Angmar, the Lord of Nazgûl.” (If it was captioned by AI that’s been trained on Tolkien, I don’t want to know.)

Baynton borrowed a two-person kayak from Jim Howick, his Ghosts co-star (and who you may know from Sex Education), under the pretense of Baynton’s kids wanting to go kayaking. I thought this was pretty good, certainly worthy of more than two points; I hope that Baynton shares Howick’s reaction to seeing his kayak on TV.

Ramsey brought in a pelvic floor exerciser she borrowed from her sister, which is not inherently gross (we love a strong pelvic floor!). But oh my god, bruv, “What? We’ve got the same juice”?! Absolutely not.

Mantzoukas borrowed the Taskmaster pop-up book that Baynton made for episode 6, which El-Ghorri won. When she realized what Mantzoukas had done, she yelled, “You wanker!” Man, I am going to miss her.

El-Ghorri won this prize task with her earnest explanation of a prayer mat she borrowed from a friend at a time when she was struggling with her faith. I desperately want to know whether this was a genius calculation on her part, knowing that Taskmaster Greg Davies would tread carefully. (I don’t doubt the story behind it, but if anybody is a person of faith and an evil genius, it’s Fatiha El-Ghorri.) It was a beautiful prayer mat.

The Other Tasks

• The first task was to knock over all 10 skittles in 10 minutes — or was it? The skittles, or bowling pins for us Americans, were set up on a large target some distance from the contestants, who couldn’t move from behind a velvet rope. Most of the contestants took a suspiciously straightforward approach of Throwing Shit At Them.

  • I can’t even be mad about the bait-and-switch that Little Alex Horne subjected us to in the studio. The show doesn’t overuse this approach, thankfully, so after watching three spectacular failures, it was fun to see that the real task was to fail the task in the most heartbreakingly spectacular way. I thought Baynton had cinched it, but Davies was moved by Martin’s (fake) tale of bullying woe. Both were excellent, as was Mantzoukas’ magnificent faceplant over the velvet rope.

  • Little Alex Horne noted in the studio that this was the 12th time that Mantzoukas has chosen violence. Really? Only 12? Seems like it’s been twice that. This particular act of violence was throwing a brick in the general vicinity of the cameraman, but watch Baynton catch the bricks again — they aren’t real, right? Or at least they’re not made of clay.

• The second task — a team task, huzzah! — was for each person to write down three words to describe a memorable scene, and then paint your memorable scene so that your teammate can guess your three words. The twist: The turntable the easels were positioned on kept turning … and turning … and turning.

  • I would honestly be fine if we didn’t see any more art-based tasks for at least a full season, but I did love that Mantzoukas told Martin they’d probably have to paint their words … and then still used the word “glance.”

  • The team of two, J.V. Martzoukas (which was on my Bingo card, though it did not help me get Bingo), won their first team task! Well deserved.

• The third task was to obey the autocue. The most authoritative delivery with the fewest mistakes wins. What ensued was a kind of drunken mad libs children’s science show. (Did anybody else flash back to Charlotte Ritchie — speaking of Ghosts co-stars — in S11, whom Davies constantly bullied for resembling a children’s TV presenter? This would have been her time to shine.)

  • I thought that Mantzoukas’ improv background would give him more of an edge here, but everybody was pretty amusing. Especially El-Ghorri: “David Attenborough, you can suck it.” Them’s fighting words!

• The live task was less convoluted than usual, but I loved that we got to know a little more about the contestants and hosts. Like that Baynton has five pairs of trainers (sneakers) and Davies has 16, and Mantzoukas has visited five countries this year, and that El-Ghorri has 16 (!!) nieces. I also loved that everybody pegged Little Alex Horne as having a decidedly not-normal lucky number (“It’s a trillion!!”, which was my winning square).

Elsewhere in the Taskmaster extended universe

I recently got a co-worker hooked on Taskmaster; he started with season 4 at my recommendation, and just finished it and started season 1. I shared with him this clip of Romesh Ranganathan and Little Alex Horne talking about the utter travesty that was Ranganathan v. watermelon.

Until next time: Who broke your heart the most in the first task this week? Although I loved Martin’s apparent breakdown, the expression on Baynton’s face cut me to the quick.