Taskmaster / YMMV - TV Tropes

For YMMV tropes relating to the American version of Taskmaster, click here. YMMV tropes related to the New Zealand version can be found here.

Adorkable: Mike Wozniak approached every single task, no matter what it was, with the same level of earnest, child-like enthusiasm.
And You Thought It Would Fail: Multiple broadcasters were wary of Alex Horne's pitch of the show, and even when Dave picked it up it was only for a single season, and they suggested multiple tweaks to key parts of the format. Taskmaster ended up as a cult hit and Dave's most successful original program, eventually moving to Channel 4 (who had rejected Taskmaster before Dave picked it up) and becoming a global phenomenon.
Awesome Ego:
- Greg compliments Daisy May Cooper for her supreme self-confidence, as she will routinely describe her ideas while performing recorded tasks as "brilliant", while comedians stereotypically need validation from others.
  Daisy: [After executing her marble run and applauding herself] Well done, me! [turns to Alex, who is holding up her marble run structure, as an afterthought] And you a little bit.
- Similarly, he tends to comment on how Munya Chawawa tends to throw himself into every task with the unshakeable confidence and enthusiasm of someone who is convinced that everything they do is sheer brilliance.
- As noted by Alex, Carol Vorderman is the first contestant to openly state in the studio that she knows she'll do great in a task, before any of the attempts are shown. Since it was a task centred around counting, her confidence was entirely justified.
Awesome Music:
- Let's start off this YMMV entry with the Taskmaster theme. Your time starts now.
- Doc Brown's nursery rhyme music video from Series 2. It helps that he is also a good songwriter too.
- Mark and Nish's song for the final episode of Series 5.
- The finale of Series 13 gives us a song so good they named the episode after it.
- ♫ "It is me, Fern Brady, me, Fern Brady, I'm the rightful queen!" ♫
Base-Breaking Character:
- Fans are divided on whether Lou Sanders' personality and antics are hilarious or irritating.
- Daisy May Cooper's studio efforts are a bit polarising, including whether her laziness in the prize tasks was funny or annoying, and whether she was too competitive against the other contestants. Her prerecorded efforts are much more consistently praised though (including by Greg, in comparison to her prize tasks).
- Rhod Gilbert has caused some debate between fans who find his solutions to tasks involving Alex entertaining and those who find them excessively cruel rather than funny. Other points of contention include his behavior during team tasks, whether Greg went easy on him during judging due to their preexisting friendship, and whether the gag of him using the same photo of Greg for almost every prize tasks went on for too long.
- Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality both in tasks and in the studio, in contrast to their competitors, make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. Additionally, one task saw Mae's proposed solution of drawing pineapples when tasked with collecting them accepted by Greg, while a similar solution attempted by Frankie and Jenny in an earlier task, retrieving a sign which read "banana" when asked to get a banana from a tree was disallowed. However, many fans love their calm attitude and competence, and the Taskmaster subreddit saw numerous posts in support of them. A common attitude among their detractors is that while they're no doubt a "good" Taskmaster contestant, they're not a particularly entertaining one. FWIW Mae appears to recognize their issues, admitting in the podcast that they were so focused on doing well they forgot to be funny, and intentionally attempted to downplay their eagerness to win due to their fear of appearing overly competitive.
- While most agree she's a very entertaining and funny contestant, there's some debate over whether Lucy Beaumont is playing a character, deliberately playing up her Cloudcuckoolander tendencies. The fans are generally split between those who think that's genuinely her, those who think she's playing a character but don't mind because she's hilarious, and those who think she's playing a character and are annoyed by it. Being sat next to Sam Campbell, who is also arguably playing into a weird persona but making it obvious that it's on purpose and is also clearly very committed to doing well in the tasks, hasn't helped her case. For what it's worth though, comments made by Greg and Alex and by Ed and his guests on the Taskmaster podcast suggest that the former group is correct, and Lucy is just actually like that.
Broken Base:
- Fans disagree on Greg's arbitrary scoring method. Either it adds to the comedy for his decisions to be determined by Rule of Funny, or it detracts from the game show aspect of the series as it means genuinely skilled contestants don't always win.
- Does it matter who wins the series? Some fans get really into the competitive aspect, and are infuriated when their favourites don't win, or are poorly judged. Others think the comedy is more important, and that it doesn't matter how well a contestant does as long as they're funny.
- For what it's worth, these particular elements of the Broken Base have not gone unnoticed, and it has been made particularly clear which side Greg himself falls on; he's made it clear that he has no interest in what his critics think about his judging, that he will on occasion make some of his more divisive decisions purely to wind up people who complain about it online, and even that, should these critics not have access to a decent VPN service, he is willing to cyberstalk them before springing surprise attacks on them from the foliage near their homes while dressed as a crow.
- A couple of series are somewhat divisive:
  - Series 6 is never considered one of the greats, but there is a split between those who hate it and those who think it's underrated and actually has lots of great bits.
  - Series 10 seems to be dividing some fans as well, with detractors citing the awkwardness of the COVID restrictions, the seemingly over-complicated tasks, and the lacklustre prize tasks, while proponents find these to be minor issues, and cite its fun cast and frequent hilarious moments.
  - Series 15 has proven somewhat divisive so far due to a high number of tasks with odd scores, such as the live task giving one team ten points while other received zero. There is also a taped task where a strict reading of the rules would have given Mae Martin nine points while the rest received none until the panel ganged together and convinced Greg to at least give Frankie Boyle four of those points. This led to Mae Martin, who has become a Base-Breaking Character in their own right, gaining what some feel is an insurmountable lead as of episode six of the series.
Crazy Is Cool: Sally Phillips in Season 5 took an eccentric yet highly effective approach to tasks (particularly the creative ones), leading to bizarre results like Alex's birthing video and Sally's affair with a water cooler. These usually helped her, resulting in a high series-wide score, and Sally remains a fan-favourite contestant.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Lee Mack was the big-name contestant for Series 11, but Mike Wozniak very quickly stole the show from him and the other three with his adorably dorky personality, off-beat humour and enthusiasm for the tasks. Fan sites (such as the Taskmaster subreddit) reliably gush about Mike after every episode, partly because this show may have been their first exposure to him.
  Mike: (after getting disqualified) But what you can’t take away from me is that I had a lovely day.
- Fred the Swede originally only appeared in the "Make This Swedish Person Blush" task in Series 1, but became a Recurring Character in tasks each series until Series 4, after which he moved back to Sweden. He has ended up surprisingly popular with fans of the show, with Alex mentioning that his return in Series 13 was "by genuinely popular demand".
Funny Moments: A separate page with examples can be found here.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- Apparently extremely popular among Scandinavian countries, with Series 4's Hugh Dennis remarking that people couldn't hide their stares when he went on holiday to Sweden. Local adaptations have been made in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland.
- It was initially believed that Americans couldn't get into Taskmaster, what with the failure of both the American adaptation and an attempt to bring the UK original to a U.S. network. With the launch of Taskmaster SuperMax+, however, it has been revealed that about a third of all views on the Taskmaster YouTube channel comes from North America. The show's American (and international) popularity is likely the reason why not only Taskmaster SuperMax+ exists to begin with, but also why the show now uploads new episodes the day after UK broadcast on the official YouTube channel.
  - Its American popularity is so great that Davies and Horne were interviewed on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Meyers admitted that his production crew was more excited to meet them than any other guest they've had on his show, and Davies and Horne said that not only were people recognising them in New York, the soldiers at the American embassy where the two got their visas recognised Davies and put down their guns to ask him for a selfie!
Growing the Beard:
- The show takes on a more recognisable form in Series 2, as the Prize Tasks have more niche themes, and the studio elements flow more smoothly now Greg and Alex have more experience.
  - Richard Osman getting away with an interpretation of the task that fit the letter of the rules instead of the spirit of the rules is considered by many, including most notably Ed Gamble, as the point where Taskmaster started to become something beyond another Game Show and into its own.
- Greg and Alex's relationship doesn't settle into form until Series 3, where it takes on the familiar abusive dom-sub tone and Greg refers to Alex as "Little Alex Horne" for the first time.
- Alex Horne says he feels that the show started coming into its own around Series 4, when the episode count was expanded and allowed for more opportunities for the contestants to settle in and get creative with the tasks.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- During Series 5, Sally Phillips made numerous jokes about not getting enough sex, prompting You Need to Get Laid quips from Greg. As it turned out, she was going through a divorce at the time.
- Paul Sinha's ineptitude at many of the tasks in Series 8 was often played for laughs in the show, as is typical. But some of these jokes became less funny when he revealed that: he was very busy and had to squeeze TM between shooting back-to-back episodes of The Chase, recovering from shoulder surgery and taking powerful painkillers, and was unknowingly experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease^note. After going public with his diagnosis, Sinha quipped that the condition was only a very small part of why he did poorly, so he at least has managed to maintain a sense of humour about it.
- In a moment of frustration during Series 10 (shot under lockdown conditions), Daisy May Cooper told Richard Herring: "I hate you more than my husband!" She and her husband would later split due to issues stemming from the extended time they had to spend in lockdown.
Heartwarming Moments: Examples of Heartwarming Moments can be found on its own page here.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In Series 7 Episode 1, James Acaster asks "I know it's early days, but are we the stupidest so far?", after a few embarrassing tasks that early in the show, much to Greg and Alex's amusement. Come Series 10's first episode, there are two tasks where all five contestants are disqualified.
- In Series 10, Mawaan Rizwan plays a bat in his upside-down short film and he is initially seen hanging upside-down. Katherine Parkinson appears to believe that he actually had been hanging upside down (he was standing right side up and had even done some swaying for effect). In the New Zealand version, Season 2 contestant David Correos actually does hang upside-down from the rafters of the Taskmaster Ranch (with the assistance of production crew, some rope, and gaffer tape) to brew and serve Paul Williams (the NZ Taskmaster's Assistant) an "extreme tea." He even is referred to as the "Tea Bat" by Jeremy Wells (the NZ Taskmaster).
  Katherine: Wouldn't it have been easier to have him upside-down?
  Mawaan: No. We tried that, and it wasn't easy.
- Charlotte Ritchie is considered the odd one out among all of Taskmaster's mainline competitors, being an actress with neither experience on the panel-show circuit nor the comedy connections that typically encourage participation. Come Series 15, the panel features two of her on-screen love interests in Kiell Smith-Bynoe (from Ghosts (UK)) and Mae Martin (from Feel Good). Plus Jenny Eclair says that her daughter and Charlotte were in the same year at school.
- In the final episode of Series 11, Jamali Maddix briefly confuses Greg with comedian and television presenter Dara Ó Briain, prompting a certain amount of indignation on Greg's part. Three series later, Dara would be a contestant.
Ho Yay: Having started as a fairly standard tyrant/flunky dynamic, Greg and Alex' innuendo-filled relationship comes to be portrayed more and more flagrantly as a dysfunctional BDSM arrangement, in which Alex apparently lives in the Taskmaster's house, does exactly as he's told, and waits on him hand and foot (and other parts). In front of the cameras, Alex has compliantly confessed his naughtiness, kneeled as Greg's footstool, sat on Greg's lap and called him "daddy," and had Greg rip his shirt off. In "We Met at Mealtimes" they even kiss as the contestants and audience cheer. Greg is also flirty and/or toppy towards some of the male contestants (e.g. Asim Chaudhry, James Acaster, Iain Stirling), while some of them (notably Rhod Gilbert) delight in finding ways to complete tasks that involve unnecessarily stripping Alex bare-arsed at the least provocation. All this has drawn enthusiastic comment and inspired no small amount of Slash Fic.
Rose Matafeo (in an outtake, as Greg and Alex discuss the current task in a prolonged and very intimate whisper): FUCKING KISS!
- Interestingly, this dynamic has so far not been present in any of the global Taskmaster adaptations, despite most of them featuring a Taskmaster and an assistant who are both male. The closest approach is arguably Taskmaster NZ, between assistant Paul Williams and some of the guests (not particularly with the Taskmaster Jeremy Wells himself), and there the overall higher level of openly sexual banter seems if anything to defuse the tension rather than heighten it.
Informed Flaw:
- Many viewers felt Hugh Dennis was unfairly judged throughout the series he appeared in, noting in particular that the often disqualified lateral thinking techniques he used would not have gotten other contestants disqualified had they used them. Others felt that his "lateral thinking" was often straying into cheating, and in extremely boring ways at that, and supported Greg's decisions.
- The first task of Series 4 was to draw the most accurate image of a person whom the contestants could not look at. In the end, Greg seemed to judge the drawings based more on artistic talent than on the accuracy the task was supposedly based on. Though since none of them ended up being that close (even Hugh's, which was impressive considering he stretched the rules of the task by bringing in a mirror), this was arguably the only metric on which he could reasonably judge them.
- Greg's judging of Phil Wang received a response similar to Hugh Dennis. Phil also brought it up on Twitter, commenting that he felt he'd been unfairly judged, but given the textual medium it's unclear how serious he was being. Greg later said that watching the episodes back, he did feel as though he'd been too harsh on Phil.
Memetic Loser: Mark Watson is often thought of with pity by the fandom, as he was his line-up's Butt-Monkey and he suffered constant mockery and harsh scoring from Greg. From a pure points viewpoint however, he was vying for the top of the leaderboard with Bob over the course of the series (leading in first place from episodes 2-6), his final series score was actually quite impressive, and he came joint second only 8 points behind Bob.
Memetic Mutation: In a general sense, the standard task structure ("Do [X]. You must [Y]. Your time starts now.") is often used as a way of mocking something incredibly difficult, ridiculous or convoluted that has occurred in real life. For example, this tweet around the circumstances of Boris Johnson resigning as Prime Minister in 2022, having stubbornly held onto power as long as possible in the face of numerous scandals, public unpopularity, and various party mutinies and ministerial resignations.
Memetic Psychopath: Many throughout the series, but Sally Phillips — who humiliated Alex sexually on multiple occasions — and Rhod Gilbert — who humiliated Alex sexually on multiple occasions and put Alex's physical well-being at risk more than once — are generally considered the most defining examples.
Moment of Awesome: A separate page with examples can be found here.
Nightmare Fuel:
- Jon Richardson's music video for "Three Blind Mice" in Series 2.
- In one prize task in Series 7 the contestants must provide the creepiest thing. Given that he had used the same unflattering photo of Greg for every prize task until then Greg expected Rhod to use it here as well. Instead he provides a video of Greg sleeping, shot from within his closet. According to Greg he'd believed Rhod had left that night. He hadn't and spent hours hiding in Greg's closet^note. Unsurprisingly he won that task.
- Rhod Gilbert in general throughout Series 7. Highlights include at least three times he completed a task by psychologically and physically torturing Alex, the aforementioned video from within Greg's closet, and the most disturbing attempt of any of the competitors to win a staring contest, which he did by taping his eyelids open for a full seven minutes.
The Producer Thinks of Everything: Alex Horne, the person who actually writes the tasks, is very aware of loopholes and other forms of trickery, which is why he intentionally invokes Exact Words and Loophole Abuse in task letters, in order to have a "correct" way of approaching a task, just that it's obscured. He's not omniscient, of course, and when someone in a previous episode employs Loophole Abuse, later series has him quick to counter similar tasks with stricter wording.
The Scrappy:
- Alice Levine was not hugely popular with viewers who perceived her to not be putting very much effort into the tasks (Greg often noted her prize tasks in particular as being low effort), as well as not bringing as much as other contestants comedy-wise. To be fair, she isn't a comedian, but that didn't stop much more popular contestants like Richard Osman or the New Year Treat's line-up.
- Iain Stirling wasn't well liked by fans as he was overly competitive and had a lack of sportsmanship, something which even he noticed, and very much regretted, in the studio (to the point it was a noted Running Gag by Greg). He is often given as one of the reasons for why Series 8's lineup is so poor. In the pre-recorded tasks, he took the tasks way too seriously, and came off as a Competition Freak who often let his competitiveness take over to the point that people found him annoying to watch when he was losing. An often-cited example is the ball-bouncing task in "I've Been a Bit Ill", where he gets annoyed with the scoring and doesn't clap the winner until he realises the camera is on him. As mentioned above, Iain has mentioned some retrospective regret on both the show and the Taskmaster podcast (where he revealed he was trying to play "the bad guy" in recordings, but couldn't maintain it, and regrets doing that in hindsight) and is very mortified of the more unpleasant things he's done on the show. His performance still left a rather bad taste in people's mouth.
- Lou Sanders is another Series 8 contestant who is particularly criticised by fans for contributing to the negative atmosphere of that season. Although as noted above, she does have some support for providing humour to a lacklustre series.
- Daisy May Cooper is another somewhat "marmite" contestant, with many vocal detractors viewing her similarly to Iain Stirling in that her competitiveness could tend to lead to outbursts and tantrums that could spoil the atmosphere somewhat. In particular, she tended to lash at out her team partner Richard Herring when she felt he wasn't performing to her standards; see her infamous explosion when he failed to identify the animal she was drawing in one of the live tasks (a hippo, supposedly). While she does have something of an excuse (she was heavily pregnant at time of filming, suggesting that at least some of her behaviour and temper could be attributed to hormones), this didn't necessarily make it any more pleasant to watch. Furthermore, her submissions for the prize task tend to be somewhat lacklustre and "route one", suggesting she wasn't really putting a lot of effort into the show, or at least that part of it.
Seasonal Rot:
- After a streak of strong series, Series 6 is generally considered by the fan base to be far weaker for a variety of reasons. Criticism tends to focus on the cast not gelling, weaker comedy from the contestants, and individual members often phoning in tasks and not being particularly funny about it either (one apathetic performer might have been forgivable, but multiple panellists not really interested in the show was harder to get past). This was followed by Series 7, often seen as one of, if not the, best.
- Series 8 was another low point and is often considered by fans to be the worst season, with a cast full of clashing personalities and members who were clearly uncomfortable with the show's format. Similar to Series 6, this series was followed by Series 9, which had an uptick in quality and humor and was generally considered a high point for the Dave era to finish on.
- In what's apparently something of a theme, Series 10 is also considered a bit of a step down in quality after Series 9 (though not to the extent of the lows of 6 and 8), with frequent points of criticism similarly being a cast who didn't quite gel together and some overly structured tasks that tended to set the contestants up for failure. However, given the Real Life Writes the Plot circumstances of COVID-19 on top of a move from Dave to Channel 4, only the most unforgiving critics are unwilling to cut it more slack than the previous examples due to the unprecedented and difficult circumstances it was made under. As with the previous examples, Series 11 is widely considered a marked improvement, with everyone more used to working under social-distancing conditions, simpler tasks, the cast clicking a lot better, and Mike Wozniak being around. FWIW Series 12 appears to have broken the pattern as it also generally seems to be regarded quite fondly.
- Following a streak of strong series (with 11-14 often considered among the strongest runs in Taskmaster history), Series 15 quickly proved divisive due to a high number of tasks with odd scoring mechanics, a group that didn't click as well as some of the previous groups, and a base breaking winner in Mae Martin. However, once again Series 16 proved to be a particularly well-liked series, with more entertaining tasks and a group of contestants who seemed to form a general camaraderie, with two contestants, Lucy and Sam, even launching a podcast following the finale.
Shocking Moments:
- The infamous potato golf disqualification in Series 2 Episode 1. Ask a fan to pick the best moment of Taskmaster, and this task will appear in their list.
- Mike Wozniak revealing his new haircut in the Series 11 finale.
- The live task in Series 15, Episode 1 involves each contestant trying to throw various objects into a raised bucket without knocking the bucket over. Ivo Graham directly and deliberately sabotages Kiell Smith-Bynoe's bucket with a thrown item and eliminates him; Kiell instantly retaliates and eliminates Ivo in turn.
So Okay, It's Average: Series 3, while far from bad enough to be considered Seasonal Rot, is considered by some to have a weaker than average cast and forgettable tasks, and in general has fewer highlights than other series. Though very funny in its own right, it rarely ranks high when fans discuss their favourite series.
Squick:
- One task in Series 1 asked the contestants to grow the longest nail in 10 weeks. The results were revealed in "Little Denim Shorts" during the live studio recording, and they were truly gruesome. Special mention to Romesh's big toenail, which had grown 2.2 cm. His toenail had curled over and he had decorated it with a smiley face.
- While the collecting sweat challenge from Season 3 is already a pretty gross challenge, special mention goes to Al Murray who decided to submit his own piss instead of sweat.
- When asked to make the biggest splash in Series 5, Aisling, Bob, and Sally somehow decided it would be a good idea to use a balloon filled with urine!
- As if Alex sitting bare-arsed on a cake isn't bad enough, it gets worse when he stands up and the audience is treated to the sight of Alex shuffling around as bits of cake drip down from his nether regions and into his pants and trousers.
  Alex: It was so...in me.
- During a task to put 31.770kg on a butcher's scale, Rhod Gilbert resorts to adding incremental amounts of weight by hocking loogies onto his pile of items.
- In Series 11, Mike Wozniak is tasked with farting on camera, which is already disgusting. But, when he finally achieves the task, the flatus, for lack of a better word, sounds "squishy," to the disgust of the panel. Mike then proceeds to gross everyone out further by explaining the sound was actually him passing a haemorrhoid and starts going into graphic detail about his current situation downstairs.
- The doggy bag task in Series 12 seems to have been entirely designed to elicit this reaction
- In Series 13, the licking task in "You Tuper Super" led to such astonishingly copious drooling that everyone, including Alex, was cringing hard.
  Alex: Don't try this at home. Or at work. Don't try this.
- In Series 16, Lucy bites Alex's toes as part of her performance piece for the heads, shoulders, knees, and toes task. It does not get addressed in the actual episode broadcast, but in the outtakes for this task, Lucy claims that his toes tasted like Dairylea cheese, something which prompts the audience to groan loudly and the cast to show their visible disgust.
- Also in Series 16, three different contestants' attempts to do something shocking but family-friendly with a doughnut end up being absolutely disgusting, and all along similar lines - Julian chewing it up and spitting it into Alex's face, Susan chugging an enormous amount of food before eating the doughnut so it all starts spilling out of her mouth, and perhaps most egregiously, Lucy feeding Alex like a baby bird by chewing up the doughnut and then regurgitating it into Alex's mouth.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: Most contestants take the tasks in good fun, but there are a few exceptions:
- Romesh Ranganathan took the competition very seriously, however, and got very angry whenever Greg Davies put him down. As Romesh's comic persona is that of the grump, however, it's a bit hard to tell how much of this was real versus how much of this was him putting on an act. According to this AMA, he did enjoy doing the show but got genuinely annoyed at some of the "injustices" he felt he faced.
- Iain Stirling also tended to take the show a bit more seriously than he should have, leading to many viewers considering him The Scrappy. Unlike Romesh (who, as noted above, generally tends to adopt a rather grumpy comic persona anyway), who was at least funny about it, Iain often seemed genuinely petulant, though even he admitted on the show itself that he really hated himself. In the podcast, he claims that due to a general unfamiliarity with appearing on panel shows (his non-standup career has tended to involve more presenting work on children's and reality television) he misjudged the situation and tried to adopt the persona of a typical over-competitive reality show "heel", but took it a bit too far.
- James Acaster in Series 7 and Ed Gamble in Series 9 were also both clearly determined to win, though they were not as uptight about it as the other two, rather showing it in the recorded challenges. Nevertheless, much to Greg's glee he found it easy to prod them into furious shouting when it looked like their tasks were going to be graded poorly.
- Daisy May Cooper gets very into the tasks at times, to the point where she can get legitimately enraged when things go wrong. Perhaps the nadir of this is the live task in "Hippopotamus", where she gets so frustrated with Richard Herring's inability to recognise that what she's drawing is in fact the titular animal that she ends up screaming furiously at him when the round is done. In the podcast, Richard admits to being genuinely discomforted at the time, and they were notably split into different teams in later live tasks.
- While he never really explodes in the same way as the others listed here did, Lee Mack was also described by many of his fellow contestants as "surprisingly intense" about the show, and when watching it's clear that he is determined to do well in the tasks and is willing to fight his corner against Greg a lot more than the others are. Unlike the others here, however, Lee has more of a personal reason, as he freely admitted in interviews that he was doing it for his Taskmaster-obsessed children and wanted to avoid totally humiliating himself in front of them.
- He's not utterly humourless about it and rarely gets testy with Greg over it, but Dara Ó Briain clearly also wanted to win and took the show seriously. This tends to particularly manifest in the team tasks where he was paired with series Cloud Cuckoolanders Fern Brady and John Kearns, who spend most of the tasks staggering around in utter bewilderment while he rushes around as the Only Sane Man trying to actually complete the task; a certain amount of annoyed frustration with John especially tends to bleed through. Like Lee Mack, Dara was also performing with the knowledge that his Taskmaster-fixated kids would be watching, which presumably helped.
- Mae Martin quickly proved to be excellent at tasks, but this often came at the expense of the show's inherent comedy in the eyes of some viewers, as they often won tasks due to either taking a simple approach, seeking out a hidden way to complete the task, or exploiting a loophole. Following the show, longtime fan Martin admitted that they they were eager to win the trophy they not only focused too hard on results at the expense of laughs, but intentionally put on a more reserved front due to their concerns of appearing too competitive (it's worth noting that both Daisy and Iain have entries under The Scrappy). Ironically, many fans thing they went a bit too far, as their reserved nature, compared with their more dynamic and chaotic competitors, led to them being seen as somewhat dull and contributed to them becoming a Base-Breaking Character in their own right.
Tough Act to Follow: Series 6 and 8 are easy to criticise, but they also follow after Series 5 and 7 respectively, which are each considered to be some of the strongest series.
The Woobie: Several inevitably pop up, considering the tasks' natures and the diverse line-up.
- Romesh Ranganathan in the watermelon-eating task. He tried to stuff so much watermelon into himself that he was visibly suffering (and had to be sick) once Alex blew the whistle.
- Joe Wilkinson definitely counts. Over the series, he more often than not came last in the challenges, never won an individual episode, and was ranked in last place overall. In "Fear of Failure", he was the only contestant who managed to throw the potato into the hole on the very first attempt ... and was then disqualified because he had stepped on the red green, which meant he broke a key rule of the task.
- Katherine Parkinson was consistently hopeless throughout the tasks, and seemed to have had her view of herself completely challenged by her time in the show. When she wasn't crying with laughter at her own attempts, she seemed to consider them mildly upsetting.
- Sarah Millican earned this in the fourth episode of Series 14 after the "write a classical song" task, in which she confessed that she found having to sing the song she'd written somewhat anxiety-inducing as a result of a complex she'd had resulting from some rather cruel belittling of her vocal abilities by an ex-boyfriend. This appears to have made Greg's heart grow a few sizes that day, since he subsequently gave her first place for the task.
- John Kearns was insulted and put down by everyone on Series 14 for the way all his failures went spectacularly wrong while his successes were brushed aside or given backhanded compliments. This made all the worse by the fact that he's a great admirer of Greg, Dara, and Sarah but had never met them before Taskmaster only to be presented as a bumbler in front of them — and had gotten on Dara's bad side while shooting team tasks (though in total fairness this one's largely his own fault, due to a combination of the aforementioned bumbling and an infamous secret task wherein he was required to sabotage his team's efforts). The fact that he took it all on the chin and remained pleasant throughout the ordeal earned him the audience's sympathy.
WTH, Costuming Department?: While in-studio the contestants tend to wear fairly conventional clothing, they appear to have much more freedom to choose the costume that they wear for pre-recorded tasks (with the seeming caveat that they keep it more or less consistent for continuity's sake). While most still tend to wear fairly standard smart-casual stuff, at least one contestant per season tends to interpret this in a rather eccentric manner:
- Series 1: Tim Key stood out from the others wearing a red track suit with a shirt and tie underneath. Though compared to some of those who followed him this seems fairly low-key in hindsight.
- Series 4: Noel Fielding wore a banana-yellow boiler suit with silver cowboy boots. In fairness, Noel might have worn that anyway, given his natural flamboyance.
- Series 5: Aisling Bea wore a bright-green tuxedo track-suit.
- Champion of Champions: Seemingly invoked. The contestants appear to have been given the instruction or advice of attending the recorded tasks while wearing something championship-themed. So Josh Widdicombe shows up in a replica of Bobby Moore's iconic uniform from the 1966 World Cup final, Noel Fielding in a red jumpsuit with his name emblazoned on the back, Rob Beckett with a large sticker boldly proclaiming "Champ 2016", and Katherine Ryan in a top proudly proclaiming that she's "DTF"^note. In fact, the one who looks most out of place this time is Bob Mortimer, who is dressed simply in a khaki jacket and jeans, prompting Greg to acerbically note that he looks like he's just come from doing a spot of gardening.
- Series 6: Tim Vine went full colonial explorer with a khaki suit, shorts and pith helmet.
- Series 7:
  - Jessica Knappett wore a red tracksuit and headband (occasionally accompanied by a shiny silver jacket), which probably would have been this season's main example had it not been for...
  - Phil Wang choosing to grace the audience with a homage to Bruce Lee's iconic costume from Game of Death. Unfortunately his version left far less to the imagination on the subject of his crotch as Greg and the other contestants repeatedly note throughout the season. In his defence, Phil apparently didn't realise just how prominent the area in question was being displayed until it was pointed out to him during the team tasks (specifically, by his teammates incredulously taunting him about it), by which point it was too late to change it.
    Greg: I could not take my eyes off it.
    Kerry: You didn't have a choice!
    Greg: It doesn't matter sometimes how ornate the grandfather clock is, the pendulum draws the eye.
- Series 8:
  - Lou Sanders Tempting Fate in a bright pink tracksuit with "Taskmaster Series 8 Champion" emblazoned on the back in huge white letters.
  - Paul Sinha did all the tasks in his dressing gown and pyjamas, in an homage to Arthur Dent, which certainly helped with the rather bumbling impression he put on throughout the series.
- Series 9: While comparatively normal compared to some of the previous examples, Katy Wix wore a neon yellow high-vis jacket and hard-hat throughout her tasks.
- Series 10: Mawaan Rizwan wore a bright-orange onesie made up to look like a spacesuit, while Daisy May Cooper dressed up as "Achievement Woman", with a gold crown, cape, and skirt festooned with certificates of her achievements (though Greg acerbically notes that the actual effect tends to come off more as "Drunk Woman In Magaluf"). To a lesser degree, Johnny Vegas wears a somewhat old-fashioned suit that appears to have taken some inspiration from Peaky Blinders.
- New Year Treat: Rylan Clark-Neal's outfit was bizarre, making him look like he was riding on the Taskmaster's shoulders, complete with fake legs and a cutout of Greg's head.
- Series 11: Overall the costuming returns to the more down-to-earth smart-casual styles of the early seasons. However, Lee Mack still nods to this trope by wearing a star-emblazoned white jacket and a crash helmet that homages famed stunt daredevil Evel Knievel, though he doesn't go full jumpsuit and just wears a shirt and jeans underneath it. Also played with in the actual episodes, as he forgot to bring the costume on at least one occasion so just wears the shirt and jeans.
- Series 12: Probably the first series in a long time not to feature outfits that immediately raise eyebrows. Desiree wears a space-inspired outfit with a neon pink puffer jacket that wouldn't look out of place among mums doing a school run. Morgana's jumpsuit is all black, so its extensive fringing, the words "Just Doing This Now" embroidered on the back, and her leopard skin socks aren't clearly visible.
- New Year Treat II: While not as bizarre as some (certainly not as bizarre as Rylan's outfit in the first New Year Treat), you still had Lady Leshurr deciding to do all of her tasks in army camouflage.
- Series 13: Revived the tradition of contestants wearing more overtly out-there costumes with Bridget Christie, who is dressed as a Wyatt Earp-like wild west gunslinger which she later confirmed on the official podcast was directly inspired by Lee Van Cleef's character in For a Few Dollars More. Her studio outfits, though less startling, also generally had some sort of connection to the western theme.
- Champion of Champions II: The contestants generally have more ordinary clothing than those in the first one (Kerry and Richard both dress casually, Lou repeats her S8 costume but with a gold ribbon), but there's still Ed's light-blue Tacky Tuxedo, and Liza's inexplicable beard.
- Series 14: The only ones who are somewhat orthodoxly dressed are Sarah Millican and John Kearns: in order of increasing eccentricity, Dara O'Briain is wearing a monogrammed boiler suit, Munya Chawawa is wearing a boiler-suit customised with various colourful patches (including the flag of Zimbabwe, where he grew up as a child), and Fern Brady is wearing what would appear to be a green steampunk cat-suit.^note
- Series 16: Sue Perkins wears a boiler suit ^note but it's her teammate Susan Wokoma who takes the prize with a pair of multicoloured, sequined overalls with a green patch on the breast.
- Series 17: Steve Pemberton dons a black shirt with a tuxedo printed on it and John Robins goes full Freddie Mercury in the iconic yellow jacket, but Nick Mohammed takes the cake with a full vampire costume which may be one of the craziest and most elaborate task outfits yet.

YMMV / Taskmaster

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