Taskmaster: Series 6

April 3, 2021 7:50 AM - Season 6 (Full Season)

Greg Davies is the Taskmaster. "Little" Alex Horne is the Taskmaster's assistant. Alice Levine, Asim Chaudhry, Liza Tarbuck, Russell Howard and Tim Vine are the contestants. Episodes are available on YouTube in the USA, and on the Channel 4 website in the UK.

This season brought to you by the letters H, O, and P, by the pun stylings of Tim Vine, and by Liza Tarbuck's love for the Taskmaster, as expressed through Alex.

Episode 1: The Old Soft Curved Padlock
Episode 2: Tarpeters
Episode 3: One Warm Prawn
Episode 4: BMXing!
Episode 5: H
Episode 6: We Met At Mealtimes
Episode 7: Roadkill Doused in Syrup
Episode 8: What Kind Of Photos?
Episode 9: The Bubble Brothers
Episode 10: He Was a Different Man

It feels like a dominant performance by the season winner, but we've had bigger margins both before and after. The second-place competitor did a good job to stay in contention.

posted by Huffy Puffy (16 comments total)

At some point I should credit the Taskmaster Wiki, which is where I'm copy-and-pasting competitor and episode names, and reminding myself what the tasks were this season (and the scores). I could type everything in, but it's super-handy to have it all in one place.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:54 AM on April 3, 2021

Liza Tarbuck was unexpectedly brilliant. The thing with ‘hopping’ should be shown as a training film in every school and workplace. It about made my blood boil.
posted by ElasticParrot at 9:35 AM on April 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

Is this the season Greg and Alex make the tension openly sexual?
Are those only extras available in the UK?
posted by provoliminal at 12:13 PM on April 3, 2021

Liza was so chill about everything; I loved her.

Alice won the "surprise Alex" challenge forever. No one will ever do as well.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:48 PM on April 4, 2021

We just finished watching this as well. Liza was fantastic all throughout, very happy she won.
posted by vernondalhart at 2:07 AM on April 5, 2021

Hmm, maybe I'm in the minority here but I wasn't all that impressed with Liza's performance. I thought what she did was fun and amusing but not as brilliant as Greg always made her out to be. There were times, especially in the more creative, subjective challenges, where Greg definitely gave her points, not because what she did was any better than the others, but because he liked her more. I can't remember which task it was but I thought Alice did a really great job and Greg gave Liza first place, because it was very clear that Alice annoyed him (I didn't find her annoying but I can see why he would think so because she often called him out on his BS). I will say Liza went into every challenge with a positive, happy go-lucky attitude, like the taking the longest time back to the house, she genuinely seemed to be having a good time walking about the neighborhood.

I think the Liza bias somewhat soured this season for me because as a cast, they all got on really great and were a fun, creative group. I kinda love the Asim/Tim friendship that developed throughout their team tasks. I wasn't familiar with Tim Vine before the series but I really liked his 'dad joke' humor and suited the show very well ('Track suit!' hehehe).
posted by wasabifooting at 6:26 AM on April 5, 2021

Whenever I see the title of that show, I cannot help but think of the Spiderman villain who had photographic reflexes. Which itself would make a wonderful basis for a game show.
posted by happyroach at 8:18 AM on April 5, 2021

I enjoyed this season overall, but it's also the one where I started noticing the somewhat elevated frequency with which the POC male contestants seem to keep ending up as their season's informally designated scapegoat?

"Track suit" was an absolutely flawless punchline.
posted by eponym at 4:15 PM on April 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Liza was fantastic, and Alice delightful. I always seem to find the female contestants the most entertaining for whatever reason.
posted by nubs at 7:02 AM on April 6, 2021

This season was fine, but at times the tasks seemed to be from the bottom of Alex’s list — no twist, no real payoff. “Make a tower of lemons,” for example, just looked hard and unsatisfying. Fortunately, some of the best tasks from the show’s history are in seasons 7 and 8, so it’s not as if this is the beginning of some sort of decline.
posted by argybarg at 3:06 PM on April 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed this season overall, but it's also the one where I started noticing the somewhat elevated frequency with which the POC male contestants seem to keep ending up as their season's informally designated scapegoat?

I think this may be confirmation bias. Asim doesn't, to my recollection, get mocked more than Tim Vine. Back in Season 2, I feel certain Doc Brown comes off better than Jon Richardson or Joe Wilkinson. In the first season, the pale, hobbitish Josh Widdicombe (the eventual winner) is slammed a lot more than Romesh. You don't see Romesh counting out a tin of baked beans. Last season I think eventual tied-for-second Mark Watson was on the receiving end of more jokes than Nish Kumar.

Or [spoilers] if you mean from this point forward: in season 7, Phil Wang does get some mockery for his revealing Bruce Lee outfit (I think anyone would have) and Paul Sinha in S8 gets some hits for his consistently dismal performance, but so do David Baddiel and Katherine Parkinson for their last-place rankings in subsequent seasons. It's a creative reading of the text to see S10's Mawaan Rizwan being more of a "designated scapegoat" than Parkinson. Again, I think anyone who decided to fill an egg with helium would have seen some mockery from Greg.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:25 PM on April 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

Hugh Dennis got treated fairly miserably in Season 4, to the point where I thought Greg needed a talking to. I do think Nish Kumar showed up with his own shtick of being hapless and put upon, which he proceeded to magnify by performing exceedingly poorly on quite a number of occasions. So ... I don’t know. I don’t really see a pattern to be honest, other than Greg liking to bang away at the nail that’s sticking out.
posted by argybarg at 5:39 PM on April 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Mawaan Rizwan didn't end up with more than his share of mockery last season, but that was such departure from the Wang, Sinha, Chowdhry, and Kumar pattern that I literally felt the tension leave my body mid-season. And I was also struck by how overly mean Greg seemed to be to Hugh in S4, but I think that's just because the usual POC punching bag slot was taken by Lolly (who was too young/sincere/sweet for Greg to want to bully, but did score poorly on most tasks).

I dunno, I still enjoy the show. I don't think it's a huge thing! I like lots of slightly racist/sexist/whatever entertainment. But it's something I noticed -- and something another friend brought up, too (in his words, "they just bring a brown guy on every season to make fun of him!")
posted by grandiloquiet at 6:15 PM on April 6, 2021

Yeahhhh, Romesh finished tied for second in season 1, just one point back, and no person of color has gotten so close since*. It's a little weird.

At least they started casting more than one woman per season starting in season 4 (and continuing since then), and behold, some women started winning!

* There's another second-place finisher later on, but 8 points back.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:17 AM on April 7, 2021

I don’t care if there’s a Liza bias, she is glorious and deserves everything.
posted by exceptinsects at 10:59 PM on May 17, 2021

I started noticing the somewhat elevated frequency with which the POC male contestants seem to keep ending up as their season's informally designated scapegoat?

I have been noticing it and I find it concerning, especially since enough of these tasks can be considered subjective that there is definitely some room for personal judgment. Like by the end of this season it seemed like it became clear to everyone that Asim had not won any episode (despite doing decently well a lot of the time I felt) and so a late-season win seemed to have been manufactured for him. Likewise Alice seemed to annoy Greg (I liked her Millenial energy) and seemed to do worse than she might have otherwise. I like Liza's cheery energy but she didn't seem to be the Tasking wizard that her high scores would imply.

In past episodes I felt like Romesh and Paul were both contenders and yet got a lot of static from Greg. Nish was... maybe not as much of a contender and seemed more confident/comfortable in that role and had such a pure friendship with Mark Watson who also wasn't doing great. And agree Lolly was a delight and could not be held back. Doc Brown seemed to be doing as well as anyone, though the series hadn't really hit its stride yet.
posted by jessamyn at 10:30 AM on June 1, 2021