Very much a whole pilot series in and of itself, there’s a lot that hasn’t quite been hammered out yet. The house hasn’t yet developed its own personality, Greg and Alex have their roles, but haven’t quite settled into them, and the rules and scoring are very uncertain and wishy-washy. And we don’t even have the terrible papier mâché trophy of allegedly Greg’s head yet.
Key:
- Brand new concept, element, or idea
- Enhances or builds upon something already established
- Contradicts something already established
- Prop and set dressing appearances
House and Studio
Series 1 was shot inside the Clapham Grand theatre, which made for a unique venue, but it wasn’t great for lighting or sound design. I spent a lot of time taking screenshots and fiddling with them in photoshop, because the harsh lights cast dark shadows that made a lot of costuming elements near impossible to discern. Because the Clapham Grand is a theatre, and not a studio, series 1 also does not have the most amazing sound quality either. It looks like a pilot, and so does the house.
Notable house elements
The house is sparse, with no theme to speak of. Aside from the faux Warhol portrait in the living room, and the few doctored photographs scattered around the walls, they haven’t much customised the house otherwise.
- Floor pattern: plain hardwood
- Door labels for each room are present
- Pigeonhole individually labelled for each panellist during the gift task
- Sofa in the living room is a small two-seater, with a matching armchair
- Bath and shed are present from episode 1
- The shed is a horrible cheap metal thing that appears to have been hastily spray painted red by production.
- Visible recurring props set dressing include the long ruler thing in the living room, the fake shelves on either side, the spotlight in the corner, the wheelbarrow, and the roller thing out in the garden (visible between the lab and the fence during some tasks)
- Garden fence is in a bit of a state
- The clock outside is always set to 7:25. The clock in the living room is always set to 10:08
- I need to double check the podcast for precise details, but I believe this is a reference to one of Tim Key’s shows. It’s to imply that the clocks are always frowning or smiling, respectively
- Rubber (more likely, plastic) ducks appear on the window of the bathroom to the left of the front door
- Despite certain tasks taking care to obscure labels (notably, the cooking tasks where labels are covered with generic labels, and the tear collection task where Romesh’s hot sauce is always turned away from the camera), many items are plainly visible within the kitchen
- A bottle of Fairy Liquid is clearly seen by the sink. Also seen in the kitchen is a fire blanket, a kettle, wok, colander, various pots and pans, and a comical quantity of onions
- The Taskmaster logo is mounted to the outside of the front gate during the golf task in episode 6
The left-side door (from our perspective) of the shed gets broken by Alex during the bath tub task with Roisin in episode 1, and appears to stay that way for the remainder of the series. (It’s sort of a dual effort. Roisin jams it, and in trying to un-jam it, Alex completely forces it off its track, and then seems dismayed and annoyed at having done this.) Multiple shots throughout the series show the shed with the left door still jammed open.
Notable studio elements
- This is the only series to feature the awkward iPad stand
- Also the only series where the iPad is in a chunky, heavy-duty case
- Generic thrones
- Greg’s throne looks larger, but both are functionally the same size, seating Greg and Alex at the same level
- Alex’s throne is taken away during live tasks, but the panellists’ chairs remain in place
- Prize haul is kept up in the balcony for the entire episode
- The now-familiar set design is largely an accident of venue. A few cheap TM logos have been hung around, and they seem to have decorated the stage with a handful of panels and other bits, but the Clapham Grand does mostly just look like that
Costuming and character elements
The lighting at the Clapham Grand made this an absolute nightmare, especially where Greg was concerned. I’m not 100% certain on a lot of details, so if anyone has any high-quality photos from series 1, I’d love to see them. Some of these details come from outside of the series, and even outside of the show itself because I either could not see well enough to work something out entirely, or something was only implied, but not outright stated.
- Panellist photos for the league table are taken in the lab
- The watermelon task is the only task to use flimsy white boiler suits. All other tasks featuring boiler suits use the heavy blue canvas/denim ones used throughout the rest of the show
- Tim is the only panellist to wear what could be considered a proper costume. The other four are in pretty basic outfits
Greg’s costume
- Three-piece suit, all pieces appearing to match
- Shirt is a slightly cooler shade of black to the suit
- Plain black socks in every episode
- Notch lapel on jacket
- Wears his jacket unbuttoned while sitting, and usually remembers to button it while standing
- Jacket lining appears to be a silvery sort of colour
- Wears a barrel cuff on his shirt, which he keeps buttoned
- Shirt most likely has a spread collar, which he wears open (both are English styles)
- Wears a cap toe Derby shoe
- Incidentally, from a Never Mind the Buzzcocks episode in 2009, Greg wears either size 16 or 17 shoe, depending on whether you believe him, or Rhod Gilbert calling out what appears to be a lie
- Microphone swaps between shirt and lapel throughout the series
- Wears a watch with a silver metal band on left wrist
- I am not a watch man, but I will keep a consolidated list of watches he has been spotted throughout the show.
- Uses a gold pen in every episode except episode 5, where he uses a cheap-looking black pen
Alex’s costume
- Two-piece suit, which doesn’t quite appear to match. The trousers seem a warmer shade of black, but this could be the lighting in the theatre
- Wears a white shirt, seemingly with no undershirt beneath in the studio
- He does wear various undershirts during tasks, ranging from proper undershirts to dark-coloured T-shirts throughout the entire series. Blue and black t-shirts are most commonly visible in tasks with Tim and Roisin
- Shows no preference for socks, shifting from dark stripes, to red, to multi-coloured stripes episode to episode. During the tasks, he wears even brighter and more outlandish socks
- Rainbow stripes and some funky argyle pattern are clearly visible, amongst others throughout the tasks. Other people have done a more comprehensive catalogue of socks if you’re wanting something more specific in that direction
- Notch lapel on jacket
- Has apparently never been told that there are rules for how or when to button a jacket, and does whatever he wants with it. When he buttons his jacket, he closes both buttons, wrongly
- Jacket lining in the studio appears to be either a pale violet colour, or a dark silver. The lighting makes this one difficult
- He wears a different jacket during the ad bumps, which has a navy lining. This is likely the same jacket he wore for at least one of the task filming days
- Wears French cuffs on his shirt
- He wears his cuffs open during tasks. He also wears his cuffs open in the studio in episodes 1 and 5, and cufflinks through the rest of the series. The cufflinks appear to be square and black in design
- Because he wears his collar open, it is nearly impossible to tell whether his shirt collar is spread or cutaway this series. Most likely, he’s wearing a cutaway collar, as it’s a French design. In series 4, when he wears various neckties with Mel Geidroyc, a cutaway seems much more apparent. At some point since then, he has switched from this style to an English design with barrel cuffs and a button-down collar, but this is a bridge I will burn when I get to it
- Alex does not appear wear his plastic slip-on shoes at any point during this series. In the studio, he wears a cap-toe Oxford
- Confirmed by the photo on the back of 220 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People
- He wears some sort of heavier vinyl-looking shoe at the house, but even these have laces. They’re most visible during the ice task with Frank and Roisin
- While inside the house, Alex wears slippers. These are especially visible during certain lab tasks. Romesh dying on the floor after inhaling watermelon is one of them
- Microphone swaps between shirt and lapel throughout the series
- A continuity error during episode 5 sees his microphone move from his lapel to his shirt for one shot after the boulder task. Presumably, this was an error during pick-ups that nobody caught
- Wears a watch with a silver metal band on left wrist.
- Wedding band on left hand
- Wears his beard a bit long, and squared off under the jaw
- Not much the case during filmed tasks. His beard is still long, but it has not been trimmed or shaped at all for filming during tasks
- Whistle this series is black
Lore and Motifs
When I talk about this show having lore, I don’t mean in the spirit of call-backs and recurring gags. I mean by the actual definition of the word, and it started in episode 1 when they decided to pretend that this wasn’t Alex’s show to begin with. This show invented a false narrative and decided to run with it, and then it got taken in such a bizarre direction that 15 series in, I don’t think anybody knows how to escape from the monster they’ve created.
As this is series 1, there’s a lot to be established, and very little to call back upon. While most of what gets established in series 1 does get built up upon in later series, two notable elements do get removed:
- Greg stands up to deliver episode intros and outros
- Greg introduces each panellist with a quippy joke
Less of an element of the show itself, and more to do with editing, but series 1 has quite a lot of shots cutting to the panel as they react to the tasks being played out on the screen. This was phased out in the early series, but is most noticeable in this one.
Also worth noting, the wax seals this series are a bright vermillion shade of red, and nowhere close to the usual colour associated with the seal.
Episode 1: Melon Buffet
- Greg refers to the cottage as his “Taskmaster retreat”
- Watermelon task establishes that the panellist who is saved for last was separated because they have done something absolutely insane
- The horse task establishes that the panellist who is saved for last was separated because they have managed to completely fuck up the task
- The entirety of episode one establishes grouping of panellists based on similar approaches or thought processes
- The clock is only shown on screen for particularly notable attempts. In this case, it’s Roisin’s apocalyptically disastrous watermelon task
- Alex converts grams to mice and Rolos during the watermelon task. He was obnoxious right out of the gate
- When questioned about it during the horse task, Greg has seen the Matrix
- Alex physically comforts Greg during the horse task
- And again during the pie task
- First duck appearance: Bath task
- Tim starts the tradition of bossing Alex around during the bath task by impatiently demanding a towel, and then deliberately splashing him with water
- The bath task establishes the convention of props and tools being broken and useless for the task. The watering can is missing its spout, the hoses are all small and strange lengths, the bin is prohibitively heavy when full, which seems to deliberately mislead anyone who uses it, etc
- Alex blows a kiss to Greg during the closing
Episode 2: The Pie Whisperer
- The high five a 55 year old task seemed to annoy Greg in particular for some reason
- First frozen peas appearance: Pie task
- Also the first instance of complete expectation subversion, as all but one of the pies are full of something stupid. If the audience (and panel) has not twigged by now that this show exists in some bizarre alternate reality, it is made clear by this task
- First instance of Greg physically threatening a panellist: threatens to back his car through Romesh’s front room window after pie task
- First instance of Alex eating something gross: Pie task in episode 2. He barely hesitates to eat a toothpaste-filled pie
- Tim solidifies this tradition by feeding him literal dog food in the alphabet meal task in episode 6. Greg accidentally codifies a tradition of encouraging this behaviour by forgetting to mark Tim down for it
- Also the first instance where Alex is used to “assist” in a task to a certain level of advantage, by using the wording of the task to get Alex to breach the pies.
- For Tim, this is a sound strategy, as he reads the task and effectively bends the rules by following them to the letter
- For Roisin, she follows the rules as written and gets Alex to work around them, only to invent some new rules for herself instead
- Roisin continues this trend of using Alex to her advantage in the Ice task in episode 4, by effectively getting him to do a decent amount of work for her in melting the ice. She still comes last
- Alex helps Tim to an unusual degree in the boulder task in episode 5, appearing to do quite a lot of the work with the balloons, while knowing the plan had no chance of working
- Alex “corrects” Greg on the scoring for the backwards film task. Greg initially puts Frank in fourth, but Alex quietly redirects him toward fifth, and Frank absolutely kicks off
- Greg claims the live task will be performed “fully naked”
- It isn’t. But then when they appear they’re all shackled to a bench, Greg claims to have personally done that
- Per the live task, Alex weighs 13st (~182lbs/82kg). Greg weighs more than 20st, but the exact number is never outright stated
- In a Cats Does Countdown episode released around the same time, Greg stated his weight to be 21st (~294lb/133kg)
- Josh and Tim looking at Roisin’s cracked lock was deemed not cheating, and fully within the rules of the game
Episode 3: The Poet and the Egg
- First instance of panellist colour coding: Get the egg the highest task. Each panellist gets their own coloured stack of paper
- Also, first appearance of the egg
- First use of a naked picture of Greg as a prize task: Josh claims to have brought in a stereogram (Magic Eye) of Greg. It was later revealed in the podcast that the secret image is actually a duck
- First proper argument over wording: Ice task in episode 4. Curiously, this argument largely happens during the task itself, and then carries over to the studio later
- It likely only played out this way because it was Tim Key doing the arguing
- When Tim accuses Greg of being a “fucking child,” Greg agrees and states that he is “a child who’s in charge of this fucking show”
- First secret solo task: Josh is given the task of counting baked beans, spaghetti hoops, and rice in episode 4. When Josh gets upset, Greg calls him one of his “special little boys”
- First appearance of baked beans: Josh’s solo counting task
- Introduction of the concept of “Normal Taskmaster Rules” of sport: squash task in episode 4. The task is introduced in such a way to imply that their system is the correct way, and everyone else are idiots for not knowing the rules
- This task also introduces the concept that disrespecting the Taskmaster will lose panellists points
- The lack of rules seemed to go too far in the golf task in episode 6, causing even Alex to voice displeasure with how badly the “rules” had devolved into a free-for-all
- First appearance of the egg cup: Tear collection task in episode 4
- This task is a rare instance when the lab is shown as the crew’s sort of break room when they’re not actively working on a shot, which is why Frank finds so many people hiding back there during this task
- First mention of the Taskmaster Mansion: Boulder task in episode 5
- First time Alex makes a point of recording everything said: the bed task in episode 5. He specifically asks Frank to repeat something he says (“You can use your thigh as a buttoning table”) and writes it down
- First appearance of Fred the Swede: Make this Swede blush task in episode 5
- First appearance of Bernard: the blooper task in episode 6. We only see his legs, and he’s not yet named
- Introduction of the idea that Alex personally does the shopping: The alphabet meal in episode 6
- First time Alex swears, in the form of quoting Roisin for clarity during the live task in episode 6. The floor getting “fucked up”
General
- Intros for Alex are all fairly tame, but still a bit odd.
- Episode 1: “As always, I am both aided and fluffed by my personal assistant, Alex Horne.”
- Episode 2: “As always, I am helped and massaged by my personal assistant, Alex Horne.”
- Episode 3: “As always, I will be assisted and encouraged by my assistant, Alex Horne.”
- This is the first intro Alex has a visible negative reaction to.
- Episode 4: “As always, I am aided and comforted by my personal assistant, Alex Horne.”
- Episode 5: “As always, I am both aided and praised by my personal assistant, Alex Horne.”
- Episode 6: “As ever, to my left and to your right, is my very personal assistant, Alex Horne.”
- Banter is esoteric and weird, but also short and awkward this series and often barely counts as banter at all
- Episode 1: “Thanks for giving me this opportunity… I think you’re tremendous.”
- Episode 2: “I think you’re doing a very professional job, by the way.”
- Episode 3: This is the first episode with no banter
- Episode 4: “I feel like I have learned so much from you.”
- Episode 5: “You look nice—You look fr(friendly?)—You look a bit like a security man.”
- Episode 6: “Phwoar, innit? Is that banter? What’s banter?
- The ad bumps for this series are all the same, episode to episode
- Alex pretends to control the screen from his iPad, as if the clips haven’t been edited in advance
- Cheating: Alex is Greg’s pet snitch right out of the gate, rolling on Tim without hesitation twice in episode 1
- Both times, he makes sure to double down. First, he points out the cheat, then he points out how he knows it’s a cheat by showing what Tim did after
- Notably, Greg is very wishy-washy on how he handles cheating and rule breaks this series. Cheating and rule-breaks won’t be formally hammered out until series 2
- Watermelon task, episode 1: Tim eats more watermelon past the whistle. Greg takes 9 grams off Tim, dropping him to second place
- Horse task, episode 1: Roisin doesn’t ride the horse. Greg wants to disqualify her outright, but settles on putting her last after some bartering. Tim tries to barter for third place, but Greg ignores him
- Bath task, episode 1: Tim removes the plug. After an argument, and Roisin pointing out she took last in the previous task, Greg puts Tim in last place
- High five task, episode 2: Tim lies about Comic Relief. Greg drops him down to third place unless he donates £185—a figure he lets Alex pick. It turns into bartering for first place for £12,500, before Greg gets annoyed and puts an end to it
- Alex seems to narrowly avoid his first bollocking for helping break the rules inconsistently during the pie task in episode 2. Josh says that he tried to get Alex to help him smash the pies open, but Alex refused, stating that Tim is his “better friend.” Alex denies saying that, but confirms that the sentiment is true, which Greg finds funny enough to derail the actual conversation
- First entry to the Book of Quotes: “‘How do you make brown?’ Alex said, ‘How do you think?’ And you said, ‘Blue?'” — Re: Tim’s horse task
- “If I had my chance again, I would have blown on his lips”
- Greg doesn’t like football, and will always score it lowly
- In episode 6, he states that the last time he was interested in a football album was 1982, and not even because he was into football, but to impress a boy called Philip
- When Greg asks Alex’s opinion on Frank’s cracker crown prize, Alex refuses to be drawn into the conversation, claiming to be “just admin”
- Despite this, he spends much of the prize task round this episode offering sarcastic quips wherever he can
- In episode 1, during the watermelon task, Greg comments on Frank’s appearance stating, “We’re of the opinion he looks twelve years of age,” implying this was discussed between them at some point. At no point does Alex react in a way to suggest he actually agrees, and rather seems to have gone into his role as sidekick more confidently than Greg took to his Taskmaster role initially
- This series did not take dietary concerns, particularly Romesh’s veganism, seriously at all. Romesh was faced with multiple tasks where he was put into situations that he wound up voicing objection to, either during the task or in studio.
- Before he even read the task out for the pie task in episode 2, Romesh voiced disagreement with the task at hand
- Even this early on, Alex seems less comfortable with praise than he does open snark and mock hostility from Greg
- In the outro for episode 3, Greg thanks Alex. Alex’s responds by shaking his head like he doesn’t want to be thanked, and says, “Don’t mention it”
- In the outro for episode 5, Greg thanks Alex again, which gets followed up with, “It’s what it says,” implying that Greg doesn’t mean it
- Greg apparently likes mice
- Alex is at his most ornery in the live task in episode 5
- When Josh admits a fear of balloons, Alex responds with, “You idiot”
- Throughout the task, Alex troll Josh by blowing up a balloon near Josh’s ear, and then popping it behind his head
- Alex is the most ineffective referee in the same live task. When Romesh and Tim begin fighting, Alex’s method of ending it is to simply repeat, “Stop it” over and over again, and do nothing else
- Alex announces Roisin as the winner of this same live task in a passive-aggressive, patronising manner, but catches himself soon after and walks it back
- During the prize task, Greg makes Alex eat some of Tim’s fish chowder, under the assumption it will at the very least give him horrible food poisoning. Alex eats it, and immediately after claims to be allergic to fish
- Alex maintains this assertion on an appearance on the One Show in May 2019, when they are again given some salmon to nibble on. Either way, he’s very committed to the bit
- Greg apparently “likes to be frightened” when he eats, per the alphabet meal task in episode 6
- Alex knows how to use chopsticks, per the alphabet meal task
Continuity and other odd bits of info
Less lore, more casual information that gets thrown out by Alex, Greg, or the panellists.
- Greg’s relationship with Roisin is immediately called out against the others. His intros for her are always more personal than for the rest of the panel
- Episode 1: Claims to have seen her shout for her mum after seeing a mouse
- Episode 2: Claims Roisin once showed up at his house with two family packs of meatballs, one of which she ate by herself
- Episode 3: Claims Roisin has over 40,000 unread emails in her inbox, because she is bad at certain aspects of adult life
- Episode 4: Claims that whilst drunk, Roisin once offered him a pasta meal she was going to put every conceivable meat into
- Episode 5: Claims he once came home to find Roisin in his bed, watching a documentary on Colditz
- Episode 6: Claims he found Roisin asleep on his sofa after a party with 14 penises drawn on her face
- Greg and Roisin have taken at least one trip together, where he paid for lunch and petrol (she disagrees). This is presented as a prize task in episode 1, where she tries to pass Greg off as a tramp poet in a photograph
- Romesh accuses Roisin of making a tramp pay for her lunch, to which Greg threatens to give him last place. It’s not a threat he follows through on, but it is an early indicator that disrespecting the Taskmaster will make you lose points
- The prize task in episode 1 immediately sets the bar for production meddling with prize tasks. While Josh accuses production of sabotaging his prize by cleaning off the signatures, most cases going forward involve production making the prize item for the panelist in question
- Alex is very fiddly and animated when he seems to think he’s not in shot. He’s often messing about with his iPad stand or his earpiece, and generally not sitting very still
- He can often be caught mouthing along to the auto cue when Greg is reading his lines as well.
- During the watermelon task in episode 1, Greg claims any antagonism between him and Josh is pre-scripted
- Baz, the horse they had to paint in episode 1, is the template for horses when they appear in future series down the road. Most notably, he appears twice in series 9, in the live tasks for episodes 7 and 9 (the horse or laminator task, and drawing on one another’s backs, respectively)
- During the live task in episode 1, Greg shuts down any attempt of questioning the rules from Josh. The chaos that Josh seems to be worried about is very much the point of the task
- In this same task, Alex runs around attempting to referee. He can’t shout, and no one takes him seriously or listens to him, with Roisin clearly breaking the rules and Romesh barely doing the task at all until halfway through
- Greg tells Alex to work out how the live task affected the scores, maintaining the illusion that Alex controls everything from his iPad
- Greg was apparently not briefed on tie-break scenarios, and seems incredibly underwhelmed by episode 1 being decided on a game of hide and seek. This will not be the only time he seems annoyed at the decider being something anti-climactic
- Alex is hiding behind where the caravan will eventually be
- Greg does seem to know what the panel did in advance more than he does in recent series, by contrast. Outcomes may not be apparent to him, but he’s clearly been given enough information to set up gags so Alex can deliver a few punchlines
- He knows enough about the bath task in episode 1 that he’s able to talk Tim up for it, just so Alex can knock him right back down and point out all the ways in which he cheated and tried to hide it
- He also knows about the breaches in the pie task in episode 2, and lets the argument about it carry on just long enough to get everyone proper annoyed before calling up the VT of Josh completely fucking up the task
- The white Ford Transit van which appears in the boulder task and the backwards film task is referred to as belonging to Alex
- The bed task in episode 5 is filmed in two different locations. For the team of three, it’s filmed in a tennis court at Dukes Meadows Golf, Tennis, and Ski (the golf course and surrounding area outside the house. For the team of two, it’s at the Dukes Meadows Bandstand, otherwise known as the Taskmaster Outbuildings.
- “Powerful homoeroticism. I really enjoyed it” — This meme comes from episode 5 of this series
- Similarly, these photos were from somewhere in episode 5. Episode 5 was the only episode of the series where Greg used a black pen, rather than the gold one he usually uses. Their lav mic placement and Alex’s lack of cufflinks together also place these images in this episode.
- Teams are (allegedly) divided up so the ages of the members add up to 100
- In an odd twist, the blooper task in episode 6 shows Alex being the only half-decent performer in the group that used him as an actor. The team of three, by contrast, had no idea what they were doing and wound up having to defend something two of them eventually admitted was trash
- This task breaks the scoring rules. Team tasks ought to divide five points between the teams. Instead, the team of two got two points each, and the team of three got no points
- The silverware Alex used in the alphabet meal is plain stamped metal
- Alex’s score reveal, both for the final episode and the series overall is dreadfully overwhelming. There’s no build-up whatsoever. He simply announces the winner in both instances
- The structure is awkward as well. Josh gets his karate trophy before Tim goes up to collect the episode prizes, though it does lead to a fantastic credit stinger where Josh interrupts the theme music to call out his cheap-ass charity shop trophy
- Similar to the lighting mentioned above, the audio engineering in this series is fairly sub-standard. Mostly this is noticeable when listening through headphones, which I have spent a lot of time doing. A lot of hard cuts made it into the edit, which are most apparent during sections when Romesh is speaking, as his voice carries a lot of reverb that highlights bad audio cuts. Again, this can probably be attributed to having been filmed in a theatre, rather than in a studio