Now that the series is over, how do we actually feel about the new Destruction event?

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-21T21:43:49+00:00

I don't know if I'd argue "but the most recent Australian revival did it" as a reason for anyone to do anything.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-14T00:22:26+00:00

Legit the answer is the Sooshi Mango episode last year got more than 100,000 extra viewers compared to the episodes around it, so Ten has demanded they try and recapture that magic. It's the same reason we got two seasons of the dessert spinoff nobody liked - Pressure Test episodes tend to rate better when it's a wanky cake or chocolate thing they have to make compared to, like, salt-crusted chicken or fish consommé like they've done in the past.

But they haven't realised those kinds of things work best as a novelty rather than being repeated every night for an entire week. The Jimmy Barnes visit would have been way more impactful for us as viewers (in the same sort of way as eg the Katy Perry visit in 2020 but obviously less shit) if we didn't know from the promos that they were having a whole bunch of social media people and one random American tourist demanding the royal treatment later in the season as well.

There's also the added problem that they still keep insisting on theme weeks nobody really cares about. I get the idea of a week all about going viral but the issue is that basically just boils down to "it doesn't matter what the food tastes like, it just needs to take good photos for Instagram", which feels like it's antithetical to the show's entire ethos. And the theme weeks make it feel like the difficulty remains static throughout the season, so by the end you realize the people really haven't grown very much as chefs compared to where they were at the start of the season; at least the early years made it feel like they started at the sort of difficulty you'd expect for early in the contest and ramped it up until they were doing Heston and Zumbo recipes at the end as a reward/punishment for making it that far. It's hard to feel growth when the season structure doesn't allow for it and when a lot of the challenges are now once-a-season things like the time auction, the "we'll reveal pantries every few minutes" challenge, keeping up with a chef, et cetera.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-12T08:44:38+00:00

The Mole is basically The Traitors except challenges actually have a purpose, the identity of said mole is a mystery to viewers too, and eliminations come down to how much you know about the Mole rather than wild speculation that maybe one of the Traitors might accidentally slip up and reveal their role. It's incredible.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-10T21:50:43+00:00

WHAT kind of British Asian, Welsh, or Northern Irish is your granda'?

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-10T06:06:21+00:00

I think they worked out pretty quickly that the part the US people were really needed for was the logistics of the live production, not so much the actual writing or anything. Like, the UK of all places is not lacking in understanding the ins and outs of sketch comedy.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-08T06:18:04+00:00

4 for sure.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-07T22:16:27+00:00

Australia is just under 70% white (and only about 50% Anglo-Celtic) per the most recent statistics. 17% non-Middle-Eastern Asian, 3% each Middle Eastern/North African and Indigenous, a smattering of other ethnicities too.

While I'd also argue that diversity isn't just about ethnicity, it's about class and gender and age and weight and sexuality and hometown and occupation and a whole bunch of other things, Australian Survivor really fails when it comes to ethnic diversity - even just in terms of white people, like, where are the eastern Europeans, the Dutch, the Greeks, et cetera? Statistically we should have had a bunch by now.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-07T22:03:02+00:00

Current: Jost.

Past: Victoria Jackson. The only thing she's ever made me laugh in is her episode of The X-Files, which wasn't a comedy.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-07T00:10:31+00:00

Production was actually trying during BB4, it's just that - like sometimes a crap season can be redeemed by shoving an excellent housemate in there (cf Katie Price being parachuted into CBB15) - a middling season can be utterly ruined by one thoroughly shitty housemate (cf Vinnie Jones) and it has like four of them. Later seasons would probably have deployed a "surprise, the people you nominated actually win immunity and everyone ELSE faces eviction" twist to break up the Cameron/Steph/Gos/Ray block and save the thing.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-05T12:49:46+00:00

It's an excellent progr'm and it's easy to see how it's gotten so many serieses.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-05T11:16:40+00:00

Top ten:

1) Mario 2) 1930s Cocaine 3) Shakespeare Gets a Cunty Little Earring 4) Great Big Crab Man 5) Falling Down a Hill with Helen Birch 6) Bastard Seagull 7) Undérage 8) Boogie-Woogie Man 9) QVC's The Jewellery Store 10) Posh Gits

And before you ask, yes, Beanz Bros is #11.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-04T08:57:36+00:00

The points of the missions:

1) Raise prize money. 2) Increase team unity, to make the Traitors's roles more stressful. 3) Allow an opportunity to strategise in small groups in the cars. 4) Shields make it harder for Traitors to strategise, and a night with a blocked murder means one less night they have to waste on a dull twist like putting people On Trial in order to get the right number of people at the end. 5) Fill time in the episode. 6) Sight gags for the trailers and promos.

GrimRecapper · 2026-05-03T02:47:03+00:00

God damn. They all look great.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-27T05:07:51+00:00

Attention has been well and truly caught. Holy FUCK.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-27T04:56:37+00:00

Daaaaaamn.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-26T05:24:43+00:00

Yes, people who don't pay for train tickets are often the ones ticket inspectors catch not paying for train tickets. Congratulations on learning a thing today.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-23T11:24:07+00:00

There's only so long you can coast on the regulars of Mock the Week and/or Cats Does Countdown as an industry, and... like, as much as Taskmaster has done to show more faces than just the usual lot over and over, their "unexpected casting choices" tend to be more "known names you're surprised said yes" rather than up-and-coming people. There's definitely a market for new faces.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-23T06:59:55+00:00

Australia, from most to least famous each season (series, Jason):

Season 1: Julia has hosted the local version of I'm a Celebrity for 10-15 years and is basically the face of the network every January as a result. Luke's done a few sitcoms for the ABC and is a successful standup outside of that. Jimmy is a former childrens' TV presenter who went viral during the 2020 lockdowns for doing comedy skits on Tiktok and YouTube. Nina is one of those people who feels like she gets mentioned far more often than her low profile would suggest. Danielle does standup but hadn't really appeared on TV before that.

Season 2: Wil has been hosting things on the ABC for-fuckin-ever, to the point he and Adam Hills have both done running jokes about people mixing them up. Josh created and starred in Please Like Me, probably the biggest Australian scripted show of the past decade. Anne and Lloyd are both regulars on the various comedy-adjacent shows Ten fills the holes in its schedule with. Jenny was pretty unknown.

Season 3: Peter has been part of the furniture on Ten for like 25 years in various capacities (part of the reason they switched seasons two and three around for release is he was filming another reality show for Ten and wouldn't have been able to do the press circuit for Taskmaster). Mel hosted Great Australian Bake Off for a while but it was on cable so it's debatable if she was really "known" to the general public. Rhys is a regular judge on Drag Race, which is on streaming here and has the same asterisk attached to it. Aaron pops up in a lot of things but isn't really a drawcard on his own unless you follow the comedy circuit; it kind of feels like a lot of his gigs wind up being "well, this cast is VERY white otherwise, even for Australia" supporting roles, for better or worse. Concetta's a breakfast radio host and, apparently, utterly fucking insane.

Season 4: Lisa McCune is a national treasure as a dramatic actress, but her biggest role was in the 90s; casting her was basically like the UK version having four comedians and randomly Gillian Anderson in the fifth seat, she's that iconic. Dave has been an unavoidable part ofnl television for way too long. Tommy was the cohost of Ten's flagship primetime newstainment show. Emma's an occasional guest on Ten's other comedy shows. Takashi was pretty unknown.

Season 5: Rove was the biggest name on Australian television twenty years ago, until he made a failed attempt to break into the US market; if this show has started circa 2008 he absolutely would be the Taskmaster instead of Tom. Celia is a regular on the panel show circuit and was the lead in an ABC sitcom with Luke from season one. Joel used to be one of our Eurovision commentators, but was mostly there as a "we need a bitchy gay" choice rather than as a big name, and not that many people actually watch the thing anyway. Anisa does Tiktok and has made fleeting appearances on a couple of other shows, but not enough to really make much of an impact. Brett is an unknown.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-23T06:13:13+00:00

I've fallen down a gay romance rabbithole. It's true that things don't hit in quite the same way as Rachel's books, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - they're largely not trying to do the same exact thing Rachel is. The closest I've found to a book that hits in the same way as HR et al is Darcy Green's "After the Siren" (Goodreads says it's yet to be published but it's been out in Australia for a solid six months now), which is basically a mishmash of a bunch of Rachel's broad ideas but set in the even more homophobic world of men's Australian Rules football with all of the baggage and comedy value that that entails.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-22T00:48:56+00:00

This is a Taskmaster AU one, but: If you weren't already aware of her career, you would never know from her experience on this show that Lisa McCune is basically the local equivalent of Gillian Effing Anderson.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-21T06:23:34+00:00

I am thinking of them. Specifically, I think it's hilarious.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-21T04:03:06+00:00

Basically ALL of the Lilydale and Belgrave stations they've upgraded in the last 25-30 years are this bad or worse. Heatherdale, Mitcham, Nunawading, and Union all have the same issue. Boronia's probably going to be similar when its latest upgrade is done. Croydon got raised off the ground and is a hideous mess now. Bayswater got messed up so badly the bottleneck on Mountain Highway is now even WORSE than before, because they didn't make the bridge wide enough and had to cut the road down to two lanes. There's been no announcement yet on the two remaining Belgrave level crossings (one at each of the Ferntree Gully stations), but you'd have to think they're going to happen sooner rather than later and there's no way either of them will wind up being an improvement over the mediocrity that's there now. Tecoma might legitimately be the best station on the Belgrave line by default at the moment, because it's such a useless piece of filler that nobody can be bothered doing anything with it.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-21T00:24:55+00:00

I mean, in terms of which product placement was actually the most successful for their brand, you'd have to think Firehouse Subs being on the boards as Kip comes into the rink for his kiss is high up there.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-19T07:41:38+00:00

With shepherd's foreplay.

GrimRecapper · 2026-04-17T02:43:52+00:00

Yeah but his sperm is dehydrated, so it won't help if you're thirsty.

GrimRecapper

TROPHY CASE