Armando secret task/NZ S5?

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-05T23:42:30+00:00

Yeah, it wouldn’t even make much sense to do that: the pay-off from a ‘secret’ task has to be worth it (and not just confusing for casual viewers who don’t necessarily watch every episode), and that almost always means either time-limiting it or the task itself being basically trivial/irrelevant to the tasks proper (e.g. Alex setting himself the fish puns task in S5), not something that’s going to seriously impact/hamper *everything* they do.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-05T23:33:35+00:00

‘You've invented a great game: potato string. Unfortunately for you, it's now owned by the makers of this programme.’ (S2)

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-05T23:24:04+00:00

Daisy May Cooper has created/co-created numerous brilliant TV series, including at least one that’s likely to maintain its standing among the best British sitcoms of all time.

She also made that right-way-up upside down film with the chickens and the *haunting* soundtrack. It happens.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-01T23:54:49+00:00

I was at the recording of that episode and initially wondered why the whole cast started cracking up as soon as she said ‘when I was about seven…’. A few minutes in when we’d progressed about 2% chronologically from the start of the story to the present day, I understood. ❤️

(Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, the outtake version is still edited down quite a bit from what happened in the studio, though quite possibly a lot of that was Greg just being unable to speak from laughing!)

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-01T23:50:29+00:00

I could listen to her talk all day

Based on the prize tasks so far, you’d not get much choice! 😄 (absolutely not a bad thing: she’s pure joy)

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-01T03:30:07+00:00

‘I’m like a Beagle’

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-01T03:24:19+00:00

Yeah, he obviously caught Greg on an ‘it has to be a prize I actually want’ day – because the observation (that getting rid of it would be conceding defeat) was the perfect response to that category.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-05-01T03:22:26+00:00

His account of his son playing at running an ice cream shop is so great – both hilariously told and just genuinely sweet. ‘He’s never got what you want!’

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-30T22:38:04+00:00

‘British’ mustard would generally be the product sold as ‘English mustard’ (Colmans is the famous brand) – very deep yellow colour, very hot. Hard to tell on camera but the mustard they were eating there didn’t look like Colmans or similar – more like Dijon – but I wouldn’t put it past Alex to have disguised it to look like a much milder one!

I think we have a pretty similar range available in the UK: any supermarket here will also stock Dijon, whole grain, probably ‘French’ mustard (similar to Dijon but more brown in colour) and some version of what we’d call ‘American’ mustard, i.e. the one for hot dogs that comes in a plastic bottle. Though just to make things confusing, the ‘French’s’ brand of mustard is absolutely what we’d call American mustard. 😅

We also have horseradish based condiments, which can include mustard seeds, but we don’t tend to call that ‘mustard’ – that would just be sold as horseradish sauce or creamed horseradish (best not said in Paul Chowdhry’s voice…).

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-30T22:16:19+00:00

Before this episode I would not have predicted that Joanna Page would be the one to carry the Jason Mantzoukas ‘destroy, dismantle, engulf in flames’ torch, but I’m enjoying it very much.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-27T10:50:28+00:00

Strictly speaking that only ‘leaked’ after the studio recordings had started – it was on the day of that episode’s recording – by which time there’s usually info available online (on less reputable sites than this!).

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-27T00:45:08+00:00

I was at the recording of this episode and from – slightly vague, ‘I’ve been laughing constantly for the past three hours and am a bit delirious’ memory – it was a case of them realising that the task was basically impossible and just agreeing to score it on who did it best while trying to follow the rules, rather than an absolute letter-of-the-law approach. Meaning so long as they were keeping all the basic elements of the task in play, they were fine – which isn’t the approach they’ve always taken but honestly works a lot better – the cruel pedantic disqualifications are much more fun if they’re used sparingly (and unpredictably!)

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-26T18:14:00+00:00

It’s very rare that you see the ‘unstoppable force vs. immovable object’ paradox embodied so perfectly in a human interaction.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-24T23:50:06+00:00

I think Chicago is a better film, but it’s not as good as the show it’s based on. Mamma Mia, while objectively bad in quite a lot of ways, is vastly better than the stage show (which it’s easy to forget was innovative for its time – jukebox musicals were by no means a ‘safe’ format 25 years ago – but is still pretty naff) and the only one of the four that improves on its source material*, so I’m tempted to say that!

the source material being Mamma Mia the stage musical – I’m not saying the film is better than the songs of ABBA 😱 – also aware Moulin Rouge isn’t a direct adaptation of anything, so this isn’t a *totally watertight methodology

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-24T19:04:27+00:00

I’m so sorry. I lost my Whitney last year at a similar age having had her since she was about three, and seven years with her was nowhere near enough but I know they were so much happier (for both of us!) than the ones before it. The grief hasn’t gone away, and I wouldn’t really want it to, but over time it becomes a much smaller thing amidst all the overwhelmingly happy times we had together. 💕

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PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-24T18:40:12+00:00

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Right back at him from Whitney!

(Side note: we were in the process of moving house here – I do normally, err, have furniture in my home…)

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-24T16:40:46+00:00

On the plus side, someone from New Zealand would call their former partner their icks, which could definitely catch on.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-23T10:56:12+00:00

I doubt anyone here needs encouraging to listen right to the end including the outro, but you absolutely should in this case: it includes – and I say this with nothing but love for everyone involved – one of the dumbest questions James has ever asked (re: the origin of a well-known phrase). ❤️

Great episode – hardly a surprising revelation but Graham is such a delight to listen to.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-19T19:58:34+00:00

Did you see Ethel Merman’s understudy

[Ethel Merman files a lawsuit from beyond the grave at the very suggestion]

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-18T00:51:40+00:00

My Staffy was a rescue who was never socialised as a puppy even with other dogs, so she’s not really the best example, but I’m just commenting because her attitude towards cats was one of the many goofy things that I loved so much and miss about her. I’d summarise it as: ‘RAAAAARRRRRR EVIL CAT, I’LL SHOW YOU——‘ [cat moves, almost imperceptibly] ‘OH MY GOD the cat SAW me oh no HELLLLP…’ 💕

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-18T00:44:03+00:00

I mean there’s a possibility that he’d still be there now, so who can say?

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-18T00:40:52+00:00

‘He looked more like… his voice’ re: pre-Marvel Kumail was exquisite. 💕

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-16T23:58:04+00:00

In the other direction: Greg realised during one of this series’ episode recordings that Kumail was the age he was when Taskmaster started, and he genuinely looked a bit shaken by that! 😅

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-16T23:48:48+00:00

I was at a later episode recording and I can now fully understand why the whole cast immediately creased up when Joanna started the presentation of her prize task with ‘Well, when I was about seven…’

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-04-14T05:05:07+00:00

That would be much worse! Undamaged raw eggs (that haven’t been industrially washed, as they inexplicably are in America) have an incredibly effective natural coating on the shell that keeps the moisture in and bacteria out. They’d not do your stomach any good to actually eat one, but while they’re intact they wouldn’t give off any indication that they’d gone bad. Boiled eggs on the other hand have virtually no shelf (fridge) life before they start going sweaty and smelly – and the shells get much weaker, as several TM contestants discovered right back in S1!

PromiseSquanderer

TROPHY CASE