Taskmaster Series 18 Episode 3: The Stats Round Up

Warning! Spoilers for Series 18 Episode 3 of Taskmaster ahead! If you have not watched it, do not go past the Angry Picture of Lord (Admiral) Davies!

ANGRY GREG TELLS ALL THOSE UNSPOILT TO TURN BACK

ZALTZMAN PATS, RUSTLES AND MARKS HIS WAY TO VICTORY — Andy Zaltzman, inexplicably dressed as a wizard, wins the third episode of the series with a score of 21 (4.2 PPT) to rocket (salad) his way up to joint third in the series!

Let’s make like Baba sticking his hand in an orca’s mouth and go DEEP into some stats!

HEADLINES

• Andy’s score of 21 is the highest of any contestant of the series. He is the fourth contestant to come bottom in the first two episodes and then win the third, after Paul Chowdhry (Series 3) James Acaster (Series 7) and John Kearns (Series 14).
• Meanwhile Jack Dee extends his lead at the top to seven points. There are only four contestants to hold a bigger lead than that after three episodes — Kerry Godliman (Series 7) had an eight point lead, Liza Tarbuck (Series 6), Lou Sanders (Series 8) had ten point leads, while Dara Ó Briain (Series 14) had a thirteen point lead. Every contestant who had as large a lead as Jack after three episodes has gone on to win their series.

• Historically, the person leading after Episode Three has gone on to win the series eleven out of seventeen times. Notable examples of people who lost their Episode 3 lead include Daisy May Cooper in Series 10, Bridget Christie in Series 13 and (sorry sorry sorry) Jenny Eclair in Series 15. While Jack has a bigger lead than those people, it’s worth mentioning that none of those series had the Hot Dog Joker — there’s the potential for massive bonus points which could claw Jack back. If there was no Joker in this series, Jack’s lead would be just three points.
• Intriguingly, the gap between Rosie Jones in second (46 points) and Babatunde Aleshe in last place (40 points) is just six — that’s the smallest ever gap between second and last at this stage, and points to the fact that while Jack may have a largeish gap, he doesn’t just have one or two competitors to worry about, but the entire pack.
• After two relatively low scoring episodes, this one bucked the trend — there were 83 points given out this week, including a remarkable 48 in Tasks 2 and 3. This is the most amount of points that have been given out in two consecutive tasks ever, and suggests either this is one of the most artistically talented casts we’ve ever witnessed, or Greg is getting a bit lazy.

Prize Task (The Object With The Most Soul)

• In extremely exciting news if you’re a complete nerd like me, the prize tasks were scored in the order that they were shown (ie, the first one received one point, the second two, the third three, etc). This is the fourth time this has happened, and the first time in six series. (Special thanks to Joel Estes for doing a lot of legwork in the discovery of that fact!)
• Another strange tidbit about the order of prize tasks — in every episode so far, the first two prizes shown have scored 1 and 2 points respectively. This is the first time ever this has happened in a series — if you want to do well in this series, try to get Greg to come to you last in the prizes…
• After winning the first two prize tasks, Rosie Jones came back down to earth with a bum note, scoring just one for her saxophone. As far as I can tell she is the third contestant to bring a musical instrument in as a prize (although the fourth would be just a few moments later with Baba), after Sarah Kendall brought in her bass guitar for Best Thing You Can Operate With Your Hand (receiving two points) and Nick Mohammed brought in a drum for Most Fun Thing To Turn Around (four, largely pity, points).
• When asked to think of a song with a saxophone in it, Rosie blurted out “The Simpsons” — this is the third time the animated hit has been referenced in the show. Alan Davies wore a representation of “dignity”, drawn by Kirk van Houten, on the hoodie of his task outfit, and Victoria Coren Mitchell accidentally drew Lisa Simpson in a live task when she was supposed to be drawing a harp.
• Previous saxophoners in the show include Ivo Graham in Series 15 (who remade a saxophone for his Horne Section solo out of a cactus, and received five sweet points for his trouble) and Lucy Beaumont in Series 16 (who came out as the leader of her cool but scary gang holding a skateboard and a saxophone, and, understandably, got one point).

Lucy Beaumont holding a saxophone, and one point.

• Emma Sidi followed Rosie’s attempt up with a Furby, and got two points — this is about average when you look at how other battery operated toys have faired on the show. Dave Gorman got 1 point for his Ewan the Dream Sheep toy, Al Murray 2 for his Wall-E robot toy, and Richard Herring a middling 3 for his penguin race game. The moral is, toys don’t do that well on the show, no matter if you can put your finger in their mouths nor if they can say “I love you”.
• Jack Dee scored 3 (again) for his singing model of James Brown, the godfather of soul. This is the first time James Brown has been referenced in the show (I know, I’m shocked too), although it’s the second time in two series that a contestant’s prize task has not been able to be played in full due to copyright issues: last series Nick Mohammed brought in the theme tune for Sleepy Hollow for “Snazziest Hollow Thing”, and had to sing it into Greg’s ear, in a deeply sensual moment. Jack didn’t have to do this, getting round it by saying “oh, I feel wood” instead (also relatively sensual).

James Brown, seconds before decapitation.

• Jack has now scored 3 in the first three prize tasks of the series. He’s the third contestant to do this, after Aisling Bea (Series 5) and Sarah Kendall (Series 11).
• Andy Zaltzman went heavy on the puns — his shoes with Dover soles and a speaker playing soul music and a picture of the sun in Spain (sol) and the soul of Greg’s great great great uncle Brian scored four points. It’s not quite as many puns as Steve Pemberton employed in the first filmed task of Series 17, when he made seven egg puns during his ultimately doomed effort for the “Do The Riskiest Thing Involving This Egg” task.
• Andy is the fifth contestant to bring in shoes as a prize, after Liza Tarbuck brought in cactus shoes (3 points), Asim Choudhry brought in a cowboy boot and a trainer from Post Malone (5 points), and Russell Howard brought in some football boots worn by Liverpool forward Philippe Coutinho (2 points, Greg hates football, come on man) all in Series 6, while Joanne McNally brought in a snazzy boot filled with chips (2 points) in Series 17. None of those items of footwear contained the immortal soul of any of Greg’s family members though.

Baba’s Nigerian talking drum

• It was Babátúndé Aléshé who won out this week with his fantastic Nigerian talking drum — it’s his first prize task win of the series after a 2 and a 1 in the first two episodes. It means that the prize task scores are now very even, with just three points between the best (Rosie, 11) and the worst (Babá and Emma, 8). That’s the third closest gap in prize task scores after three episodes (with only Series 10 and Series 15 closer), and suggests that every contestant is capable of brilliance… and Furbies.

Task One (Put A Rocket In Your Pocket)

• The second “Fastest Wins” task of the series, and the second to be won by Jack Dee. In recent series the stereotype of the oldest contestant being the slowest (looking at you, David Baddiel and Jo Brand) has been turned on its head, with Julian Clary winning seven “fastest wins” tasks in Series 16, and Steve Pemberton winning two tasks, along with a “fastest wins” tiebreaker in Series 17. (And he would claim it should have been a lot more if it wasn’t for an uncharitable definition of toilet roll stripping. Seriously, he’s still really cut up about that live task.)
• The extra part to this task which punished contestants if they drew, wrote or created a makeshift rocket to put in their pocket was almost certainly provoked by a piece of Mae Martin sneakiness in Series 15. In a task when the contestants had to pile up pineapples on a spot, Mae drew a bunch of pineapples and claimed (successfully) that that should count towards their total — I predict this extra part was put in to stop any of that nonsense happening in this task.

Jack Dee wins the task with (a) rocket in his pocket.

• The extra extra part, which punished contestants if they swore and which Emma Sidi fell foul of, was put in because Alex is a big prude who hates swearing.
• At 39 minutes, Emma Sidi’s effort was the longest of any task attempt this series — it even beat the long version of Jack’s attempt in the “say a word beginning with Q” task in the first episode, which was 30 minutes and 41 seconds. Yes, she was even longer than the task attempt that involved a 10 minute break where Jack had to have a cup of tea while they remade the task for him.
• There was a full-blown linguistic argument in the studio in this task, over the meaning of the word “a” — Andy Zaltzman claimed that Jack and Rosie’s attempts should have been disqualified as they put rocket (salad) in their pocket, not a rocket as the task specified. This is the first serious linguistic argument we’ve had in the show since Series 15, when Frankie, Ivo, Jenny and Kiell fumed over more Mae Martin sneakiness, and their definition of the word “to throw”, in a task where contestants had to throw balls at a drumkit. As with that task, Greg sided with the sneaks over the pedants (a dark day indeed).

Task Two (Recreate a Famous 2D Piece of Art In 3D)

• This task plays on contestants’ cultural knowledge — something that was relatively rare in early years but is becoming increasingly common in recent series. In Series 14, contestants had to add lyrics to famous pieces of classical music (the genesis of “Me Fern Brady”); in Series 15 contestants had to perform a lecture on a random year in history; in Series 16 they had to create a famous piece of art using “memo squares”, while last series they had to perform a recognisable version of a piece of classical music without instruments (which, if you’re Joanne McNally, meant interpretative dance and charades).
• Everyone performed wonderfully — this is the first time Greg has awarded 5 points to every entry in a subjective* non-team task, and he really wasn’t happy about it. Perhaps surprisingly, no-one attempted The Mona Lisa, the most popular artwork for contestants to recreate on the show — Alice Levine remade her out of cream in Series 6, Sue Perkins out of memo-squares in Series 16 and Steve Pemberton in a giant horse-poo riddled dot-to-dot in Series 17.

*this has been amended to add in “subjective”, to reflect the fact that there was indeed another time that Greg gave everyone five points in a solo task — the Egg and Tablecloth task in Series 6 where everyone managed to get the eggs out from the tablecloth without smashing them (and Russell Howard fell down into his knees sobbing at his achievement). I *think* that’s the only other time it’s happened though, and that was indeed an objectively judged task — thanks to Reddit user The_PwnUltimate for pointing that out!

Starting a sexual revolution.

• For the most part, these artworks were new ground for the show: Emma Sidi’s interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss was astonishing, and also the first time Klimt has ever been brought up on Taskmaster (and probably also the 9pm comedy slot on Channel 4). Similarly while many contestants such as Rhod Gilbert and Asim Chaudhry have described their portraits of Greg as “Picassoesque” as a way of justifying how rubbish they are, no-one has actually attempted a Picasso painting before Andy Zaltzman.
• Andy Zaltzman is also the second contestant this series to use Linda the Cow, after Babá in the doorbell camera task last week — although while Andy used it to remind viewers of the pity of war as this show so often fails to do, Babá just sat on it for a bit.
• Works by van Gogh and Banksy have been attempted by contestants before, but neither as successfully as Jack Dee and Babátúndé Aléshé. In Series 16, Lucy Beaumont tried to recreate van Gogh’s Sunflowers through memo squares, but didn’t make a plan and also forgot what flowers she was supposed to be drawing, and also called him Vincent van Gok Wan (pretty standard for Lucy). In Series 11, Mike Wozniak and Lee Mack attempted to turn Alex Horne into Banksy’s Girl With Balloon during the “Vandalise This Wall” task. Babá’s was much, much better (despite his hatred of flowers).

Series 11’s Banksy attempt.

• Rosie Jones was the only one to customise the artwork — she “recreated” Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans with barrels, but with Sam Campbell’s face on them. This is the second time that Sam Campbell has popped up in the show since winning it in Series 16 — last series Alex revealed that the picture of his own bare buttocks that Steve Pemberton had used in a prize task had been taken by Sam Campbell, as part of a very strange (and sensual) piece of artwork he had made.

Task Three (Team: Win The Pub Quiz By Cheating)

• This task is similar to the final task of Series 16, where contestants had to welcome Alex into The Taskmaster Hotel — like that task, Alex is playing someone who isn’t aware that there is a task going on, in a venue that is not the Taskmaster House. In the hotel task, the house was a hotel and Alex played the grumpy Qrs Tuvwyx; here, the study turned into a pub and Alex played the (equally grumpy) Pub Quizmaster (although unlike with Qrs, he didn’t change his outfit or name for the task).
• This is the first time at the VT has been split into two parts without a new part of the task itself (IE, it’s not a two part task which changes the dynamic of the task, it’s just one task split over two VT sections).

Excellent production people Vicky and Sophie on the left.

• It’s the second task of the series where some of the incredible production team (aka Faceless Facilitators) are on camera, after Jack Dee’s champagne toast in the first episode. Taskmaster People’s Podcast fans might recognise line producer Vicky Winter, who also turned up in John Robins, Sophie Willan and Joanne McNally’s gameshow in the final episode of Series 17, on a table with Sophie Williams (who voiced Mr Blobby in that same series where contestants had to work out who was chasing them).
• At one point, Rosie Jones bribes pub-goers on the table next to her to tell her the answers, following in the footsteps of other cash-happy Taskmaster contestants like Al Murray (who bribed Alex to do tasks for him in Series 3) and Sam Campbell (who bribed a child to lie for him with book tokens in Series 16). This was perhaps inevitable given that Rosie has a “Bribes” pocket on her jumpsuit.

The moment Sue Perkins’ voicemail comes good.

• Sue Perkins made an appearance of sorts in this task via voicemail — it means that every filmed task this episode had a reference to a former contestant in it. Along with Sue, there was the aforementioned Sam Campbell in the art task, and Emma Sidi also happily shouted that there was a rocket inside Charlotte Ritchie (as in, the tiny babushka dolls of the Series 11 cast). This is almost certainly the first episode every filmed task has had an old contestant turn up in it but I have no way of checking! If you find another episode that does this, please shout at me.

Live Task — Pat Pat, Mark Mark…

• This task had similarities with another live task from Series 7, when contestants had to bob, pat, kneel, stew or wane when they heard the surname of a famous Bob, Pat, Neil, Stu or Wayne. That task didn’t feature Alex shouting frantically “NOT YET!!!” at a confused stranger though so this one was better.
• This is the second Winner Takes All task of the series, where only five points are available — as such it throws the points per task tally into confusion as it makes everyone’s totals artificially lower (because no matter what, four contestants get 0 instead of 1, 2, 3 or 4). None of Series 14, 15, 16 or 17 had a Winner Takes All task, so it seems we’ve been saving them all up for Series 18. In fact, this is the first time there has been more than one Winner Takes All task since Series 9 — and we’re only on the third episode.
• Andy won and therefore rocketed up the table from third to first. It’s the second time this series that the person in third going into the live task has won the episode, after Rosie Jones in the Episode 1.

All Time Facts

All Time Top 10 Points Per Task Score after Series 18 Episode 3

• Despite a decent enough episode (17, 3.4 PPT), Jack Dee falls to third in the All-Time Leaderboard with an overall PPT score of 3.53. He’s now behind (who else) John Robins and Dara Ó Briain, with Mae Martin and Sarah Millican (3.48 PPT) breathing down his haunted van Gogh neck.
• Perhaps surprisingly for a comic as experienced as Jack, it’s the studio where he’s really struggling — he’s yet to score higher (or lower) than 3 in prize tasks, and he’s averaging just one point per live task so far. This currently puts him at the bottom of the all-time chart for live taskers — behind Sian Gibson (Series 8) who averaged just 1.4 points per live task.

Points Scored In Studio Per Episode — Bottom 10 after Series 18 Episode 3

• Jack’s series PPT score of 3.53 is the joint 15th best ever at this stage so far — he’s ahead of where champions Morgana Robinson, Mae Martin and Sophie Duker were at this stage, but behind Sam Campbell, Rob Beckett and the big two (Dara and John).
• Meanwhile Rosie had her worst episode, scoring just 14 (2.8 PPT). Like Jack she had a nightmare studio round, scoring just 1 point across both studio tasks — overall it sends her down to joint 36th on the all time chart, level with Richard Osman.

All Time Leaderboard after Series 18 Episode 3–33rd-41st

• The good news for Rosie is that she is, despite her saxophone mishap, still doing very well in subjective tasks — she’s currently the best at them in this series with a score of 3.43 points per subjective task. That puts her a respectable 21st on the All Time List, fractionally behind Ardal O’Hanlon and prize task specialist Tim Vine and Mawaan Rizwan.

All Time Leaderboard on Subjective Task Scores — 18th to 25th

• Andy suddenly finds himself joint third in the series with Emma Sidi — both of them are sitting on 42 points (2.80 PPT), which puts them joint 65th on the all time list. While that’s 17 places clear of The Baddiel Zone, both contestants should be looking to get higher up the table. Andy needs to improve his objective task scores which are a miserable 2.38 (in the bottom fifteen in the all-time leaderboard), while Emma needs to get her subjective task scores up — despite her Klimt, she’s on 2.86 and in 70th place on the all-time table.

All Time PPT Leaderboard After Series 18 Episode 3–61st to 70th.

All Time Leaderboard on Objectively Scored Tasks — 76th to 90th. Andy Zaltzman and Babátúndé Aléshé are in joint 77th place.

• Bringing up the rear (although only just) is Babátúndé Aléshé — his series total of 40 gives him a PPT score of 2.67 and means he’s in 76th place on the all-time list. Babá actually had a good episode — 18 points (3.6 PPT), with two solo task wins including his first filmed five points of the series (albeit in a task where everyone got five points). He’s still doing better than Andy in one respect — Babá’s score in solo filmed tasks is 2.86 PPT, putting him in fourth for the series (ahead of Andy) and 59th overall, level with Sara Pascoe.

All Time PPT Leaderboard after Series 18 Episode 3–76th to 90th

• It is really, really close between everyone at the moment — and nowhere is that more apparent in the subjective tasks, where the gap between the best (Rosie) and the worst (Emma) is just 4 points. In previous series, that gulf was as massive as 34 (the difference between Noel Fielding and Hugh Dennis in Series 4) — so even though it’s a much smaller sample size of episodes, it seems that everyone in this series is a similar level…

Points in Subjective Tasks in Series 18 so far.

And Finally…

• There was another dimension to “rocket in a pocket” task — contestants were allowed to put/draw/write a rocket into existence if they were a rocket scientist. None of the contestants on this series are rocket scientists but there are three previous Taskmaster UK contestants who could have made a stab at claiming to be one: Phil Wang studied engineering at university, Dara Ó Briain studied theoretical physics (and he’s probably picked up a thing or two on all his space themed science shows) and Nick Mohammed studied geophysics. If any of them had stuck a Coke can with a mint in their pocket, they’d be looking at five sweet points. Or zero points and a sticky pocket, Greg is a capricious guy.

If you want to check out these stats for yourself, simply fall on the floor wailing in pain about cramp until Alex Horne gets you a blanket… or click here!

And don’t forget to tune into the latest episode of Taskmaster The People’s Podcast with me and Jenny Eclair, where we’re talking about sax solos, living our truths and putting Furbies in the microwave! RECORD BREAKERS!

Thank you so much for reading — if you’ve enjoyed this, please do share/upvote/clap/embue it with the soul of your great great great uncle Brian, as I do really appreciate it! And thanks to everyone who has asked stats questions on Reddit/Bluesky/The Other Place — I will endeavour to answer on The People’s Podcast but likely after the series has finished as there’s a lot of stats to go through each week at the moment.