Taskmaster Series 18 Episode 8: The Stats Round Up

Warning! Past this point be spoilers for Series 18 Episode 8 of Taskmaster UK! If you have not seen Series 18 Episode 8 do not go past the Image of Freddie Mercury Painted On The Back of John Robins’ Head!

EEEEEE-oohh.

Andy, mid “Truth Nexusing”.

Hail To Thee, Camp Krusty: Andy Zaltzman brushes off some barbs from Jack Dee to win his third episode of the series with a score of 19 (3.8 PPT) and slash Jack’s lead to just 2 points going into the penultimate episode!

Let’s make like Mr Dee and put on a pair of special goggles, because it’s time to dive into some stats!

Headlines

• With just two points between Andy and Jack, it’s shaping up to be one of the tightest series ever. This is the fourth closest score after eight episodes, with only Series 10, Series 12 and Series 14 tighter (just 1 point separated Richard Herring, Morgana Robinson and Dara Ó Briain from Daisy May Cooper, Alan Davies and Sarah Millican respectively). For any Jack fans getting nervous, however, it’s worth saying that all of those contestants leading by a narrow margin at this stage went on to win their series. In fact, every contestant who has led at Episode 8 has gone on to win their series — apart from one. That was Jessica Knappett, who led Kerry Godliman as late as the final task of Series 7, losing out on a cruel game of Sausage or Finger (the Taskmaster equivalent of sudden death penalties).

“Krusty the Clown is questioning it…”

• One of the more remarkable things about Andy’s sudden upturn in fortune in the past two episodes (where he’s gained 8 points on Jack) is that those episodes have been filled with his traditionally least favourite kind of task. Every task in the past two episodes have been objectively judged tasks (not including prize tasks, which are almost always subjectively judged — only twice in 18 series has there been an objectively judged prize task). You have to go back to two years to find an equivalent run of objectively judged tasks in Taskmaster, when all the filmed and live tasks in Series 14 Episodes 7 and 8 were objectively judged. Andy’s objectively judged score is 2.79 points per task (only last place Rosie Jones on 2.46 has a worse score), while Jack’s is 3.08 — logically, during this run of objectively judged tasks, Jack should have extended his lead over Andy rather than watched it shrink. Likely the last two episodes will see a few more subjectively judged tasks, which is an area Andy is much stronger (scoring 3.69 points per task, compared to Jack’s 3.38). Combined with the fact that he’s still yet to use his hot dog, it would be unwise to bet against him…
• The gap between 1st and 5th, meanwhile, is the smallest it’s ever been at this stage — just 18 points separate Jack in 1st and Rosie in 5th. That said, it would be a massive shock if anyone other than Jack or Andy won from here — Babátúndé Aléshé is 9 points behind with Emma 14, and the biggest gap anyone has successfully overcome in the last two episodes was 6 (by Kerry Godliman in Series 7). However, Babá can take inspiration from Julian Clary in Series 16: he was 12 points behind Sam Campbell with two episodes remaining, but good performances by Butch in Episode 9 and 10 took it right to the wire, with Julian only losing it on the final studio task of the series. Maybe if Andy and Jack continue to kick out at each other over their interesting leg actions, Babá could sneak in…
• It was another bad episode for Emma Sidi, who scored just 9 (1.8 PPT) to fall well off the pace in the series. She used her hot dog at the worst possible time, Elvis-dancing her way to a measly 2 points. She becomes the first contestant to use their hot dog in an episode and score fewer than 10 points — both Jack and Babá scored over 20 in their hot dog episodes, while even Rosie “Minus Three Points Because of Granddad” Jones managed to reach double figures with the hot dog, scoring 12. Emma becomes the first contestant this series to score fewer than 10 in two separate episodes — she is the 17th contestant to do this ever. Only five contestants have outdone Emma in this by scoring fewer than 10 in more than two episodes — they are Katherine Parkinson (who hit single digits in Series 10 Episodes 1, 3 and 9), Victoria Coren Mitchell (Series 12 Episodes 6, 8 and 9), Ivo Graham (Series 15 Episodes 1, 4 and 5) and Lucy Beaumont (Series 16 Episodes 5, 8 and 9). The record for most number of episode scores under 10 — and one which will likely never be beaten — belongs to Roisin Conaty, who managed to score under 10 in 4 episodes (Series 1 Episodes 1, 3, 4 and 6), despite the fact that she only competed in six episodes instead of the now common ten.

“Ah, fucking hell.”

• Rosie had her best episode since the start of the series, matching her Episode 1 score of 17 (3.4 PPT). It’s not enough to see her clamber off the bottom of the table but she is now just 4 points off of Emma Sidi — only twice has there ever been a smaller gap between 4th and 5th in a series after eight episode (in Series 14 Fern Brady and John Kearns were tied at the bottom at this stage, as were Lucy Beaumont and Sue Perkins in Series 16). She might not win the title but if Emma has a few more hot dog Elvis style breakdowns in the final two episodes (and Babá brings in a few more paper plates/Viking helmets as prizes) she could do what both Munya Chawawa and Susan Wokoma did in Series 14 and 16 respectively — sneak into third, having spent most of the series struggling at the foot of the table.

Prize Task (The Thing That Most Makes Greg Scratch His Chin)

• This is the second prize task of the series to reference Greg by name (after Episode 4’s The Thing Most Likely To Make Greg Say “Ooooh Christ! Now That Is Badass!”). It’s the first time there have been two prize tasks designed to elicit a reaction from Greg in the same series — other examples in previous series include “The bit of old crap that Greg likes the best” (Series 16 Episode 9) and “the thing of yours Greg would most like to squeeze in his mighty hands” (Series 17 Episode 8). This task also continues a trend of how tasks refer to Greg — before Series 15, tasks would never reference Greg by his name, instead calling him The Taskmaster. Since Series 15, there’s been a switch — while live tasks usually still call Greg “The Taskmaster”, during prize tasks he’s referred to as Greg. Why, I couldn’t possibly say — although it’s clear in recent series he’s definitely mellowed out, and contestants are using prize tasks less as an attempt to please an almighty god and more to make Greg as uncomfortable as possible (but more on Rosie’s effort later).

Nope, no idea.

• In a sense this prize task was the same as Series 7 Episode 4’s “Most Confusing Thing”, but with the added layer of chin-scratching (which really only Andy and Emma took advantage of). That Series 7 task was won by Jessica Knappett, who brought in a baffling t-shirt of a pigeon creature saying “IUF! That comes the raven!”, and one would predict it would score at least slightly more than a paper plate this time round.
• First up was Babá, who kicked off the prize task for the second time this series (he previously went first in Episode 2, where he scored just one point for his Viking helmet). As with the subwoofer last week, Babá was not particularly keen to show his effort (murmuring “oh no!” upon finding out he was first up)— it’s the third occasion this series that a contestant has been reluctant to show their prize out of shame, following Rosie Jones in Episode 3 (who, when asked by Greg if she wanted to show her effort, replied ‘no…’ — she was then informed it was a rhetorical question.) Unlike those two previous examples of prize task regret, Babá didn’t actually score the fewest number of points here — he scored 3 for his completely contextless paper plate. Now I don’t want to assume that Babá just panicked and brought in the first thing he found in the green room before the show… but if this was the case it would be the third such example of a contestant doing this (after Guz Khan brought in a chair from the dressing room in Series 12 Episode 1, and Sophie Willan brought in a bottle of paint in Series 17 Episode 8 [but only because she wasn’t allowed to bring in a mould of her own breast]). Again, not assuming but if this was the case, Babá’s effort would be the highest scoring effort of a “green room panic” (Guz got 1, Sophie 2).

“Are you going to explain the paper plate?”

• Andy got 4 points for his mosquito spray (or Mosquit-Eau Aftershave) — his third fake product with specially made branding (although unlike the “just add water” Instaboing trampoline, this was not a product from Zaltztech). Once again, there were some brilliant sight gags on the mosquito bottle (such as that it contains “genine mossie flob” and is endorsed by “Task Master & 2019 Wimbledon Champion Greg Davies”). It’s the second time a contestant has brought in customised eau de toilette (after Lou Sanders’ first prize task in Series 8, where she brought in the cologne “Greg Davies All Over Your Neck”). It was another 4 points for Andy, who since Episode 1 has not scored fewer than 4 points in any prize task. His prize task score stands at 3.88 points per prize task — that’s the sixth best ever score, with only Lolly Adefope (4.25), Tim Key (4.17), Mawaan Rizwan, Desiree Burch and Steve Pemberton (all 3.90) ahead of him. He’s still in with a chance to break the all-time record for most prize task points in a series — if he scores a 4 and a 5 in the last two episodes (or better) he’ll be the first contestant to break the 40 point mark in prize tasks.

“Now I scratch my chin like a real man.”

• There are three constants — death, taxes and Jack Dee scoring 3 in the prize task. He did it again this week — it’s the seventh time in eight episodes. He’s already broken the record for the most number of prize task 3s in a series (with two episodes to go) — and in fact, before this series no-one had ever received the same score in prize tasks more than six times. The previous record for most number of same prize task scores was held by Daisy May Cooper (Series 10) and Morgana Robinson (Series 12), who both managed to score 2 points six times. Strangely both of those contestants were also involved in a nailbiting title race that went to the final task — Morgana won hers, Daisy didn’t. So something to comfort both Jack and Andy there… Jack’s prize was a book called the Colin Phillips Book of Information, with a secret compartment for hiding a screwdriver — this is the second book with a secret compartment in it, after Ivo Graham brought in a fake copy of the dictionary with a secret compartment holding a smaller dictionary. He received 2 points (arguably deserving more than the 3 Jack got here).

The Colin Phillips Book of Information.

• Sidenote: Jack implied this book had been produced as a promotion for an actual book by Colin Phillips called “Book of Information”, but I can’t find any information online about such a book, nor find a match for a Colin Phillips who would logically do a fun little screwdriver gag to promote his book (there is a Professor of Linguistics from the University of Oxford but those guys are not fun). At the same time though, it doesn’t make sense for it not to be real — Jack’s offerings have been relatively low effort so far (I’m thinking the “badass” outfit from T.K. Maxx), so it seems unlikely he would go through the faff of making a fake book and a fake backstory to go with it. It’s also a lot of work to go through for something that is fairly perfunctionary. Ironically whether or not the book is actually real is the biggest chin-scratcher of the whole task…

Fake chin acne.

• After three very strong prize tasks in a row (including two 5s) Emma came back down to earth with a bump (or a spot), scoring just 1 for her fake chin acne. It’s her first one pointer of the series for prize tasks, and pushes her down to 38th on the all-time chart (level with Bob Mortimer, oddly) with a points per prize score of 3.13. Strangely it’s not even the first fake dermatological affliction on the show — in Series 8, Sian Gibson received 5 points for bringing a fake poppable blister for “best burstable thing”. Emma’s tactic was to get Greg to scratch his chin during the banter — it’s a common strategy in prize tasks, to trick Greg into accidentally admitting that their item meets the criteria (although usually it’s done with more guile than Emma managed here). Previous (more successful) versions of that tactic include Kiell Smith Bynoe getting Greg to sign a piece of paper saying “well done for your five points” for the Sneakiest Thing task, and Victoria Coren Mitchell turning Greg’s description of Greedy Esquire in a previous task back at him during the “most ridiculous thin thing” task.

“Answer her, Greg.”

• Rosie won her third prize task of the series, and her first since the second episode, for her question written on a scroll. It’s the first time a question has been presented as a prize, although contestants have brought in puzzles /riddles— Phil Wang brought in a puzzle box in Series 7 (provoking the famous “why don’t you just open it you pussy” line from James Acaster), Rose Matafeo brought in a cryptex in Series 9, and last series Steve Pemberton brought in a cryptic crossword with a hidden message published in that day’s Guardian newspaper. It’s the second time a prize has swapped Alex’s head with someone else’s, after Steve Pemberton last year brought in a faceswapped picture of Greg and Alex for “best picture”. Arguably it’s the first prize task to grapple with a subject matter that frequently occupies the minds of fanfic writers across the internet (although Taskmaster New Zealand did have a portrait of Jeremy and Paul kissing for a prize in the most recent series, so UK contestants do need to try harder in that department.)

Task One (Put On The Special Glasses)

• This was another “treasure hunt” task, where contestants had to follow clues to retrieve an item — similar tasks in the past have included Series 3’s “release Alex”, where the contestants had to find the key that unlocked Alex; the “find the treasure” task in Series 10; and the “find the other half of this task” task in Series 17. Like the “release Alex” task, the answer was annoyingly much closer than the task implied — in the Release Alex task, Alex was holding the key the whole time, and here the glasses were inside a pillar in the very room they started in. In this sense it had parallels with a Taskmaster New Zealand task in Series 2, where contestants had to follow a series of directions and then plant their flag. Only Matt Heath saw through the ploy — the answer was at the very point that they started at.

“Praaaawrgh!”

• Those who actually followed the clues (Babá and Emma) discovered a cheesedome under the portrait with a clue written in French. It’s the second time contestants with a knowledge of specifically French would be at an advantage — in Series 13 contestants had to count to thirteen as a group with more and more conditions thrown at them as each round progressed, one of which was that all the numbers had to be in French. However, there have also been times French has come in handy for contestants — Mel Giedroyc spoke it to “Uoogh” during the wheelie bin task in Series 4; Sally Phillips created the moving French-lanuage animation Le Chat Est Boing Boing in Series 5 (and Nish Kumar followed it up with the horror story Le Chat Est Dans Le Nish); Jamali Maddix spoke it fairly shakily during his in-flight announcement task in Series 11; and of course in Series 16 Lucy Beaumont started playing the French horn during the hotel task, for some reason.

Eddie does not like Babá’s French accent.

• For the second week in a row, one of the contestants called a non-Taskmaster comedian friend to help with a task — last episode it was Andy Zaltzman calling Daniel Kitson to tell him he was in the bath, and this week it was the turn of Babátúndé Aléshé to call Eddie Kadi for help with his French homework. Eddie is the third person to be called because of their knowledge of another language, although it’s the first time it wasn’t to communicate with Fred the Swede: as mentioned in last week’s round-up, in Series 2 Katherine Ryan called Danish comedian Sofie Hagen to translate (among other things) Fred’s favourite meal, while in Series 13 Bridget Christie called her brother who lives in Sweden to chat to Fred about the perilous state of Swedish politics.

Special glasses.

• Eddie’s “appearance” on the show makes him the fifteenth person to appear on both Taskmaster and Strictly Come Dancing (competing in last year’s edition with Karen Hauer). There have been three contestants who have competed in both a full series of Taskmaster and Strictly (Julian Clary, Chris Ramsey and Judi Love), a subsequent ten who have been in the main Strictly show as a contestant, presenter or judge and then appeared on a Taskmaster New Year’s Treat (Krishnan Guru Murthy, Rylan, Shirley Ballas, Adrian Chiles, Claudia Winkleman, Jonnie Peacock, Carol Voderman, Deborah Meaden, Steve Backshall and Zoe Ball), and one who has appeared on a main series of Taskmaster and in a Christmas special of Strictly (Mel Giedroyc).
• Emma used the internet to solve this task (even though she has a university degree in French) — I believe she’s the sixth contestant to use a search engine in a task, after Jon Richardson panic-searched for impressive things to show the Mayor of Chesham in Series 2 (1 point); Al Murray Googled “are sweat and urine the same thing” in Series 3 (disqualified from filling an egg cup with sweat); Mark Watson searched for “two men cuddle by a river bank in darkness” in Series 5 (2 points, subsequently had to delete his search history); Russell Howard googled “How do I make bubbles?” in Series 6 (and then got annoyed at how complicated it was and asked Alex to find a simpler one, 1 point); while Morgana Robinson is the only contestant to use Google in two different tasks (once to check how far 12 foot was in metres in the “prevent Alex from scoring a goal” task [5 points], and then again to check how tall “Greg from Taskmaster” was in the “put up a shelf for all the Taskmaster’s snooker balls” task [3 points]).

Special glasses.

• It was another “Fastest Wins” task win for Andy, who got the glasses in 4 minutes 53 — his third of the series, top alongside Emma Sidi. Andy is now doing the best at “fastest wins” tasks, averaging 3.38 points per “fastest wins” task — he’s overtaken Jack, who scored 1 point for only the second time in a solo filmed task this series. Jack was technically faster but punished for failing to actually find the special glasses (instead finding a pair of fairly unremarkable goggles from the set. For some reason, Jack wasn’t disqualified for failing to complete the task, but given a “sympathy point” and last place instead. This has happened before — in Champion of Champions 2, Ed Gamble was given a point despite the fact that he failed to get the duck into the pond (beheading it in the garden instead) — and sympathy points are fairly common for contestants languishing at the bottom of the table. Sympathy points for contestants at the top are rarer — in an extremely tight series, the decision not to disqualify the series leader for a breach could be very consequential, especially if the series is decided by only a single point…
• EDIT: It has been pointed out by the good folks on Reddit/Bluesky (first by The_PwnUltimate) that Jack probably received the sympathy point because Alex had implied that Jack had actually completed the task by saying “I’m surprised, but I can’t deny they are special” — in fact, many people seem to think Jack was robbed because Alex didn’t more forcefully tell him that he hadn’t completed the task. Personally, I think you should never trust Alex to tell you once you’ve completed a task, although I do take the point that usually Alex would say something a bit more guarded/ambiguous (either “do YOU think you’ve completed the task” or “would you like me to stop the clock?”) Regardless of the contestant, Alex likely wouldn’t have said outright “those are not the special glasses” — if nothing else, he has no idea how Greg will judge it so for all he knows they may count as Greg’s definition of special glasses. What it comes down to is whether Jack would have continued to search for the glasses if Alex had said something less congratulatory/definitive than “I can’t deny they are special”. Given how Jack has tackled various other tasks (the rocket in the pocket, the dottiest fish), I think he’s the kind of contestant who will not be swayed once he has made a decision to do something — I’m not sure he would have continued to look for the glasses unless Alex had said outright that they weren’t the intended special glasses. Alex could have been clearer that it would be up to the Taskmaster to decide whether or not he had completed the task, but personally I don’t think Jack was robbed because I think he should have suspected he had done something “wrong”, and that if nothing else to stop there was a risk.

Not special glasses.

• Andy’s success here (and Jack’s failure) meant that Andy edged into the series lead for the first time ever (putting him on 116 to Jack’s 115). This is the latest that there has been a new leader in a series, beating the previous record set by Sophie Duker in Series 13 — she took the lead for the first time in the final task of Episode 7 (when she stared down Chris Ramsey in the toilet paper tower task). Unlike Andy, however, it was a lead she would maintain until the end of the series —Andy loses his razor thin advantage within two tasks.
• Rosie is still yet to win a “fastest wins” task, and has an average “fastest wins” points per task score of 2.50 — however, this was her best performance since Episode 3 when she took just over two minutes to put some salad leaves in her pocket.

Task Two (Be At The Highest Number Barrel)

• This is the second “multi-task” task of the series, after last week’s “eat and obey five fortune cookies” task. This task had some similarities with the final task of Series 9 (“complete the seven tasks”) — like that task, the mini-tasks were laid out in a circle, and if you failed a task you had to restart all the tasks again. Unlike this task, the contestants could complete the mini-tasks in any order (although the “best” order was to start at the first task and work their way around the circle clockwise, as Rose Matafeo discovered). This task also featured some old props/concepts from previous series: the tombola at Barrel 5 was from Series 15 in the “bingo” task, the lemon at Barrel 8 featured in last week’s “what’s in the chest” task; while the idea of completing a task by tossing a head on a coin featured in the Fortune Trail in Series 16 (which Sue Perkins inexplicably tried to get around by doing five head tosses on a coin).

Emma in a “playful” mood.

• The contestants all had different times to complete this task in, as it was determined by how long it took the contestants to walk to the first barrel and read up to a certain line in the task. This meant it had strong similarities with the infamous “milk/microwaves” task in Series 14/Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, where contestants were warned by Alex/Paul not to open the task immediately — as soon as they did, they would have to hold two full bottles of milk over a microwave for as long as possible. As the time started when the contestants entered the room rather than when they read the task, the longer they delayed the better they would do (much to the delight of David Correos, who spent over an hour and a half chatting and having lunch with Paul before opening the task). Effectively that task and this one rewarded contestants who meaningfully engage in small talk with Alex (IE, not James Acaster).
• In the small talk we had the second mention of Babá’s newborn — in Episode 1 we had the beautiful bubble dance/portrait in her honour, but this time we had the curt response to “did you sleep well last night”: “no, I have a four month old”. We can assume the Thorpe Park day was filmed a few weeks after the house days, when the endorphins of new fatherhood had worn off.

Baba and the bingo ball.

• We also learned that Emma has to occasionally take her socks off in the middle of the night, which led to her revelation in the studio that women are likelier to orgasm if their feet are kept warm, and genuine bewilderment from Greg and Alex. The chaos of this moment shared similarities with a moment in Series 5, when an offhand comment from Bob Mortimer in the VT, about how he might film himself going to the toilet, led to the revelation in the studio that he has a particularly high anus and a demonstration of how he has to straddle the bowl. The message for Greg here is if a contestant says something slightly strange about their body in the VT, do NOT bring it up in the studio because things will get odd.

“Do you promise, Jack?”

• As the second barrel involved answering Alex’s true or false questions, this is the second task of the series that tested contestants’ general knowledge, after the “cheat in the pub quiz” task in Episode 3 (while you had to cheat in that task, the final score was done by correct answers — so as long as you did enough cheating and got the answers right, you’d score highly). Greg mocked Rosie and Emma for guessing true for “lobsters are biologically immortal”, but it’s worth saying that that is not as ridiculous an answer as it may first seem — lobsters don’t die from old age like most animals, as they have the ability to endlessly repair their DNA through a constant supply of an enzyme called telomerase. However, they aren’t immortal: their never-ending supply of telomerase means they grow bigger and bigger, and so will always need to grow a new exoskeleton, which requires a lot of energy. Eventually they die from exhaustion at having to keep going (very relatable). Fun facts! (Thanks to science.org.au for that information!)
• Both Jack and Andy did this task with ease, but there was some controversy as Alex helped Jack twice — first by telling Jack that he had selected an even number bingo ball at Barrel 5 (as Jack had inexplicably forgot that two is an even number), and then by getting Jack to come clean about the fact that he hadn’t eaten a chocolate covered coffee bean at Barrel 6 (instead of the traditional Alex move of letting a contestant cheat in the moment and then raising it in the studio, leading to their disqualification). This led to an accusation of bias from Emma Sidi, who wondered if Alex was “a little bit nervous” to be around Jack Dee and was therefore extra sweet with him. It’s the first time anyone has accused Alex of being biased in the studio, although not the first accusation of bias overall — in Series 7, James Acaster accused Greg of being willing to bend for his friend Rhod Gilbert in the “find the satsuma in a sock” task. Suffice to say… it’s getting tasty.

Task Three (Label a Part of Your Body…)

• This is the second two part task of the series, after the “remember these ten fine people” task in Episode 2 (coincidentally another task where a contestant used their hot-dog). However, this is the first time this series there’s been another surprise task sprung on the contestants immediately after completing the first part (unlike the “remember these ten fine people” task, which was split into two parts with other tasks in between). In this sense it’s a traditional “two-part task”, similar to “make an exotic sandwich/eat your exotic sandwich” in Series 4, and “make an edible sculpture/eat your edible sculpture in Series 13” — although it’s worth saying that unlike those tasks, the first part of the task (the quality of the labelling, surprising noise and interesting thing with your legs) was not judged at all, and instead the points were given out for the number of sequences completed alone. This seems very harsh on Emma in particular, but alarm bells possibly should have rang for contestants when they read the first part of the task as there was no line which indicated how this would be scored (ie, “best labelling, most surprising noise and most interesting thing with your legs wins”).

Andy’s interesting leg action.

• This task also shares similarities with Series 6’s “have the most fun” team task, where they were then given another task to “recreate their fun” — in both tasks, contestants are encouraged to do something wild and weird in the first part of the task that is then tedious to recreate. It’s also the second series in a row where contestants have had to pick a body part for a task without knowing exactly what they would have to do with it, after the contestants in Series 17 were made to scream a body part in Alex’s face and then use it to squeeze oranges (which made Sophie Willan’s decision to yell “BOOB! BOOB! BOOB!” all the more ill-advised).
• As often happens, the contestants who put in the most effort in the first part of the task were punished by the second — Jack and Babá’s low energy submissions were easier to recreate than either Emma or Andy’s. In this sense it’s similar to the “tie yourself up/put on the boiler suit” task in Series 7, where contestants had to tie themselves up and then put on a boiler suit when they heard a secret alarm — the contestants who made a serious effort to tie themselves up (James Acaster, Jessica Knappett, Kerry Godliman) took longer to put on the boiler suit than the one who pottered about looking a bit lost (Phil Wang).

Rosie’s interesting leg action.

• Emma used her hot dog to disastrous effect, putting herself through agony by doing Elvis legs for about five and a half minutes (thirteen times at 25 seconds each) for just 2 points. It’s the second lowest hot dog score, after Rosie last week scored -3, and puts her objectively judged task score at 2.88 for the series (44th overall, just behind Julian Clary, Lee Mack and Kiell Smith-Bynoe). Meanwhile Jack scored 5 points for completing forty sequences — it means his objective task score has gone up to 3.08 PPT, top for Series 18 and putting him 28th on the all-time list (just behind Sarah Kendall and Lou Sanders).
• This was another task that involved Rosie having to rely on Alex to complete it, following the “dottiest fish” task and the “defuse the robot” task in Episode 6. This time she had him label her body part for her (and he pointed out that “upper nose area” was a fairly time consuming phrase for him to write) — unlike the previous examples, Rosie was pleased with his performance (saying that he “pulled his weight”, instead of shouting at him for not doing his f**king job).

Jack’s many, many interesting leg actions.

• Andy challenged the “interestingness” of Jack’s leg action — it’s the second time Andy has tried to get points knocked off in the studio for something Jack has done in the VT, with the previous other time coming in Episode 3 during the “put a rocket in the pocket” task (when Andy CORRECTLY pointed out that the task was “put a rocket in your pocket”, not “put rocket [salad] in your pocket”). Both attempts failed, although it’s worth noting the difference in Jack’s reaction — in Episode 3 he was mostly silent to Andy’s plaintive moans asking “does the word ‘a’ mean nothing to you people” (allowing Emma to deliver the killer response, “you are being ‘a’ prick right now”). This time Jack shot back with “Krusty the Clown is questioning it”, which felt a bit below the belt personally — perhaps an indication that Jack’s feathers are getting a little bit ruffled by Andy. Potentially Jack was also aware just how important getting this task win was for him — the 5 points here sent Jack one point clear of Andy again. Again. It’s getting tasty.

Live Task (Say The Same Word At The Same Time)

• This was the second live team task of the series — and it went a lot better for the Team of Two than the previous one (the “herd of animals” task, which the Team of Three won in one round). In fact, this was the first team task win for the Team of Two. Only once has the first win for a team come later in the series — that was in Series 9, when David Baddiel and Jo Brand won the final team task of the series (make a cup of tea for Alex, which Ed rather torpedoed with his own spit). It means the Team of Two have pulled the margin back a little bit against the Team of Three — there are now “just” 14 points separating them, which is four points off the record margin set by Series 15 and Series 17 (although there is likely at least one more team task to go). Without team tasks, Jack would be 16 points clear — that would be the third highest lead ever, with only Dara Ó Briain and John Robins outdoing him.

“Can I say something? I’ve run out of white names.”

• This task had some similarities with a team task from Series 13 Episode 8, where contestants had to write down items in a given category and would be given points if their teammates got the same ones (but deducted points if any members of the opposing team got them). It rewards being in sync, and that’s possibly easier to do if you’re consistently in the same team rather than having someone switch in and out as the Team of Three did — indeed, that’s supported by the fact that the Teams of Three lost here and in the Series 13 task. This is the second time a Series 13 live task has been re-engineered for Series 18, after Episode 6 saw the return of Quentin (whose name the contestants had to guess in Series 13, and this time the contestants had to guess his profession). Strangely both of these reengineered tasks match where they came in the series with Series 13 — the Quentin tasks were at Episode 6 in both series, and the “in sync team” tasks were at Episode 8 in both series.
• This task seemed to go on for a long time (long enough for Babá to “run out of white names”) — it’s unclear whether this went for longer than the ludicrous Series 13 task, where the contestants asked seventy five questions of Quentin, but I believe this is the first time the show has had to change a live task midway through out of a fear that it would continue forever. A live task has been changed midway through — the final live task of Series 2 was edited after Katherine Ryan pointed out that one of the instructions, “correctly put on a tie”, discriminated against women (as she had never had reason to put one on before). In that instance, Richard Osman saved the day by moving the comma in the task wording, so that it changed from “eat a banana, correctly put on a tie” to “eat a banana correctly, put on a tie”.

All Time Leaderboard

All Time Leaderboard After Ep 8–21–30 (Jack Dee in 21st, Andy Zaltzman in 28th)

• Jack steadies the ship with a decent enough episode — 17, 3.4 PPT — to climb up a few places to joint 21st, level with Noel Fielding. However the big story is Andy Zaltzman — his 19 (3.8 PPT) sees him jump nine places up to 28th, sliding up above Bridget Christie, Tim Vine and Lou Sanders among others. He’s now just 2 points (or 0.05 points per task) behind Jack — and given how they’ve both been performing in prize tasks, there’s every chance he’ll overtake Jack again in the very first task of the next episode. Speaking of prize tasks, this is an area where Andy is really making inroads on Jack’s lead — he’s scored 31 in prize tasks, 8 more than Jack has managed (meaning that Andy is effectively scoring a whole point more than Jack in every prize task). Only once has there been a bigger discrepancy in prize tasks between two contestants gunning for the title — that was in Series 12, where Guz Khan managed to score 11 points more than his rival Morgana Robinson in the prize tasks (although it wasn’t enough to pip her to Greg’s massive head).

All Time List After Ep 8–49 to 56 (Babátúndé Aléshé in 50th place)

• Babátúndé Aléshé lost more ground on his rivals, scoring an underwhelming 14 (2.8 PPT). It means he’s fallen three places in the all-time leaderboard, down to 50th — he’s now behind Frankie Boyle and Munya Chawawa, and level with Mel Giedroyc. Babá is actually quite a well balanced contestant — whereas Andy and Rosie are definitely more suited to subjectively judged tasks, Babá’s objective and subjective scores are almost exactly the same (2.96 PPT in objectively judged tasks, 3.00 in subjectively). There are only three contestants who have had closer subjective and objective scores in the history of the show — Romesh Ranganathan (Series 1) and Lolly Adefope (Series 4) both had exactly the same score in objective and subjective tasks, while Jenny Eclair’s differed by just 0.01PPT. So the good news is Babá is consistent — the bad news is that it’s consistently average. Babá’s best episode score without the hot dog is 18 — realistically to win Greg’s head he’ll need to make up a swing of 10 points in two episodes, meaning he needs to hit 18–20 in each episode and hope that Andy and Jack stay at around 13–15. It’s not as unlikely as a lobster living forever, but…

All Time Leaderboard After Ep 8–61–68 (Emma Sidi in 63rd)

• Emma Sidi’s nightmare episode sends her plummeting down the table — she’s gone from being level with Babá in 47th place to 63rd, below John Kearns, Sophie Willan and Hugh Dennis. She’s now 14 points off the pace and with her hot dog gone, we can probably discount her from the title race. Before this episode, Emma had been the best at objectively judged tasks — but a score of 8 from 4 objective tasks (2.0 PPT) turns her objective score to 2.88, sendinhg her down to third for the series just ahead of Andy Zaltzman. Emma has also come last in the most solo tasks this series (10) — the good news for Emma is that it’s almost impossible for her to break the record for most number of last places in solo tasks. There are likely nine solo tasks remaining (assuming that at least one of the tasks is a team task), and the record for most number of last places in a task currently stands at 18 (Katherine Parkinson, Series 10). Unless Emma was staggeringly unlucky in the final two episodes, she should be OK. Although this is a woman who used her hot dog on a calf-destroying Elvis impression, so nothing’s off the table.

All Time List After Ep 8–70–84 (Rosie Jones in 70th)

• Rosie Jones can breathe a bit easier — she’s still in last place but her best episode since Ep 1 means she is now nearly 0.20 PPT clear of the Baddiel Zone. In fact, it would take a truly nightmarish last two episodes for Rosie to fall below David Baddiel — her worst episode score this series is 10, and she would need to score worse than 9 in both episodes to plumb to those depths. What’s more, she needs just 15 points in the next two episodes to outdo her arch-rival and pushing-over-nemesis Nish Kumar — this looks like one contest that the Bubble Gum Fairy has won.

And Finally…

“I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

• During the studio discussion of Emma’s socks (and the subsequent discussion about female orgasms), Alex mentioned this was “new territory” for the show. A quick search through the show’s transcripts confirms this: this is not the first mention of the word “orgasm” on Taskmaster (Roisin Conaty brought in an “orgasmatron” massager in Series 1; Alice Levine mentioned an orgasm in her adult ABC book in Series 6 and Steve Pemberton’s hug with Manny Quinn in Series 17 was described as “positively orgasmic”), and contestants have made artwork concerning female genitalia (Sophie Duker created an anatomically correct vagina out of vegan butter, banana, strawberry laces, cake and grapes, complete with, in Greg’s words, a “broccoli bumhole”). But until this episode, Taskmaster UK had never had a detailed discussion about the female orgasm. And frankly, we’ve all waited far too long.

If you want more stats, simply recount your dream about running the hundred metre finals while riding a pig/doing some admin… or just click here!

And don’t forget to listen to this week’s Taskmaster The People’s Podcast, where we have some excellent facts about the Wrong Jovi QR code, and Jenny and I decide we are a PRO-LOBSTER podcast! Plus, sidenote, get Jenny’s new autobiography! It’s brilliant!