Taskmaster of None

Press release time!

Step Into Tom Gleeson’s House Of Fun. Taskmaster Australia Season Three Premieres Tuesday, 24 September.

Starring Aaron Chen, Concetta Caristo, Mel Buttle, Pete Helliar And Rhys Nicholson.

Tuesday night laughs are about to get even wittier as we welcome a new season of Taskmaster Australia to your Tuesday night comedy line-up.

You heard right, we are treating you to double the laughs as comedy powerhouse Taskmaster Australia returns for season three on Tuesday, 24 September at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play, joining Tuesday’s riotous roster alongside The Cheap Seats.

Tough-love Taskmaster Tom Gleeson is back, along with his loyal sidekick Tom Cashman, both ready to put our newest batch of comedians through their comedic paces.

Competing for Tom Gleeson’s cranium in gold trophy form and stepping into his “house of fun”, is none other than Aaron Chen, Concetta Caristo, Mel Buttle, Pete Helliar and Rhys Nicholson. But in Tom’s house, it’s Tom’s rules… which means anything can happen. Will our new comedy legends play by the rules and be up to the task?

From epic winks, flying discs and puzzles with cumbersome costumes, our unforgiving Taskmaster has a whole new bag of random, ridiculous and rambunctious tricks up his sleeve to test the wits of our season three line-up.

Who will have what it takes to become our next Taskmaster Australia champion?

Adapted from the BAFTA-winning, hit UK format of the same name, Taskmaster Australia rewards innovation, berates stupidity and promises an abundance of laughs. And the laughs continue right after, with your weekly hit of The Cheap Seats. What a hoot Tuesdays will be!

Well, “hoot” is certainly one way to put it. There’s also the term “even wittier”, which… well, “wit” isn’t exactly what we’ve come to associate with Taskmaster. But who knows? Maybe they’re dropping bon mots all over the place this season.

Slightly more interesting is the fact this season was filmed before the one that aired earlier this year. Supposedly that one got bumped up because the cast was available to promote it*, which makes sense. It’s not like you can actually stop Peter Helliar from getting his head on TV, you can drop a show with him in it any time you like.

What’s most impressive about all this is that – for one and a bit weeks at least – Channel 10 will have five new Australian comedy programs on the air each week. That’s Have You Been Paying Attention?, Taskmaster, The Cheap Seats, Thank God You’re Here, and The Inspired Unemployed: (Impractical) Jokers. At a time when the other commercial networks basically just show one program seven days a week in prime time, it’s a commitment to actual local programming that puts the others to shame.

It’s a bit of a downer then that when Paramount gets new owners in a few weeks, said new owners will most likely sell off 10 to some bargain basement bunch of local low-lives who’ll strip it for parts. Guess having a local culture – even one just remaking overseas formats – was fun while it lasted.

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*and not because it featured a bunch of bigger names, of course not