Bask in more Tasks

Taskmaster is back for the second time this year, but is the second time the charm? Or the third time, given this is the third series of Taskmaster Australia.*

On paper, this is a strong cast, featuring popular and successful comedians from several generations: Peter Helliar, Rhys Nicholson, Mel Buttle, Aaron Chen and Concetta Caristo. But as always, it’s the format that lets it down, with many of the laughs coming from the post-task wash-up rather than the task itself.

Not that they aren’t trying. Strapping four yoga balls to the contestants as they play Tetris with giant blocks sounds like it’ll be heaps funny but sadly doesn’t result in a lot of laughs. In the end, it’s people trying to get some differently shaped blocks to form a square, and that involves seriously thinking through the problem, whether they’re wearing four yoga balls or not.

The same thing applies to the task where they have to hide traffic cones around the Taskmaster estate for Deputy Taskmaster Tom Cashman to find. Sure, there’s a kind of comic chaos as the comedians chuck the cones into the lake or wherever, but there are also lots and lots of better ways to make an audience laugh.

Filming an emotional scene on a drone was pretty funny, with Aaron Chen making a bizarre black-and-white German drama and Peter Helliar donning a dress and an unconvincing ginger wig to remake Saving Private Ryan. And doing the most epic wink also saw Aaron Chen excel, as an oddly charming dictator delivering a cheeky wink to the crowd from the balcony. But for every task which gives the contestants opportunities to be funny and creative, there’s also a lot of padding, and not of all of it was Taskmaster Tom Gleeson’s funny takedowns of their efforts back in the studio.

Taskmaster is one of those shows where the madness of having to make your bed whilst in it is framed as an acceptable substitute for well-thought-out, guaranteed-to-make-you-laugh material. It gives more of a chance for the comedians to actually do comedy rather than, say, having to spell some words, but it’s a way less satisfying or funny watch than a good sitcom or sketch show would be.

And while “shows the whole family can enjoy” are a good thing to have on free-to-air TV, it’d be nice if our comedians could do something other than this kind of thing. You know, the kind of thing where they have to do a thing which isn’t being funny.

* This is technically the second series of Taskmaster Australia as it was shot before the series which aired earlier this year. There are a bunch of theories about why the order was swapped, but the fact that the cast of this series is better known than the cast of the second series to air seems to have been a factor. There’s also a fourth series coming next year, which was shot last month.