IAN HYLAND
On last night’s telly
Taskmaster, Channel 4
Channel 4 launched its latest big money signing last night with a clear promise: “Same Master. New Tasks.”
The message was nothing had changed. Taskmaster would be exactly the same as it was during its hugely successful nine series run on Dave. I could sort of see why – if ain’t broke and all that. But it did make me wonder what the point of bringing it to Channel 4 was.
If the idea was to attract a wider audience then surely it needed Channel 4ing up a little. That approach has worked brilliantly on Bake Off.
The simplest and leastdamaging change would have been to have some Channel 4
names taking part. Much as I admire the comedy pedigree of Daisy May Cooper, Johnny Vegas, Katherine Parkinson, Richard Herring and newcomer Mawaan Rizwan, I wouldn’t say they had mainstream pulling power.
Any casual viewer chancing across those names may have been tempted to flick elsewhere – which could be bad news given the line-up stays the same for the full 10 weeks.
I could be wrong, of course. The beauty of
Taskmaster has always been its winning format.
I’m pleased to report the silliness was as strong as ever in this opener. There is usually at least one game I would happily play all day at home with my kids.
Last night it was the final round, in which the contestants were tasked with gathering coloured plastic balls using a litter picker.
The only question is should I buy them the necessary equipment for Lockdown 2 or save it for Christmas?