You walk into a room. The walls are bright white and covered in clear plastic, as if you’ve just walked into Dexter’s murder room. But instead of blood and gore, you find a table with an envelope in front of a wall of camera operators and a man with an iPad.
You crack the red seal on the envelope and find a task: “Do the most preposterous thing with this chickpea.”
You look around. The table is empty. Suddenly the man in front of you reaches out his hand and on his palm is a singular chickpea.
“You have 20 minutes. Your time starts now.”
This won’t be the first time I try to convince someone to watch Taskmaster, a British game show where each season has five comedian contestants as they do weird and wild tasks. This is just the first time I’m doing it at such a large scale. Here’s how I’d normally do it:
“Have a seat! I want you to watch this short clip of my favorite game show. Now now, don’t get up. I promise it’s good. Here, watch. It won’t take long.”
“Funny, right? Perfect, huh? Here’s another great clip. You’ll be quoting Alex Horne after this one.”
“‘I was open.’ Hilarious. And how about this one from the very first season?”
Did I get you, Substack readers? At this point, if you were in my living room staring up at the projector screen, you’d be on board with Taskmaster. Those three clips are a perfect trio representing the humor, happiness, and lateral thinking of the show. The tasks are creative and the contestants are hilarious.
Hosted by Greg Davies (The Taskmaster), and “Little” Alex Horne, Taskmaster episodes feature the prize task, watching tasks done in the past, and then a live on-stage task. The winner of each episode gets the five prizes that the comedians brought for the prize task. Then, at the end of the series, whoever has the most cumulative points wins the big prize, a golden statue of the Taskmaster’s head.
But none of that really matters. It’s just plain fun. And the odds are good that you’ll be strategizing how to do each task as they pop up on your screen.
I think I’ve convinced you enough. Your first task: Watch Taskmaster on their official YouTube channel. Series 22 starts this fall, so you have some time to get caught up.
Your task starts now.
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