History YMMV / Taskmaster

** John Kearns was insulted and put down by everyone on Series 14 for the way all his failures went spectacularly wrong while his successes were brushed aside or given backhanded compliments. This made all the worse by the fact that he's a great admirer of Greg, Dara, and Sarah but had never met them before ''Taskmaster'' only to be presented as a bumbler in front of them -- and had gotten on Dara's bad side while shooting team tasks (though in total fairness, this one's partly his own fault, due to a combination of the aforementioned bumbling ''and'' an infamous secret task wherein he was required to [[spoiler: sabotage his team's efforts]]. The fact that he took it all on the chin and remained pleasant throughout the ordeal earned him the audience's sympathy.

** John Kearns was insulted and put down by everyone on Series 14 for the way all his failures went spectacularly wrong while his successes were brushed aside or given backhanded compliments. This made all the worse by the fact that he's a great admirer of Greg, Dara, and Sarah but had never met them before ''Taskmaster'' only to be presented as a bumbler in front of them -- and had gotten on Dara's bad side while shooting team tasks (though in total fairness, this one's partly his own fault, due to a combination of the aforementioned bumbling ''and'' an infamous secret task wherein he was required to [[spoiler: sabotage his team's efforts]]]]. The fact that he took it all on the chin and remained pleasant throughout the ordeal earned him the audience's sympathy.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The first batch of Scandinavian episodes uploaded to the official [=YouTube=] channel were criticised for the poor quality of their subtitles. Problems included awkward phrasing, unexplained cultural references, wordplay that didn't make sense when translated into English, and every word ending with "-ok" being subtitled as ending with "-okay" (i.e. "lookay", "bookay, "tookay", etc.)[[note]]presumably because someone was told to change "OK" to "Okay" and simply did an automated find-and-replace[[/note]]. The second batch received subtitles taken from a popular, unofficial channel that had been shut down. These are more polished and include factoids that explain cultural references and wordplay. The first batch, meanwhile, received a new set of subtitles that fixed the "-okay" issue.

** John Kearns was insulted and put down by everyone on Series 14 for the way all his failures went spectacularly wrong while his successes were brushed aside or given backhanded compliments. This made all the worse by the fact that he's a great admirer of Greg, Dara, and Sarah but had never met them before ''Taskmaster'' only to be presented as a bumbler in front of them -- and had gotten on Dara's bad side while shooting team tasks. The fact that he took it all on the chin and remained pleasant throughout the ordeal earned him the audience's sympathy.

** Series 14: The only ones who are somewhat orthodoxly dressed are Sarah Millican and John Kearns: in order of increasing eccentricity, Dara O'Briain is wearing a monogrammed boiler suit, Munya Chawawa is wearing a boiler-suit customised with various colourful patches (including the flag of Zimbabwe, where he grew up as a child), and Fern Brady is wearing what would appear to be a green steampunk cat-suit.[[note]]she's apparently stated she wanted to rival Phil Wang's above-mentioned outrageous costume.[[/note]]

** Series 14: The only ones who are somewhat orthodoxly dressed are Sarah Millican and John Kearns: in order of increasing eccentricity, Dara O'Briain is wearing a monogrammed boiler suit, Munya Chawawa is wearing a boiler-suit customised with various colourful patches (including the flag of Zimbabwe, where he grew up as a child), and Fern Brady is wearing what would appear to be a green steampunk cat-suit[[note]]she's apparently stated she wanted to rival Phil Wang's above-mentioned outrageous costume[[/note]].

* CrazyIsCool: Sally Phillips in Season 5 took an eccentric yet highly effective approach to tasks (particularly the creative ones), leading to bizarre results like [[spoiler: Alex's birthing video and Sally's affair with a water cooler]]. These usually helped her, resulting in a high series-wide score.

** Paul Sinha's ineptitude at many of the tasks in Series 8 was often played for laughs in the show, as is typical. Bust some of these jokes became less funny when he revealed that: he was very busy and had to squeeze ''TM'' between shooting back-to-back episodes of Series/TheChaseGameShow, recovering from shoulder surgery and taking powerful painkillers, and was unknowingly [[https://sinhahablog.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/diagnosed/ experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease]][[note]]Clips of his time on ''TM'' have subsequently been used to teach medical students about what to look for when diagnosing the disease[[/note]]. After going public with his diagnosis, Sinha [[https://twitter.com/paulsinha/status/1139622227975004160?lang=en quipped]] that the condition was only a very small part of why he did poorly, so he at least has managed to maintain a sense of humour about it.

** Paul Sinha's ineptitude at many of the tasks in Series 8 was often played for laughs in the show, as is typical. Bust some of these jokes became less funny when he revealed that: he was very busy and had to squeeze ''TM'' between shooting back-to-back episodes of the chase, recovering from shoulder surgery and taking powerful painkiller, and was unknowingly [[https://sinhahablog.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/diagnosed/ experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease]][[note]]Clips of his time on ''TM'' have subsequently been used to teach medical students about what to look for when diagnosing the disease[[/note]]. After going public with his diagnosis, Sinha [[https://twitter.com/paulsinha/status/1139622227975004160?lang=en quipped]] that the condition was only a very small part of why he did poorly, so he at least has managed to maintain a sense of humour about it.

** Paul Sinha's ineptitude at many of the tasks in Series 8 was often played for laughs in the show, as is typical, but some of these jokes became a bit less funny when Sinha announced that he had been [[https://sinhahablog.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/diagnosed/ diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease]]. While the diagnosis came after the filming of the show, he had unknowingly been experiencing the early effects of it during filming, and some of it had likely contributed to his lack of physical ability and coordination. That said, Sinha [[https://twitter.com/paulsinha/status/1139622227975004160?lang=en himself also quipped]] that the condition is only a very small part of why he did poorly, so he at least has managed to maintain a sense of humour about it.

** In the final episode of Series 11, Jamali Maddox briefly confuses Greg with comedian and television presenter Creator/DaraOBriain, prompting a certain amount of indignation on Greg's part. Three series later, Dara would be a contestant.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** During Series 5, Sally Phillips made numerous jokes about not getting enough sex, prompting YouNeedToGetLaid quips from Greg. As it turned out, she was going through a divorce at the time.
** Paul Sinha's ineptitude at many of the tasks in Series 8 was often played for laughs in the show, as is typical, but some of these jokes became a bit less funny when Sinha announced that he had been [[https://sinhahablog.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/diagnosed/ diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease]]. While the diagnosis came after the filming of the show, he had unknowingly been experiencing the early effects of it during filming, and some of it had likely contributed to his lack of physical ability and coordination. That said, Sinha [[https://twitter.com/paulsinha/status/1139622227975004160?lang=en himself also quipped]] that the condition is only a very small part of why he did poorly, so he at least has managed to maintain a sense of humour about it.
** In a moment of frustration during Series 10 (shot under lockdown conditions), Daisy May Cooper told Richard Herring: "I hate you more than my husband!" She and her husband would later split due to issues stemming from the extended time they had to spend in lockdown.

** [[EarWorm ♫ "It is me, Fern Brady, me, Fern Brady, I'm the rightful queen!" ♫]]

* AwesomeEgo: Greg compliments Daisy May Cooper for her supreme self-confidence, as she will routinely describe her ideas while performing recorded tasks as "brilliant", while comedians stereotypically need validation from others.
-->'''Daisy:''' ''[After executing her marble run and applauding herself]'' Well done, me! ''[turns to Alex, who is holding up her marble run structure, as an afterthought]'' And you a little bit.

** Series 14: The only ones who are somewhat orthodoxly dressed are Sarah Millican and John Kearns: in order of increasing eccentricity, Dara O'Briain is wearing a monogrammed boiler suit, Munya Chawawa is wearing a boiler-suit customised with various colourful patches (including the flag of Zimbabwe, where he grew up as a child), and Fern Brady is wearing what would appear to be a green steampunk cat-suit.

** Creator/CharlotteRitchie is considered the odd one out among all of ''Taskmaster'''s mainline competitors, being an actress with little experience on the panel-show circuit nor the comedy connections that typically encourage participation. Come Series 15, the panel features ''two'' of her on-screen love interests in Kiell Smith-Bynoe (from ''Series/GhostsUK'') and Mae Martin (from ''Series/FeelGood''). Plus Jenny Eclair says that her daughter and Charlotte were in the same year at school.

** Creator/CharlotteRitchie is considered the odd one out among all of ''Taskmaster'''s mainline competitors, being an actress with little experience on the panel-show circuit nor the comedy connections that typically encourage participation. Come Series 15, the panel features ''two'' of her on-screen love interests in Kiell Smith-Bynoe (from ''Series/GhostsUK'') and Mae Martin (from ''Feel Good''). Plus Jenny Eclair says that her daughter and Charlotte were in the same year at school.

** Sarah Millican earned this in the fourth episode of season four after the "write a classical song" task, in which she confessed that she found having to sing the song she'd written somewhat anxiety-inducing as a result of a complex she'd had resulting from some rather cruel belittling of her vocal abilities by an ex-boyfriend. [[spoiler: This appears to have made Greg's heart grow a few sizes that day, since he subsequently gave her first place for the task.]]

** Romesh Ranganathan took the competition very seriously, however, and got very angry whenever Greg Davies put him down. As Romesh's comic persona is that of the GrumpyBear, however, it's a bit hard to tell how much of this was real versus how much of this was him putting on an act. According to [[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7ghb30/i_am_british_comedian_romesh_ranganathan_who_will/dqj3wfv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x this AMA]], he did enjoy doing the show but got genuinely annoyed at some of the "injustices" he felt he faced.