History YMMV / Taskmaster

** Iain Stirling wasn't well liked by fans as he was overly competitive and had a lack of sportsmanship, something which even he noticed, and very much regretted, in the studio (to the point it was a noted RunningGag by Greg). He is often given as one of the reasons for why Series 8's lineup is so poor. In the pre-recorded tasks. [[SeriousBusiness he took the tasks way too seriously]], and came off as a CompetitionFreak who often let his competitiveness take over to the point that people found him annoying to watch when he was losing. An often-cited example is the ball-bouncing task in "I've Been a Bit Ill", where he gets annoyed with the scoring and doesn't clap the winner until he realises the camera is on him. As mentioned above, Iain has mentioned some retrospective regret on both the show and the Taskmaster podcast (where he revealed he was trying to play "the bad guy" in recordings, but couldn't maintain it, and regrets doing that in hindsight) and is '''very''' mortified of the more unpleasant things he's done on the show. His performance still left a rather bad taste in people's mouth.

** In what's apparently something of a theme, Series 10 is also considered a bit of a step down in quality after Series 9 (thought not to the extent of the lows of 6 and 8), with frequent points of criticism similarly being a cast who didn't quite gel together and some overly structured tasks that tended to set the contestants up for failure. However, given the RealLifeWritesThePlot circumstances of [=COVID=]-19 on top of a move from Dave to Channel 4, only the most unforgiving critics are unwilling to cut it more slack than the previous examples due to the unprecedented and difficult circumstances it was made under. As with the previous examples, Series 11 is widely considered a marked improvement, with everyone more used to working under social-distancing conditions, simpler tasks, the cast clicking a lot better, and [[EnsembleDarkHorse Mike Wozniak being around]]. FWIW Series 12 appears to have broken the pattern as it also generally seems to be regarded quite fondly.

** Series 17: We've only seen the trailer so far, but Nick Mohammed's full vampire costume might be one of the craziest and most elaborate task outfits yet.

** Series 16: Sue Perkins wears a boiler suit [[note]] which is near identical to the one worn by her long-time comedy partner, series 4's Mel Giedroyc [[/note]] but it's her teammate Susan Wokoma who takes the prize with a pair of multicoloured, sequined overalls with a green patch on the breast.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality both in tasks and in the studio, in contrast to their competitors, make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. Additionally, one task saw Mae's proposed solution of [[spoiler: drawing pineapples when tasked with collecting them]] accepted by Greg, while a similar solution attempted by Frankie and Jenny in an earlier task, [[spoiler: retrieving a sign which read "banana" when asked to get a banana from a tree]] was disallowed. However, many fans love their calm attitude and competence, and the Taskmaster subreddit saw numerous posts in support of them. A common attitude among their detractors is that while they're no doubt a "good" Taskmaster contestant, they're not a particular entertaining one. FWIW Mae appears to recognize their issues, admitting in the podcast that they were so focused on doing well they forgot to be funny, and intentionally attempted to downplay their eagerness to win due to their fear of appearing overly competitive.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality both in tasks and in the studio, in contrast to their competitors, make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. Additionally, one task saw Mae's proposed solution of [[spoiler: drawing pineapples when tasked with collecting them]] accepted by Greg, while a similar solution attempted by Frankie and Jenny in an earlier task, [[spoiler: retrieving a sign which read "banana" when asked to get a banana from a tree]] was disallowed. However, many fans love their calm attitude and competence, and the Taskmaster subreddit saw numerous posts in support of them. A common attitude among their detractors is that while they're no doubt a *good* Taskmaster contestant, they're not a particular entertaining one. FWIW Mae appears to recognize their issues, admitting in the podcast that they were so focused on doing well they forgot to be funny, and intentionally attempted to downplay their eagerness to win due to their fear of appearing overly competitive.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality both in tasks and in the studio, in contrast to their competitors, make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. Additionally, one task saw Mae's proposed solution of [[spoiler: drawing pineapples when tasked with collecting them]] accepted by Greg, while a similar solution attempted by Frankie and Jenny in an earlier task, [[spoiler: retrieving a sign which read "banana" when asked to get a banana from a tree]] was disallowed. However, many fans love their calm attitude and competence, and the Taskmaster subreddit saw numerous posts in support of them.

** While most agree she's a very entertaining and funny contestant, there's some debate over whether Lucy Beaumont is playing a character, deliberately playing up her {{Cloudcuckoolander}} tendencies. The fans are generally split between those who think that's genuinely her, those who think she's playing a character but don't mind because she's hilarious, and those who think she's playing a character and are annoyed by it. Being sat next to Sam Campbell, who is also arguably playing into a weird persona but making it obvious that it's on purpose and is also clearly very committed to doing well in the tasks, hasn't helped her case. For what it's worth though, comments made by Greg and Alex and by Ed and his guests on the Taskmaster podcast suggest that the former group is correct, and Lucy just is actually like that.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality both in tasks and in the studio, in contrast to their competitors, make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. Additionally, one task saw Mae's proposed solution of [[spoiler: drawing pineapples when tasked with collecting them]] accepted by Greg, while a similar solution attempted by Frankie and Jenny in an earlier task, [[spoiler: retrieving a sign which read "banana" when asked to get a banana from a tree]] was disallowed. However, many fans love their calm attitude and competence. Notably, the Taskmaster subreddit saw numerous posts in support of Mae, and many comments discussing their perceived blandness and the lack of excitement their consistent performance brought to either the series or their tasks, with many calling Mae's victory a foregone conclusion as early as episode five.

** 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 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.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality both in tasks and in the studio, in contrast to their competitors, make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. However, others love their calm attitude and competence. Notably, the Taskmaster subreddit saw numerous posts in support of Mae, and many comments discussing their perceived blandness and the lack of excitement their consistent performance brought to either the series or their tasks, with many calling Mae's victory a foregone conclusion as early as episode five.

*** Series 15 has proven somewhat divisive so far due to a high number of tasks with odd scores, such as the live task giving one team ten points while other received zero. There is also a taped task where [[spoiler:Mae Martin]] could have ended ''nine'' points while the rest received none until the panel ganged together and convinced Greg to at least give [[spoiler:Frankie Boyle four of those points]]. This led to Mae Martin, who has become a BaseBreakingCharacter in their own right, gaining what some feel is an insurmountable lead as of episode six of the series.

*** Series 15 has proven somewhat divisive so far due to a high number of tasks with odd scores, such as the live task giving one team ten points while other received zero. This led to Mae Martin, who has become a BaseBreakingCharacter in their own right, gaining what some feel is an insurmountable lead as of episode six of the series.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality in contrast to their competitors make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score. However, others love their calm attitude and competence.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality in contrast to their competitors make them stand out less, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score, leading some to see them as a BoringInvincibleHero. However, many love their calm attitude and competence.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality in contrast to their competitors make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live task offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score.

** Although Mae Martin has been praised for their consistently strong performance in tasks, some fans feel that their more reserved personality in contrast to their competitors make them somewhat boring, while they've achieved high scores in some tasks based on somewhat controversial rulings by the Taskmaster, or due to a task with an unusual scoring system - notably the live chance offering Mae, Jenny, and Kiell the chance to double their score.

** New Year Treat II: While not as bizarre as some (certainly not as bizarre as Rylan's outfit in the first New Year Treat), you still had Lady Leshur deciding to do all of her tasks in army camouflage.

** He's not utterly humourless about it and rarely gets testy with Greg over it, but Creator/DaraOBriain clearly also wanted to win and took the show seriously. This tends to particularly manifest in the team tasks where he was paired with series {{Cloud Cuckoolander}}s Fern Brady and John Kearns, who spend most of the tasks staggering around in utter bewilderment while he rushes around as the OnlySaneMan trying to actually complete the task; a certain amount of annoyed frustration with John especially tends to bleed through.

** The live task in Series 15, Episode 1 involves each contestant trying to throw various objects into a raised bucket without knocking the bucket over. For the first in ''Taskmaster'' history, a contestant directly and deliberately sabotages another contestant when Ivo Graham takes aim at Kiell Smith-Bynoe's bucket and eliminates him to which Kiell instantly retaliates and eliminates Ivo in turn.

** The live task in Series 15, Episode 1 involves each contestant trying to throw various objects into a raised bucket without knocking the bucket over. In the penultimate round, with Ivo Graham and Kiell Smith-Bynoe tied for the lead, Ivo instead takes aim at Kiell's bucket, deliberately eliminating him. Kiell instantly retaliates and eliminates Ivo in turn.