Sandbox / Taskmaster Norway

Kongen Befaler (The King Commands or Taskmaster Norway) is the Norwegian adaptation of the hit British series Taskmaster and the sixth adaptation of the show internationally. It has been airing on TVNorge and discovery+ since 2019 for seven seasons and is currently ongoing.

The entire first and second seasons were uploaded onto the official Taskmaster YouTube channel in this playlist.

Contestants

• Season 1 - Vegard Ylvisåker, Maria Stavang, Bård Ylvisåker, Siri Kristiansen and Calle Hellevang-Larsen
• Season 2 - Maria Stavang, Calle Hellevang-Larsen, Jon Almaas, Mia Hundvin and Magnus Devold
• Season 3 - Egil Hegerberg, Jenny Skavlan, Erik Follestad, Linn Skåber and Trond Fausa Aurvåg
• Season 4 - Steinar Sagen, Ida Fladen, Amir Asgharnejad, Einar Tørnquist and Solveig Kloppen
• Season 5 - Harald Eia, Janne Formoe, Kristine Grændsen, Martin Lepperød and Henrik Elvestad
• Season 6 - Live Nelvik, Espen Eckbo, Martha Leivestad, Kristoffer Olsen and Henriette Steenstrup

This adaptation provides examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance:
• Bait-and-Switch:
• Bribe Backfire: it never works and The Taskmaster just keeps the money, without anything to show
• The Bus Came Back: Calle Hellevang-Larsen and Maria Stavang
• Christmas Episode: the final of season one, the cancelled two-episode Christmas special
• Cutting the Knot:
• Description Cut:
• Disqualification-Induced Victory:
• Dramatic Unveiling: red cloth to reveal the trophy/golden head and prizes
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • This adaptation's second series is unusual within the Taskmaster universe in that two contestants from Series 1 (Maria Stavang and Calle Hellevang-Larsen) returned as regulars for another chance at winning Atle's golden head.
  • Contestants have remained seated in the same order throughout their seasons except for in season 3, which was recorded without an audience. According to Bjørn, the production team wanted to test whether changing the seating order would have any effect on the dynamics between them, so switched them around from episode to episode, during this season.
  • starts relying on it less and less
• Exact Words:
  • Fill the enclosure with hedgehogs, can't fill an enclosure with zero hedgehogs and is thus disqualified
• Gas Siphoning: ...way more successful than the UK, For reference, there are [...] correctly, successful attempts in the first season to the one across all fifteen series.
• Loophole Abuse: Like its UK counterpart, there are so many instances of [...] that it has its own page.
• Transatlantic Equivalent: [Rephrase]
  • The show largely takes its format from the UK original and features a mix of recycled and original tasks, but strikes a slightly different tone thanks to the Assistant joining on putting down the contestants rather than being a Servile Snarker.
  • The contestants' seating order is not arranged alphabetically but rather the best possible dynamics between them.
  • Additionally, it doesn't feature any team tasks until season six, even though it uses a permanent five-member panel, due to Covid restrictions
  • If two or more people tie for first at the end of an episode, they share the prizes among themselves instead of settling it with a tie-breaker task.
• No OSHA Compliance: to get away it, the abundant usage of fire...inside the house
• Trash the Set:

Characters Page

Main Cast

Atle Antonsen

]

Olli Wermskog

Contestants

Season 1

Vegard Ylvisåker

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Maria Stavang

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• The Bus Came Back:
• Big Eater:

Calle Hellevang-Larsen

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• The Bus Came Back:
• Expository Hairstyle Change:

Bård Ylvisåker

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• Ascended Extra:

Siri Kristiansen

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• Epic Fail: owl puppet, barely an inch off her rudimentary launch pad

Season 2

Maria Stavang

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See the season 1 contestants

Calle Hellevang-Larsen

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See the season 1 contestants

Jon Almaas

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Mia Hundvin

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• Improbable Aiming Skills: manages to hit the bullseye on her first try over twenty metres away

Magnus Devold

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Season 3

Egil Hegerberg

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Jenny Skavla

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Erik Follestad

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Linn Skåber0

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Trond Fausa

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Season 4

Steinar Sagen

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Ida Fladen

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Amir Asgharnejad

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Einar Tørnquist

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Solveig Kloppen

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Season 5

Harald Eia

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Janne Formoe

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Kristine Grændsen

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• Show Stopper:
• The Smart Girl:

Martin Lepperød

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• Butt-Monkey:
• Drunk with Power:

Henrik Elvestad

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Season 6

Live Nelvik

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Espen Eckbo

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Martha Leivestad

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Kristoffer Olsen

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• Disqualification-Induced Victory:
• Show Stopper:
• The Smart Guy:

Henriette Steenstrup

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Season 7

Leo Ajkic

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Karin Klouman

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Lars Berrum

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Hani Hussein

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• Genius Ditz:

Vidar Magnussen

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Loophole Abuse

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

• In "Tuja be continued", the contestants must count to the highest number in a given time which leads all but one frantically saying numbers as fast as possible from one. Amir took a different approach by counting by the millions and then billions since the task didn't specify how to count to the highest number. He ended up with a number of forty billion and first place, beating the second-highest number of 139 in a landslide.

Season 5

• "Cool to be back with Kongen Befaler then..."
  • The task to put as many things on the table in front of Olli ...from the second floor...Kristine had a simple solution to escorted Ollie downstairs and seated him down in front of the table with all the items
    • You may only walk up the stairs once.

• When given the task of bouncing something the highest in "Something bomb-y", Kristine gets a helium balloon and bounces it off a trampoline which then proceeds to float away. Since she argues the balloon will eventually come down, just that the bounce would have a much longer hangtime, Atle and Ollie accepts the interpretation and awards her first place
• In "Inflatable Armchair", one task was to attach the most stickers on your face without going over the time limit. While the other contestants individually peel off the stickers from the given sticker sheets, Kristine stuck an entire sticker sheet to her face and was thus able to stick a lot of stickers on at once which granted her first place.

Season 6

• Kristoffer grabs a ladder, times the throws with his stopwatch, Live had a tremendous reaction to what she predicted he'll do
• "Intestine, owl, creature, wolf"
  • Kristoffer saves himself a lot of hassle by moving the tea cart to where the balloons and cacti are, so he doesn't have to keep running back and forth. He also spots that the task says nothing about the balloons having to remain inflated, so bursts them and lays them across the cacti, saving himself a lot of space. In total, he manages to fit 16 cactus-balloon pairs on the cart before time runs out, winning the task. [Rephase]

Season 7

• For "We'll hear what the union says", one of the tasks featured is the Norweigan version of "Hold the milk cartons above the microwaves for as long as possible" from Taskmaster (NZ) and like the original version, Olli discourages the contestants from opening the task immediately. Hani ignores Olli and ends up in fourth place much to her dismay. However, the next video task involves the contestants improving something and Hani takes the opportunity to re-do her attempt for the previous task. This time heeding Ollie's warning and walking out of the lab without ever opening the task. Hani not only wins the improvement task but she is also retroactively moved from fourth to first place for the microwaves task.
• The live task for "You had me at school bun", the contestants have to stack a teacup-and-saucer tower and go underneath a bar with it in hand without falling over with the rule that it must have the same number of teacups and saucers. The contestants chose to alternatively stack the teacups and saucers, making them not easy to hold and very likely to fall. Hani, however, stacks her tower with the saucers at the bottom and teacups on top making it more stable and Ollie accepts her interpretation as the task only stated the number but not the arrangement, winning the live task as a result.

[Rephase]

• "Meny taimes", "Spin the table the most times"
  • Leo does not read the phrase "Welcome to the table. Can I offer you a biscuit?" from the task brief, making sure to check the table and plan his approach first. However, he somehow decides that it is not against the rules to remove all of the items from the table. He clears everything off the surface, including the tablecloth, and then rapidly spins the bare table with his hand. He tries to replace the tablecloth in the last few seconds, but the table is spinning too fast, so he ends up just dropping the wadded-up cloth in the middle. In the studio, Bård confirms that Leo is disqualified.
  • Lars does not read the phrase "Welcome to the table. Can I offer you a biscuit?" from the task brief, and takes time to plan his approach to the task. He removes the flag from the vase, and the candles from their holders, and then drapes a rug over the other items on the table, to hold them in place. Then, while holding the flag and still-lit candles in one hand, he spins the table with the other hand, getting it up to speed before officially starting the task by saying the key phrase. At the end of his 90 seconds, he removes the rug to reveal that everything is still on the table. When Olli gestures at the items he is holding in his hand, Lars insists that they were never on the table themselves, but were in things that were - and remain - on the table. In the studio, Bård gives Lars 15 seconds to make his case and avoid a disqualification, and Lars essentially repeats the same argument. Bård is not buying it, though, so Lars is disqualified.

[Rephase]

Trivia

• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Calle let Atle cut his bangs ridiculously short
  • Kristoffer got a belly button piercing
• Recycled Script:
• Romance on the Set: Maria and Magnus, dated

Recap

See Taskmaster Norway Recap

• Season 1: 10 episodes, first Norway broadcast 17/10/2019-19/12/2019. Contestants were:
  • Vegard Ylvisåker, Maria Stavang, Calle Hellevang-Larsen, Bård Ylvisåker and Siri Kristiansen
    • Winner: Vegard Ylvisåker

• Season 2: 10 episodes, first Norway broadcast 24/09/2020-16/11/2020. Contestants were:
  • Maria Stavang, Calle Hellevang-Larsen, Jon Almaas, Mia Hundvin and Magnus Devold
    • Winner: Calle Hellevang-Larsen

• Season 3: 8 episodes, first Norway broadcast 04/02/2021-25/03/2021. Contestants were:
  • Egil Hegerberg, Jenny Skavlan, Erik Follestad, Linn Skåber and Trond Fausa Aurvåg
    • Winner: Jenny Skavlan

• Season 4: 12 episodes, first Norway broadcast 23/09/2021-19/12/2021. Contestants were:
  • Steinar Sagen, Ida Fladen, Amir Asgharnejad, Einar Tørnquist and Solveig Kloppen
    • Winner: Einar Tørnquist

• Season 5: 10 episodes, first Norway broadcast 24/02/2022-28/04/022. Contestants were:
  • Harald Eia, Janne Formoe, Kristine Grændsen, Martin Lepperød and Henrik Elvestad
    • Winner: Harald Eia

• Season 6: 10 episodes, first Norway broadcast //-TBA. Contestants were:
  • Live Nelvik, Espen Eckbo, Martha Leivestad, Kristoffer Olsen and Henriette Steenstrup
    • Winner: Kristoffer Olsen

• Season 7: 10 episodes, first Norway broadcast //-TBA. Contestants were:
  • Leo Ajkic, Karin Klouman, Lars Berrum, Hani Hussein, Vidar Magnussen
    • Winner: Vidar Magnussen