8. Iain was a big part of why I hated this series, yeah. But the whole atmosphere was just kind of hostile, Lou was insufferable and arrogant, just with her costume alone, Joe just looked lost, Paul Sinha was game, bless him, but it just felt like we were laughing AT him rather than with. Sian held it together though, true.
Have you been listening to the podcast? When Iain was on, he said he thought he needed to fit a mold so he started off trying to be 'the competitive one' in the studio, but he relaxed and stopped trying to do that after the first couple of tapings - and that his friends and family said it wasn't nearly as exaggerated as he liked to think. He also said that the thing with the team tasks was that he, Paul and Lou were all friends, so they'd be chatting happily away both before and after a task and not experiencing any tension at all, and they had no idea how they were coming across onscreen. I've already said that I end up liking everybody, and the thing with Iain for me is the same as someone like Katherine Parkinson, where I also really enjoy it when the contestants really feel like they're learning about themselves during the course of the show. As Greg put it in one of the openers this season, 'the contestants wanted to show another side of themselves - but not like that! Not that side!' I like that, because with the possible exception of Paul Choudhury, where it seems like no one in UK comedy knows how much is an act and how much is just him, you can't hide behind a persona on Taskmaster, you just can't.
As for this season, I really loved it and was rooting for Morgana to win. I loved her attitude, she was one of the best lateral thinkers (I don't think she got enough credit for the riddle-solving task for just how useful she was being even isolated in the caravan) and she just dove into the whole experience. I've always found Victoria charming, and I loved just how weird her life is that she makes seem normal through sheer force of will, like always carrying flapjacks and customising her inhaler. Being the only one to burst the balloon without the portcullis scissors, watching her learn to ride a bike on television, the second appearance of Greedy, Esq. - and it felt like half the episodes were named after things she said.
But I loved all of them and their dynamics. Alan is a national treasure, and he managed to not really care about it all while still putting in effort. I enjoyed Desiree's constant disbelief at how stupid everything was, but still throwing herself into that stupidity with gusto, and how more and more Guz came off as just an eager, overgrown boy. And with only a couple of exceptions (the 'sheets of paper/paper airplane' one mostly), the final tasks were some of the absolute best. A couple were similar to ones from Taskmaster NZ, but the tension in both '5 bad balloons' and 'pop up closest to the pop' tasks was genuinely intense - and the final one was a delight, from Greg completely getting into Victoria's head to all the monster noises - loved it.
Up there with the best seasons, and as good as the very hard act to follow that was Season 11. The closest thing I have to a complaint is that I wish they hadn't shown that clip of Morgana as the green mermaid in the opening credits, because it was such a striking image I spent the entire season waiting for the context. So it undermined the reveal because it wasn't shown until the very last filmed task. Otherwise I just want to go on about my favourite bits: Victoria being surprisingly good at identifying foodstuffs, while Morgana had it all blended and got Alex to eat it, Alan's surprisingly amazing sand bridge while Desiree taste-tested the sand, Desiree and Morgana's booted horror films, the sport/commentating task from both teams, Greg's imitation of Morgana being all 'I'll die, I don't mind!' for the mountain-climbing team task, bringing back using Susie Dent to demystify the wording of the task, every time Morgana swore, especially at Alex, Victoria's inability, and yet success at, the phone call task, Guz's expressions when wearing a head-camera, his pleasure while painting 'a gentleman's six inches' above his face and his reaction to Alex breaking down the door and retrieval of the football...
This is why I don't post in this thread very often.
As for the new cast - I also haven't heard of any of them except Ardal, so it will be interesting to see. I have faith in Alex to choose well, but it's less exciting when you don't know anything rather than when you see a name and start wondering how they'll do and imagine them in all sorts of tasky situations.
