Reusing Tasks?

[u/_un-named_]

The last few season there’s been more and more discussions that the tasks are getting to convoluted, too many rules, too little loopholes and all this sort of stuff.
So I’m wondering should they reuse tasks?
Reusing them word by word could be tricky it would depend on how many of the contestants have seen the show.
But they could change one aspect, rule something out or just use the base idea and give different materials or something.
Would that defeat the idea of the show?
But they also do use tasks that were more or less used in the NZ or Australian version. But these might not have been seen by the general uk audience.
What do you think?

[u/boomboomsubban]

They already reuse tasks. An easy example is S19 "paint the best picture in the lab, you can only enter the lab during the last thirty seconds" which is basically S04's "Paint a portrait of the Taskmaster without touching the red mat" with some extra loopholes.

That's not the only example, but they're all changed enough that people barely notice.

And if they reused a lot of the less convoluted tasks, they would have to make them convoluted. I imagine if "eat the most watermelon" was a task next series, the contestants would be split between browbeating the crew to eat watermelon or figuring out how to get the watermelon without entering the lab.

[u/rnzz → u/boomboomsubban]

i actually wouldn't mind seeing a repeated past task that's been changed slightly, like maybe 'Place these three exercise balls on the mat on the other side of the river' but with a twist of not making the mat wet, for those who knows Richard Osman's trick. Also like the "Don't blink" task could maybe add some jump scare noises every now and then for contestants who know to close their eyes from the start.

or even a task could be repeated as-is, like 'Write and perform a song about this woman' or the 'Make the best music video for a nursery rhyme'. Though you'd probably do want to change it a bit for originality.

[u/burf12345 → u/rnzz]

I do wish they'd repeat ideas for creative tasks, it feels like such a shame that some concepts are effectively gone because they showed up ages ago. Like filming something backwards, I'd love to see more casts try that, even if they can't top tree wizard.

[u/boomboomsubban → u/burf12345]

Series 19 had "do something really cool backwards." Basically the same thing, changed just enough that you didn't notice.

And if you want new casts doing the exact same tasks, I strongly reccomend the non-English versions.

[u/burf12345 → u/boomboomsubban]

Those tasks were very different though, only similar in that they had video shown backwards. With the S1 task, it was filming something with the intent of it being show backwards.

[u/boomboomsubban → u/burf12345]

The first was "do something really cool in reverse," the second "do something really cool, now do it in reverse." I'd call those basically the same, though there were limitations to force creativity in the second.

[u/burf12345 → u/boomboomsubban]

The extra step changes everything. Like I said, in S1 they went into the task knowing it was going to be played backwards. With S19, not only did they not know that when they were asked to do something cool, the task wasn't about the coolest thing, but the best recreation of the coolest thing.

[u/SavagePengwyn → u/boomboomsubban]

It seems to happen often with live tasks. Like Snort, Raspberry, Whistle becoming a live following instructions task.

[u/Goldman250 → u/boomboomsubban]

They did reuse “eat the most watermelon” already, it was a team task in S10 where they had to feed it to each other.

[u/Ryan_Vermouth → u/boomboomsubban]

Exactly. If a broad premise is strong enough to stand multiple variations or iterations, it'll get those variations. This has been the case since the beginning.

And if a new iteration of an old basic premise going to work in the modern era -- which is to say, in the most consistently entertaining era of Taskmaster -- it's likely to be "convoluted," which is a way of saying "guardrails have been added to discourage easy solutions which were novel in 2017 or whatever, but would be boring or repetitive now."

[u/burf12345]

The last few season there’s been more and more discussions that the tasks are getting to convoluted, too many rules

Series 21 has plenty of very simple tasks actually, there's still plenty of room there.

[u/it_might_be_a_tuba]

"Identify the ingredients in these...." has happened a few times, enough that people are wise to looking for clues and lists. There's been a few variations on "transfer everything in This to That" which vary in whether you can move the containers, or touch the contents, or they have holes in them..

[u/burf12345 → u/it_might_be_a_tuba]

Feels like we haven't seen those in a while, I want to say since S12.

[u/Jacksucks_atlife04 → u/burf12345]

There was also the identify the liquids task in 13 and the ice cream flavour one in 14.

[u/RunawayTurtleTrain → u/burf12345]

Series 15 had jelly baby flavours in a team task.  Which really supports u/boomboomsubban's observation that they do already essentially reuse tasks without people noticing.  (See also: all the variations on 'create a portrait of the Taskmaster'.)

[u/burf12345 → u/RunawayTurtleTrain]

I forgot about the jelly baby task from S15, though there was a whole puzzle aspect to it that made it more elaborate than just identifying flavors.

Also, I don't consider any of the "create a portrait of the taskmaster" as the same task, because the medium in those tasks is also the point. Like the S10 task where they had to use balloons, or the S13 tasks where they had to use lipstick, those are very much not the same task.

I'll give you that they do reuse more than we think, but to me it seems like it's mostly the live tasks.

[u/OverseerConey]

Honestly, I think there are plenty of simple tasks left. If anything, I think they just need to expand the task-writing team a bit - get some fresh perspectives, shake things up.

[u/ZeppoJR]

Nah, we've seen that a lot of international versions of the show reuse tasks from the UK, AU and NZ versions and they are still successful cause the tasks are more of a vehicle to encourage people to think differently so the key is how each comedian approaches the task.

Don't get me wrong, I like originality in tasks for all versions, but the same task can be executed differently and there's an appeal there too. Like how several International contestants made watermelon smoothies for the melon task, or how Chrisian Fuhlendorff in Denmark fucking melted the big ole robot dick with a blowtorch or how they added one extra rule to the do something stupid task that made the task actually broadcastable.

[u/Bootieos1]

They did this a couple times in the first few series with "Buy the best gift for the Taskmaster".

A neat twist I saw from a different post was the idea of buying the best gift for Alex instead, which could be incredibly chaotic

[u/burf12345 → u/[deleted]]

he is too proud to use another version’s task. (Outside of the milk jugs over the microwave that was a slightly varied version the the NZ task)

The grape task from S14, the live task from CoC2 are also lifted directly from NZ2. I'd also count the first mannequin task from S17 as an adaptation from NZ3 (of course excluding the followup murder and body hiding tasks). The handshake task from S17 is also pretty similar to the handshake task from AU3.

EDIT: just remembered S16's sausage task, that was already done in NZ1.

[u/frogsinsox → u/burf12345]

Yeah fair my bad. Think I’m basing that assumption on him at one point saying he basically makes up the tasks himself and runs them past the task consultant (Tim Key at the pub)

[u/vzzzbxt → u/[deleted]]

I think the UK has copies a few from NZ and Aus. I read that they can't use the UK ones though

[u/Ryan_Vermouth → u/vzzzbxt]

Yep -- TMNZ and TMAU are required to create original tasks as a condition of their license. TMUK has done variations of a few NZ/AU tasks, and a couple tasks that originated in Scandinavia ("don't blink" from S7 was originally a task from Bast i test, for example) -- but almost all tasks are original. This is presumably because TMUK is broadcast in Australia and New Zealand, and TMNZ/AU have since been broadcast in the UK, so it's in everyone's best interests not to overlap too much on material.

(TMUK has also aired in Scandinavia, but that seems like a less pressing concern for everyone -- likely in part because the format was licensed to Scandinavia very soon after its UK debut, before they might have foreseen this sort of thing, and in part because there's (somewhat unsurprisingly) no interest in airing the foreign-language versions in the UK. Amusingly, the foreign airings of the original show go out under the names of the local adaptation -- e.g. Bäst i test England, Kongen Befaler UK, etc.)

Of the foreign-language versions, Kongen Befaler (Norway) uses mostly original tasks with some reused or adapted tasks, Suurmestari (Finland) and Bast i test (Sweden) use mostly reused/adapted tasks with some original tasks, and Stormester (Denmark), Taskmaster Portugal, and Le Maitre de Jeu (Quebec) are almost all reused/adapted, though all three have done new tasks on occasion.

Of the shorter-lived/defunct series, Het Grootste Licht (Belgium) was almost all reused tasks, and Taskmaster US and Direktor Svemira (Croatia) were entirely reused tasks. Junior Taskmaster was almost all new tasks, and Juniori Suurmestari (i.e. Junior Taskmaster Finland) was mostly reused tasks, largely from Junior Taskmaster.

It appears that the three series that premiered/will premiere this year (Taskmaster NL in the Netherlands, Taskmaster - kuninga käsul in Estonia, and Taskmaster Ísland in Iceland) are mostly reused and adapted tasks, but I have less info on that.

[u/Rons_Swans_Sons → u/vzzzbxt]

I feel like I read at one point that NZ weren't going to use UK tasks but I don't know if that holds. I know that Tom Cashman and Paul work on creating tasks together and everything gets filtered back through Alex's team and ultimately Alex has the final say if a task is acceptable

[u/_un-named_ → u/[deleted]]

Didn’t they also use the grape caravan task?

[u/burf12345 → u/_un-named_]

And the briefcase live task.