-there is no heterosexual explanation for Greg Davies (series 3 ep 3: “oh, so he’s like openly bisexual, not just obviously bisexual”)

-he thinks he would be good at Taskmaster while I would be a mix of high highs and complete disasters (this is true)

-his favourite contestants from each series he’s seen so far are Tim Key (Romesh Ranganathan close second), Joe Wilkinson, Paul Chowdhry, Mel Giedroyc (Lolly Adefope close second), and Nish Kumar

-Series 4 is his overall favourite cast so far, he liked all of them

-he was like “I do not get your crush on Greg, he’s just big” and then series 4 started and Greg had the beard and he was like “oh wait, I see it, I see it”

previous installments

series 12:

he liked the cast a lot! had a hard time picking a favourite, but it was Alan Davies in the end

he was way less baffled by Alex’s love confession than I am to this day, he just said “Alex just wanted to see what would happen” and my brain knows that’s true but my heart wants to know what Alex imagined would happen and I find it hard to believe he went in with no expectations

the tasks were so good in s12

series 13:

husband was instantly in love with Chris Ramsey, just adored him

he also loved Judi Love and after 13x9 said he wasn’t sure he even wanted to watch 13x10, he was heartbroken for her

he ended up with a deep respect for Sophie Duker after seeing her total score given she repeatedly tried to throw live tasks in Judi’s favour tho

the whole series had a manic horniness to it that I can only attribute to Alex being ecstatic about the end of social distancing requirements

also I’d forgotten that Greg actually flirted with Chris a LOT, I need to revise my post about that

series 14:

husband’s favourite was Fern Brady, which I should have expected (I am also sleepy and autistic)

he really liked the tasks in this series and even had to pause the show a few times to show me how he would have solved them

basically every one of his task solutions was “John Kearns, but good”

series 15:

at first his favourite was Kiell Smith-Bynoe, but by the end it was Frankie Boyle

overall he loved the whole line-up, though, he said it was his favourite group of all time (better than series 12 and series 4, his previous all-timers)

CoC3:

husband remains annoyed by the existence of Champion of Champions lmao

he was cheering for Sophie (me too!)

fucking Dara is like a tasks Terminator

series 16:

his favourite was Lucy Beaumont by a mile, which I found surprising until he said she was like Paul Chowdhry

in fact Lucy is now his all-time favourite, unseating Paul Chowdhry

he loved the whole cast, but truly he was so excited every time to Experience Lucy

series 17:

we’re only on episode two, but he thinks his favourite is Nick Mohammed

previous installments

we just hit the halfway point of series 9, but my last recap left off near the end of series 7, so we’ll start there:

series 7:

he still couldn’t really pick a favourite contestant, but at gunpoint he’d go with James Acaster (I’d probably say Rhod Gilbert? it’s a hard one)

he did have a least favourite, sorry Kerry Godliman (not enough jokes)

we are in now in firm accord that there may be a non-sexual explanation for the BDSM vibes, but there certainly isn’t a non-kinky one

all-in-all he liked series 7 less than 6, and quite a lot less than 5 and 4

series 8:

he liked the series a lot! lots of memorable tasks (i think 8 is underrated, so i’m pleased)

his favourite was Paul Sinha, second favourite was Joe Thomas (my favourite is probably also Joe, except when it’s Iain Stirling)

i explained the concept of “soaking wet men” and he agreed that he does enjoy a soaking wet man, but “Joe is a soaking wet boy”

his solution for the bowling ball task was wet cardboard wedged under the balls at the top of the lane, which i think might have worked almost as well as the bananas

he said he likes the show well enough but probably would have fallen off by now if it weren’t for my special interest, which is unsurprising to me (been together 12 years, literally never seen him finish a show or a video game)

series 9:

so far his favourite is Little Ed Gamble!

i like Ed too, but this is a good cast, and Katy Wix is my favourite (if you imagine everything Katy Wix does and says coming out of a queer Canadian Jon Richardson, that’s basically me)

husband does ship Greg/Ed, as predicted, but also i ship it now??? Greg’s special “talking to Little Ed Gamble” voice is so fucking cute it makes me furious

he said this series is “sexier” lmao

i think he means Alex is getting bullied more, and there is also Greg saying that watching Alex endure water torture gave him a happy feeling in his tummy

series 9 marks the first time Alex calling Greg “daddy” made it to broadcast, and he does it 2 episodes in a row

Welcome back to the series where my husband (39m, avoided Taskmaster for a decade because he regularly gets told he looks like Alex Horne and it annoys him) watches Taskmaster for the first time with me (36m, has watched it off-and-on since 2015 when a coworker said “hey you should watch this new show, one of the hosts looks exactly like your boyfriend” but only elevated it to Autistic Special Interest in September 2025) and tells me what he thinks!

As of series 7 episode 7:

- his favourite contestant of series 6 was Liza Tarbuck (mine is Asim Chaudhry, I love that he's so self-accepting about being a softboy, and is demonstrably kind and open-minded and -hearted, what a gem)

- he agrees with me that Greg looked incredible in S6! the soft hair, the fluffy beard, the glasses!!!

- he didn't know about the kiss in 6x6 ahead of time and he thought it was quite sexy (though Alex continues to do nothing for him) and now we Must Kiss at every ad break

- he still insists there is no heterosexual explanation for Greg Davies: he goes back and forth on whether he thinks Greg knows he's not straight, but every time I steelman the argument that Greg's just playing queer for the bit he gives me a "don't be stupid" look

- Alex doesn’t ping any gaydars in this house though, THAT is what it looks like when a heterosexual man plays queer for the bit, i still ship it tho (husband ships Greg/Sally and Greg/Nish, and I bet he’s going to be all over Greg/Ed and Greg/Mike in a few weeks)

- he says he has no favourite contestant in series 7, he likes them all fine but no one stands out to him, but I predict by the end his favourite will be Jessica Knappett (i actually also maybe don’t have a favourite tho?)

- husband said after 7x3 that he thought the cast weren't very funny in the studio, because they all just wanted to argue for points; the next few eps got a lot more jokes in so that's improved his outlook on the series, but overall he likes it much less than the fan consensus!

- I keep discovering how many of my favourite bits are not in the edit! Asim shipping Greg/Alex? Greg making Alex prove he’s wearing longjohns?? Alex saying Greg has either “zero or four” sibings???

- his take at this point on Alex's whole psychosexual deal is neat: he thinks Alex is not so much a masochist as he is a sadist who also enjoys vicarious sadism, so what he gets out of the ordeals contestants (and Greg) put him through is the rush of seeing them light up with sadistic glee

- i think he's onto something (I have always thought Alex is quite sadistic, he really enjoys watching people struggle!), but also rewatching the bit with the beard snood and the outro slap in 7x4, i see a man who likes a bit of deliberately-inflicted stingy pain now and again

- in 7x6 when Greg gave everyone 1 or 2 points for the prize task husband said “Ah, he’s punishing Alex for the annoying ear thing by doing the scoring ‘wrong’ to annoy him back” he’s so good at watching Taskmaster!!!!!

series 17:

his favourite was Nick Mohammed (mine too!)

he liked John Robins more than i expected (and more than i do), but honestly i should have expected it because he likes competitive contestants as long as they’re very pathetic about it (eg. Ed Gamble)

he really liked a lot of the tasks this series, and almost always spotted the “trick” to them right away

he absolutely loved the Nick/Greg of it all, but was completely unsurprised because he immediately fancied Nick himself and was like ‘well, obviously Greg would too, look at him, he’s adorable’

series 18:

during episode 2 he said “I miss Nick. I’m gonna go pour myself a glass of white wine with a single ice cube.” and then he did

his favourite was Andy Zaltzman (??? baffling to me, mine is Emma Sidi, and I find Andy a bit annoying) but he thought this was a really solid cast with no duds, second favourite was Rosie Jones and he rates the other 3 highly as well

at one point he said “I don’t know why anyone has trouble with Rosie’s voice, I think she’s just Northern” AND HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW SHE MADE THAT JOKE

he liked the hotdog costume wildcard thing a lot

he also really loved that Babatunde Aléshé was too unfamiliar with the show to know he was supposed to hate Alex and just befriended him instead, like it showed that Baba took Alex’s persona at face value and his response to it was “wow this boy needs love and encouragement”

halfway through he asked me if Jack Dee was Greg’s comedy hero because of how reluctant Greg was to go after him, when I said he was actually Alex’s hero and not Greg’s we had a whole long convo about how Greg’s authority is actually quite fragile but he’s so adept at reading the contestants that he rarely goes after someone who’s actually going to respond by stepping to him and shatter the illusion

series 18 is kind of oddly full of self-assured and naturally dominant characters, like all of them stood very firm in Greg’s presence

we also had a long convo about Greg’s career trajectory and teaching, bc my husband assumed since Greg was a drama teacher that he actually quite liked kids (and enjoyed being silly with them), but I explained that he seems to genuinely dislike children and mostly became a teacher because his father was one and he really saw his dad as a hero, and being a drama teacher was kind of a compromise between being a performer and practicing the family trade

my husband over-identifies with Greg and happens to see his own dad as a hero, but he never once considered going to uni for social work (he studied classics and intended to be an academic in moral philosophy), so that is a big difference between he and Greg (he also does like children)

series 19: