Intelligence and Taskmaster

Taskmaster is a UK panel show unlike most other UK panel shows. If you’ve never seen one of their panel shows before, this may not be the best start, but it’s definitely up there among the best. The original idea of panel shows was to have a rotating cast of guests, with maybe only one or two fixtures, who then discuss on a particular topic. News-based panel shows, like Have I Got News For You, has two fixtures on each side of the desk, but guests to join and also guest hosts. Mock the Week had a rotating cast of guests joining the primary host Dara O Briain.

Taskmaster is slightly different because instead of each episode having a different cast, the rotations only happen once a series. Each series, we are given our five contestants and they stay the same until the end. Throughout that time, we get to know the ones we didn’t know as well, and also see new and different sides to the ones who were once familiar to us. Also, unlike a lot of other panel shows, much of Taskmaster is pre-recorded.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about what Taskmaster actually is. Each series, five contestants compete in a series of strange and interesting tasks to gain points based on the successes or failures of the tasks, or the appeasement of the Taskmaster. The Taskmaster is comedian Greg Davies - a very tall, imposing figure who uses his form and presence to instil the idea of the “Taskmaster” as one who controls and pulls puppet strings. The idea that contestants do these various tasks set by and to appease the Taskmaster is the primary story of the show.

Contestants do their tasks way before filming the actual panel part of the show. During filming, the contestants sit on a stage and watch their performances together, and only at that point do they realise how well or how poorly they did.

The tasks themselves are quite varied. One may be something as silly as needing to do the most complete change possible during the time it takes to take an elevator. Others, get several dogs to sit on a spot all at the same time. Sometimes, they have to solve riddles to find something, or put together a creative cinematic sequence. Tasks are all quite different from one another, and varied in their approach.

This the primary reason why the Taskmaster panel show is quite different than what has come before. The structure of it is all so different, and yet also, strangely, familiar.

Today, I want to talk about Taskmaster, but most notably, I want to discuss it’s relationship to what we think of as “the Intellectual”. I like when shows and people subvert the social expectation. I like when things do what isn’t necessarily expected. Taskmaster does this in representations of intelligence and cleverness.

Taskmaster, as a show, allows people to approach the same problem in a variety of ways. Probably the best example of this was the task where contestants had to discover what was inside a locked briefcase, during the Champion of Champions game. Bob Mortimer looks around the room for the answer, Katherine Ryan counted rice for the answer, Josh Widdicomb solved the complicated math equation to reach the answer, Rob Beckett simply guessed the answer, and Noel Fielding just smashed the case open. Each of the five contestants approached a physical task in such uniquely different ways that reflected each of their personalities, approaches, and understanding of problem solving. And because the points were based on how fast they could determine the answer, Noel ended up actually winning that one. Maybe some would think simply smashing a case for the answer isn’t very clever, at least not as clever as figuring out the equations on the nearby chalkboard, and yet it ended up being the best answer in terms of speed.

I think the briefcase task is probably the best example of what makes Taskmaster an interesting show. It allows a fluidity to contestants and their creative problem solving, and there is typically no direct single answer or solution. Tasks and solutions are set up purposefully to allow a diversity of answers or approaches, meaning that the diversity of ways that contestants think is not only displayed, but also celebrated.

In fact, it is often the solutions most unique and out of the box that do the best, or at least are the most memorable for the audience. These contestants, often thinking of solutions that others have not, can come from different types of people, and not just those who are traditionally thought of as “intelligent.”

Intelligence, typically in Western society, is tied to formal education. I have a PhD, and the amount of times people have just assumed this means I’m intelligent is rather high. When, in reality, I have met many people on tenure tracks who are not as intelligent as others who have never even graduated high school.

Taskmaster is the best demonstration of the variety of ways people can be intelligent and show off their cleverness, regardless of their background. The idea of Taskmaster, the concept of a show giving tasks to contestants and judging their abilities, sounds like one which would privilege levels of traditional intelligence, either that, or it would make this traditional intelligence entirely unimportant. The truth of Taskmaster is that both of these are happening simultaneously.

There are some “typically” intelligent figures who have come on the show. Richard Osman, for example, had moments of his ways of thinking serving him well, and others where it didn’t. Richard Osman did not win his season. In fact, he ended up in third place, with both John Richardson and Katherine Ryan beating him out. However, he demonstrated the kind of way he thinks in the very first recorded task of the season. The contestants were tasked with putting three exercise balls on the mat at the top of the hill. While others struggled to move the balls up the hill, Richard went up to the hill, took the mat, and brought that down. However, when tasked to make a bridge, he didn’t do as well.

But perhaps the best example of a typically considered intelligent person doing poorly on Taskmaster is Victoria Coren Mitchell. Victoria is a well known writer and presenter, the daughter of journalists, and her brother is a journalist. She has spoken about her time at Oxford, and gets to live out her persona of a stereotypical nerd on her show Only Connect.

But Victoria did famously poorly on Taskmaster. She ended in last place on her season, and by quite a large margin. In fact, on one task where she was asked to make a popcorn necklace and then maybe, or maybe not, ring a bell, she lost five points.

Her prize tasks showed off the kind of person she is. In the first prize task, contestants were asked to bring in the most awesome square, where she brought the Triple Word Score square from Scrabble. However, her continued failure to do well at some tasks demonstrates that just because one has a more typical level of intelligence, does not necessarily mean that they would beat out others when given tasks which even them out.

I think that’s one thing Taskmaster does quite well - tasks vary in type and approach. This means that there is no singular way of thinking which prevails throughout the show. Rather, its a variety of approaches and considerations which end up being praised. Those who do well throughout the entire series are typically those who demonstrate a flexibility and varied approach themselves, though aside from Dara O Briain there are few who fit in this category.

That being said, when Victoria Coren Mitchell was given a task which was suited to her way of thinking, she blew it out the water. Perhaps one of the most famous tasks from her season was a team task, where the contestants were asked to solve a riddle through walkie-talkie communication, where each contestant had a different element of the riddle. In order to even figure out what the riddle was, they had to get people in different rooms to do different things and then put all the puzzles and pieces together.

Victoria, however, simply didn’t need her other half. Despite not having half of the code, she was still able to decipher the riddle and then solve it, all while her partner Alan Davies sat back in a Charlie Chaplin hat.

Different forms of tasks, with different requirements and constraints, means that participants have different chances to show of a variety of ways in which they can excel. Solving a puzzle or a riddle was well suited to Victoria, but terrible for the group of three who took several hours to get to the same solution.

Other tasks are more creative tasks, where participants are asked to make a movie featuring a particular item, or maybe film a movie only using a camera on a pair of wellies. These types of tasks allow more creative types to flourish and show off their skills. Active tasks which require more physical dexterity or skill, such as throwing a potato in a hole in one attempt. However, many of these tasks also have extra dimensions to them, allowing individuals to find multiple types of solutions. For example, for the potato one, contestants were not allowed to touch the red green, so some rolled up the green using a stick - meaning that not all the solution was required to use physical dexterity.

Taskmaster allowing a variety of solutions to one task means that those who would typically not do well in traditional settings for intelligence - like school - could still flourish. This is because the outcome may not necessarily be the only thing that is judged.

Let’s look at that briefcase example again to explain. While every contestant needed to have the same answer - frozen peas - the answer was only the thing that stopped the task. The actual solution was not the answer, but rather the steps taken to get there.

Rhod Gilbert, in season seven, was perhaps the most varied in his approaches. His ADHD brain meant that he saw tasks in often very different ways, and approached things differently than his peers. This would, often, upset his teammates, but sometimes it also worked in his favour. His creative ways of thinking would benefit him, even when he didn’t necessarily expect it.

In a challenge where contestants were told to tie themselves up so well that the winner would be the longest Alex took to untie, an alarm would go off which sounded for a second task, where contestants had to change clothes very quickly. This meant that most of the contestants had to quickly untie themselves, and then change, and then retie themselves, throwing off the flow of their task.

Rhod, on the other hand, had taken a different approach to the task. Choosing to tie up Alex solved the solution of needing Alex to take a long time. This also meant that the interruption wasn’t actually a problem for him - even though he hadn’t known this interruption would happen.

Now, one word on the actual making of the show before I completely let this drop. Much of the emotional experiences of the various successes and failures on the show, where we either root for or root against certain contestants, is purely based on editing. Because all the tasks are already finished and filmed by the time they are being judged and presented, the production team has the ability to craft important and interesting stories for each of our contestants. While sometimes Greg may judge some contestants differently than production may have expected, or at least they don’t have that predetermined idea, much of the solutions are already known, for example for time-based solutions. If someone was the fastest for a fastest wins challenge, there’s not much difference that can be made. This means that editing teams arrange the tasks in a different order than they were filmed in order to make the most compelling story for the season.

This is important, because one of the reasons why Victoria’s amazing riddle solve was so great was that we had already had a few episodes were Victoria was doing poorly. We saw how she was floundering and that her way of thinking and approaching the world wasn’t being showcased. And then she gets given that riddle task and blows it out of the water, showcasing just how wonderfully intelligent she is. If this task had happened as the very first one of the season, I don’t know if people would have loved it quite as much as they have. But seeing how she has been doing, and then having that contrasted with such a wonderful display, the audience was on their feet cheering for her, doing something we all would have expected her to be able to do quite well. But because she was finally doing this, we cheered even harder.

This can also work against contestants, giving us the sudden great cheering roar, to then have it all taken away again suddenly. This happened to Joe Wilkinson on his amazing potato throw - where after him doing famously poorly throughout the season we cheer for his amazing victory, only for it to be taken away and return back to the position we recognise.

As someone who spent a lot of time in higher education, I saw how much it only recognised and admired one to two ways of thinking and learning. I was lucky I fit that category. There are so many intelligent and amazing people out there who think differently than those ways, or learn differently, and therefore they struggle in school. Our society likes us to think that these people are dumb. But Taskmaster helps to show us that people are not dumb just because they didn’t finish traditional schooling. Mae Martin, the winner of series 15, never graduated high school. That doesn’t make them dumb, just that they weren’t suited to that, nor was their life in a place to make that something that was possible. And yet they won Taskmaster, allowing them to show off other ways they think, move and approach problem solving in new, unique and intelligent ways.

I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a critique on this type of intellectual shade in society, but that’s how I see it. I think Taskmaster shows us how different we all are, in ways that we approach the same problem, or different avenues we may take to come to the same place, but that in all of that, we are all, deep down, intelligent and capable in our own ways.