Release Date, Cast, Renewed or Canceled

By clockspider Last updated Mar 21, 2021

‘Taskmaster’ is a British comedy game show that airs on the UKTV-owned Dave channel. Created by Alex Horne during the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which happens to be the world’s largest arts festival, the show made its way to television in 2015, with Andy Devonshire and Pete Orton as its directors.

Season 1, consisting of six episodes, premiered on July 28, 2015, and was followed by a five-episode Season 2 on June 21, 2016. Just months after the premiere of Season 2, Season 3, also consisting of five episodes, premiered on October 4, 2016. The next year was a busy one for the creators of the show, and it saw Seasons 4 and 5 premiere, along with a two-episode special called “Champion of Champions”. ‘Taskmaster’ returned again on May 2, 2018, with a 10-episode Season 6, and it was followed by a 10-episode Season 7, which premiered on September 5, 2018.

Although ‘Taskmaster’ is a British show, it is also broadcast in other countries like Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Australia and New Zealand. There also exist international versions of the show for Belgium (‘Het Grootste Licht’), Sweden (‘Bäst i test’), Spain (‘Dicho y hecho’), and Denmark (‘Stormester’). In 2018, a US version of the show featuring comedian Reggie Watts and show creator Alex Horne was started.

For those wondering whether ‘Taskmaster’ will be coming back, here’s everything you need to know about the contestants, format, and release date of the upcoming season.

Taskmaster Cast: Who’s in it?

Owing to the show being a game show, the cast for a season typically comprises the presenters and the contestants. Since ‘Taskmaster’ began airing on television, the presenters have remained the same, with Greg Davies taking up the role of the Taskmaster and show creator Alex Horne taking up the role of Davies’ assistant.

Contestants, of course, vary with each season, and typically, comedians are chosen to compete in the show. For instance in season 8, contestants Iain Stirling, Joe Thomas, Lou Sanders, Paul Sinha and Sian Gibson fought for the top prize.

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Taskmaster Plot: What is it about?

As the name of the show suggests, ‘Taskmaster’ is all about completing the tasks assigned to the contestants. Tasks are usually funny or bizarre, are usually assigned to the contestants by Taskmaster Davies, who hands them an envelope sealed with wax. Once the tasks are assigned to the contestants, they have to complete them, usually in isolation and occasionally in teams.

Each episode of the show typically starts with the Prize Task, which sees each contestant donating a prize according a given theme. These themes can range from contestants’ most treasured item to contestants’ most unusual item, and whoever wins the show gets all the pooled items as a prize. Following the Prize Task, contestants complete a few pre-filmed tasks which range from easy, such as emptying a bathtub, to bizarre, such as impressing a mayor within a time-period. Once these tasks are shown to the audience, each contestant has to argue with Taskmaster Davies and other contestants as to why their method of completing the task deserves most praise. Once all attempts at a task are seen, Davies passes a judgement and awards points to and/or disqualifies players based on their performance. The winner in a task gets five points, the second-placed contestant gets four points, and so on. In case of group tasks, the five points for the winner is split equally between team members.

After the show goes through its set of pre-filmed tasks, the final task is performed live in the studio, and if there’s a tie, a special tie-breaker task is handed out to decide the winner.

As far as prizes are concerned, winners of each episode get a prize, and the series winner i.e. the contestant with the maximum number of points over the course of the season, gets a trophy. From the second season onward, this trophy took the form of a golden bust of Taskmaster Davies.

Being a game show, ‘Taskmaster’ has not been rated by television critics. However, viewers absolutely love the show, as is evident from its brilliant rating of 9/10 on IMDb.

Taskmaster Season 9 Release Date: When will it premiere?

‘Taskmaster’ seasons 8 premiered on May 8, 2019. Fans wondering about the next season of the show need not worry, because back in 2018 itself, UKTV announced that it had renewed ‘Taskmaster’ for Seasons 6, 7, 8, and 9, to be aired on Dave. Each episode would consist of 10 episodes, UKTV added, marking an increase in the number of episodes from Seasons 4 and 5. Since both seasons 6 and 7 aired in 2018 itself, it is quite likely that this year too will see two seasons of Taskmaster. Going by all the evidence we have, ‘Taskmaster’ seasons 9 should premiere sometime in September, 2019. We will update this section as soon as we have the official confirmation on the release date.

Taskmaster Trailer:

While there exist no season-specific trailers for ‘Taskmaster’ here is the original trailer of the show to give you a glimpse into what it is all about.

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