★★★★★ 0/5

Tom Gleeson debuts as 10’s Taskmaster against MAFS

Tom Gleeson was well received as Australia's Taskmaster as new 10 show goes head to head with reality juggernaut.

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10 launched its new comedy show Taskmaster last night to some encouraging responses on social media.

Tom Gleeson was praised for taking on the role established by Greg Davies in the UK, although some were bristling at the commercial breaks and wanting more shots of the studio audience.

The show drew 360,000 metro viewers, third in its slot with Married at First Sight still dominant with 704,000.

Taskmaster managed second in the demos and next week will not be head to head against MAFS.

7:30 was second in the slot overall at 415,000 while Seven’s Big Bash League averaged 352,000 across its lengthy broadcast.

Seven News still topped the night with 860,000 / 822,000 easily defeating Nine News 699,000 / 695,000.

Nine network won Thursday with 31.4% then Seven 27.8%, 10 16.4%, ABC 15.8% and SBS 8.6%.

You can read more here.

22 Responses

    1. Recording is how we watched it. The last ad break is what surprised me the most, it seemed as though they had only just come out of the previous ad break! And something about that final round felt a bit “rushed” in editing, probably because of them choosing to squeeze another ad break in there.

  2. I’m familiar to some degree with all of the cast bar Tom C (aware but not familiar), but I guess I’ve got this season to rectify that. The format works, there’s no doubting that. The tasks were (I believe) original. I can even forgive some of the stiltedness of the repartee because it was the pilot. The thing that genuinely annoyed me was the ads. UK has … 3 per episode? That feels right. I’m not sure how many were in last night, but bracketing the live task with them — seemingly unnecessarily cos it felt like 25 seconds between breaks — was galling. Also agree with what others have said re the laugh track. It’s filmed in front of a live audience … let them shine. I’m still gonna tune in next week, see if it can stick a better landing. And I’m still backing Nina ftw

  3. Is there any comedy show that Julia Morris is not on 🤷‍♂️, she is very grating to us, the others were very good, especially Tom’s sidekick Tom Cashman as brilliant, Tom himself…same old same old

  4. I love Tom Gleeson, not really familiar with any of the others (bar Julia) but the laugh track was so off-putting that I had to switch it off and I will not be watching again next week. Such a shame.

  5. Tom is the absolute perfect host for our version and Tom Cashman as his sidekick also works a treati like the spread on the panel. Really looking forward to the rest of the season.

  6. I knew next to nothing about Taskmaster before watching it last night. Whilst it took about 10 mins to get into it, by the end I really enjoyed it and will definitely continue to watch. Added bonus – a show on commercial television starting at 7:30 that only goes for about an hour.

  7. Having watched the UK Taskmaster on SBS Viceland. I thought the Australian version held up quite well. My only complaint is why too many commercial breaks. As to views of the studio audience. Seriously, who cares and complete waste of time.

    3. Id say yes. It was very well done, comedians are likeable, the Toms fufil their roles, and I was laughing and cheering along the whole time. As a fan of the UK and New Zealand versions, this show had it all – DQs, big brain plays, silliness. Downside is the five(!) ad breaks (the first four are decently spaced out) a and the weird editing of the live task and some of the studio laughter was edited and mixed weirdly.

  9. If Gogglebox is returning soon and is to be paired up with Taskmaster, this may prove to be a winning combination. Didn’t mind what I saw of Taskmaster, got me laughing at some of the silly things the participants were doing.

  10. I actually didn’t mind this show as it is a great after-work/dinner entertainment. And there was a couple of comedians that I really like. Good to see Jimmy Rees in primetime TV.I hope this show grows. At least it is not doing too bad in the demos if it’s what TEN is pursuing. Next week should be more promising (fingers crossed) when MAFS is out of the way. And I find it really sad that MAFS is such a force to reckon with that we are hoping for the other shows to stay out of its path in order to survive.

  12. The kind of audience 10 are after with Taskmaster aren’t watching live FTA TV.
    I have a feeling this one will have significant growth by this time next week.

  13. Who in earth is asking for more shots of the studio audience? That’s the worst part about shows like Got Talent – the constant audience cut aways for reaction shots. I don’t need to see someone laughing to know if I should be laughing too.

    2. They should have studio cuts to the comedians, like New Zealand’s version and the first 9 seasons of the UK version – often in the UK broadcast they’d have a line like “Someone will spend the first 45 minutes figuring out it’d better to wet the teabags”, cut to another contestant making the realisation (“I just realised I should wet them”) cut to comedians in the studio laughing at the edit, and then back to Video of the task.

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