Taskmaster kicked off a new series this evening (11 September) with a new episode full of ridiculous tasks.
The new series features brand-new contestants Ania Magliano, Phil Ellis, Maisie Adam, Reece Shearsmith and Sanjeev Bhaskar, as they battle it out to be the winner of season 20.
Hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne began the show by asking what the contestants had brought in for this week’s theme, called ‘soft things’, which saw items such as a ‘bum cushion’ made of cat hair, a ‘manly’ bonnet and a fortune-telling raven be added to this week’s prize table.
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The first task saw each contestant enter a room where Alex Horne was wearing a QR code attached to his suit. The task was to use a phone to open up the webpage from the code – something made all the more difficult as Alex ran around the Taskmaster set.
Ania managed to peel the code off Alex’s back and emerged the winner of the task. Sanjeev, meanwhile, struggled to turn his phone off airplane mode and ended up being the worst contestant of the round.
Channel 4
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For the second task, the contestants had to try and roll a ball to the centre of a target, with the closest to the centre winning the round. Ania and Reece got creative by trying to set up a ‘buffer zone’ of bins while Phil tried to hit the target by using gaffer tape to guide the balls to the target. Ultimately, though, Maisie emerged the winner of the second task.
Task three saw the contestants head to the caravan and draw a curtain around the kitchen, where their task was to trick Alex into believing they were being disgusting, while also being judged on how ‘nice’ their reveal was.
Ania decided to eat whipped cream and sugar out of a bowl with her hands, while Maisie made a fruit cocktail, while Phil dipped his feet into gravy, then ate cereal out of a bowl. Reece blew through a horn into a model duck while Sanjeev blew raspberries at a ‘baby’ – which turned out to be a mask of a human head.
Channel 4
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For the final round, the contestants were told to stand on a spot and be as close to the spot by the end of the task as possible.
However it wasn’t as straightforward as planned with contestants having to march on the spot, stick eyes to their face and take big steps while trying to stay in place, leading to Maisie almost falling off the stage.
This week’s episode crowned Maisie Adam as the winner with Sanjeev finishing in last place – with viewers already praising the promising start to the new series.
A viewer wrote on X: “I knew I was going to love this series because of Reece and Maise but I’m loving it so much more than I anticipated!! The whole cast is great already.”
Another added: “This is all as deliciously daft as ever. I adore all five of these contestants already.”
Meanwhile, a third person said: “One task in and I’m already obsessed with this cast #taskmaster.”
Taskmaster airs on Channel Four on Thursdays at 9pm. It also airs on YouTube from 10pm BST both in the UK and worldwide.
Read more Taskmaster news on our dedicated homepage.
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Rachel Finn is a freelance sub-editor at Digital Spy.