'Whatchu Watching About, Willis?!' DIGRESSION ALERT: Please, for the love of all that is, don't call it that. 2.

I found the trick to reading LOTR is to imagine it being read to you by a bard or something - I think I remember reading that Tolkien purposefully wrote it to emulate the old myths and fables that would be told in history by bards and storytellers.

Yeah, that makes sense actually.
I've read a lot more history and older stuff at this point, so I'm finding it a much lighter read than on any of my earlier attempts.

Even I've read LOTR

Oh I've read it, I just didn't enjoy it. Maybe I was lacking the necessary lute music in the background.

We are fully hooked on Taskmaster. We've gone from a mixed and interesting diet, involving Battlestar Galactica (shaping up to be an all-timer, that one) The Uncanny Counter and weird Franco-Belgian Netflix dramas, to basically watching Taskmaster every night. We started a couple of months ago and we've just now begun season 10.

It's so good! Most of it anyway. The bits not involving Lou Sanders or Aisling Bea. (We both genuinely struggle with most comediennes, which isn't the best. Jo Brand and Kathryn Ryan are top though.) I love the Greg Davies-Alex Horne double act, and I would cast Nish Kumar in anything. Including the Franco-Belgian Netflix dramas.

Anybody far ahead of me on Taskmaster? Alternatively, anybody watched anything in the last twelve months?

I did the same thing with Taskmaster when it was about 6 seasons in and haven't looked back, it's easily my favourite and the highlight of my week TV-wise when a new episode is out, I'm also a season deep in to the New Zealand Taskmaster which started off slow but got better as the series progressed.

There's loads of versions all over the world that I'll probably get to at some point, I believe Andy was watching the Sweedish version at one point and I did see this brilliant clip from the Portugese version the other week that had me in a fit of laughter.

Yep, Taskmaster is the best, I can barely remember a time that I wasn't watching/rewatching/waiting for the next season and I have indeed watched the first episode of the Swedish one (though it isn't as good, the format diverges a little too much whilst also retreading the OG tasks too much)

Taskmaster is life

I've been watching Star Trek with Mercy, and also La Mas Dragas, the Latin American drag show. And ocassionally some JoJo, though I'm far further ahead with the manga than the anime.

Oh God I forgot that there were international versions of Taskmaster! The rabbit hole goes deep here. Two years of watching just that seems pretty good to be honest, although I don't have a clue what's happening in that Portuguese clip... Favourite contestants? This is very important.

We got two seasons into JoJo before the depictions of female characters got a bit much and so did the Stands. Better when they were tarot card-themed IMO.

He basically made life hard for himself by aiming for the big ducks in the pool rather than the ones he was supposed to go for, a classic Taskmaster misunderstanding.

I think I probably need to watch some older ones again but Bob Mortimer will always be a favourite, I think Sam Campbell and Lucy Beaumont in the latest series have been deranged enough to make me giggle like a child although everyone this series has been great. Fern Brady was another recent example I really enjoyed too.

Ah right!  On a second watch - yes, excellent. I'll avoid the Swedish one until it gets an Andy seal of approval though (so, never).

Acht, Bob is one of those I feel I should enjoy but just... didn't. Apart from Nish I've loved Tim Key, Paul Chowdry, and the James Acaster/Rhod Gilbert double act that should have made season 7 one of the best... were it not for the two ladies fouling the bed.

Yeah, Taskmaster is bloody amazing. I did a similar thing to you Balla in that I discovered it really late and binged my way up to what was currently airing, which was S12 if I remember rightly.

S7 is my all time favourite - love each and every member of the cast, feel like the tasks hit on all cylinders and there's such a chaotic energy to proceedings that just meshes well with the format. After that, I'd rate S5, S9, S13 and S14 as being amongst my top 5.

S8 was probably my least favourite - the Lou Sanders/Iain Stirling rivalry came across really awkwardly and I don't think either of them put up a good showing at all. Joe Thomas was almost too weird to the point of being detached from it all, Paul Sinha was very ill (poor man) and Sian Gibson was sort of just, there?

The latest season has been cracking though. Sam Campbell is a hero.

As for other things I've been watching, my dad is a massive fan of The Walking Dead so I tend to watch that with him whenever I'm round visiting. Both the latest spin offs - Dead City and Daryl Dixon were surprisingly good considering how the main show was not good at all come the end of it all. Still, I don't trust them not to drag those spin-offs out longer than they should be. We're watching the final season Fear the Walking Dead and dear lord is it shite... it might be one of the worst shows I've watched. Sunk cost fallacy and all that now, though.

I've got both Castlevania Requiem and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off queued up on Netflix, although I've not got around to starting either yet.

Right. Because I am an utter nerd, I've gone through and rated every Taskmaster contestant out of ten to get an average rating of how I feel about each series. The nines are Tim Key, Nish, and Rhod. The 1 is Lou Sanders.



And yes this backs up my gut feeling: that of a decline for ages, Season 8 being my least favourite because no matter how much I thought Joe Thomas was kind of adorable half the well cast were rubbish, and Season 9 regaining previous levels of top quality. At the halfway point in Season 10 it's a pretty miserable 4.8.


I tried Scott Pilgrim Takes Off today. I find Scott too unlikeable a character to keep watching.

I honestly didn't realise Lou Sanders was that bad, I even watched a random episode from that series a few weeks back and enjoyed it enough as a bit of background TV, although Taskmaster should be front and center so maybe that's the problem there.

Balladeer wrote:

I tried Scott Pilgrim Takes Off today.  I find Scott too unlikeable a character to keep watching.

YOU ARE EXACTLY THE PERSON WHO SHOULD WATCH SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF IN THAT CASE BALLA.

Watched the first episode of Scott Pilgrim on that there Netflix. It's such a perfect adaptation of the comics on a visual level. Science Seru have absolutely nailed it. There's small tweaks to the story and to the writing/jokes to keep it fresh enough for someone like me who's seen the film too many times and is a big fan of the comics. Voice acting has been pretty good too so far - I was a bit dubious due to the teaser trailers showing a scene with a very bored sounding Kieran Culkin and a somewhat off Michael Cera, but it's been fine in the main show.

Also yeah, you're not meant to LIKE Scott at the beginning, or for most of the series really. He grows as a person during the story and realises that he's been a real asshole and needs to grow up.

watch episode 2 jay

This is both ominous and exciting. I'll report back later tonight.

Reporting back...

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Episodes 2 and 3:

Buskalilly wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

I tried Scott Pilgrim Takes Off today.  I find Scott too unlikeable a character to keep watching.

YOU ARE EXACTLY THE PERSON WHO SHOULD WATCH SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF IN THAT CASE BALLA.

Ehhhh. Can I ask how long Scott remains an unchallenged arsehole? Because in the comics it felt like, two or three books. Or the challenges were brushed aside. I was a lot younger then, of course.

I've started (watched twenty minutes of) Blue Eye Samurai as well, and I already love both main characters. The princess is meh, the samurai and the chef are top notch. Looks lovely too. Keen to watch further.

Balladeer wrote:

Ehhhh.  Can I ask how long Scott remains an unchallenged arsehole?  Because in the comics it felt like, two or three books.  Or the challenges were brushed aside.  I was a lot younger then, of course.

No, you can't ask questions, watch episode 2 immediately.

Yeah, no more questions Balla - just watch the first two episodes.

I've finished Scott Pilgrim Takes Off myself now.

My thoughts:

JayMoyles wrote:

As for other things I've been watching, my dad is a massive fan of The Walking Dead so I tend to watch that with him whenever I'm round visiting. Both the latest spin offs - Dead City and Daryl Dixon were surprisingly good considering how the main show was not good at all come the end of it all. Still, I don't trust them not to drag those spin-offs out longer than they should be. We're watching the final season Fear the Walking Dead and dear lord is it shite... it might be one of the worst shows I've watched. Sunk cost fallacy and all that now, though.

That TWD finale really was a "big ooft!" wasn't it? Everything was just tied up way too neatly & many side characters that probably should've got killed off ages ago didn't even get an expected sacrifice for the greater good moment. I get it because the spin offs etc but they honestly could've still had a messy ending where everyone (set up for said spin offs) is displaced and on the road again rather than what they went with.
Agreed on Daryl Dixon that was good & for Dead city I'm just not convinced about it's set up at all.

---

As for what I'm watching? I've got a little thing for shows that only got one season at the minute with the most recent two I finished up being 'Night sky' & Freaks and Geeks

Balladeer doesn't trust us enough to watch two twenty-minute episodes yet he's well up for 1000 episodes of One Piece or 999 hours of Eflluzia of Dyspraxia: Children of Eternity's Lamination or whatever.