Which of Taskmaster’s 2026 seasons wins?

I’m new to Taskmaster—I know, I know!—but after watching several episodes worth of task clips as short-form video on TikTok, I finally watched two full seasons.

No surprise: the full version is considerably better, and what’s missing from those clips is also the reason I liked season 21 much better than season 22.

If you’re new to Taskmaster, each season has a new group of five comedian/actors attempting challenges. Those tasks are overseen by Taskmaster assistant Alex Horne, Alex sits in the small chair, but in reality, created the series and designs all the tasks.

The comedian contestants have limited time to apply creativity, logic, and/or lateral thinking to their task assignments. The results range from disaster to opus, and laughs come from the shock and/or awe at the outcome of their efforts.

While Taskmaster is a UK series, the show has given us the gift of streaming all its seasons, free, via YouTube. (Watch season 21 or season 22; Hulu also has both seasons, plus 1 to 12, and 19 and 20, and Taskmaster Australia.)

The editing and cinematography are exceptional; just the interstitial b-roll alone does so much work to set the mood, whether a task is at the Taskmaster house or that season’s external location. It’s art design that adds so much but also fades to the background, like on Survivor, where I now just expect to see intricately designed immunity idols and colorful textiles at challenges.

But it’s the studio banter that gives the Taskmaster its life. The titular Taskmaster, Greg Davies, has a (quite thin) stern persona that cracks frequently, and it’s a delight. He assigns scores for each task, and there’s a winner for every episode and the season. But the points don’t matter and are beside the point.

Likewise, it’s kind of pointless for me to pit the two seasons against each other. They’re both a perfect way to end a long or stressful day. But since I watched both full 2026 series/seasons concurrently this fall, and season 22 just concluded, I’ve been thinking about why 22 didn’t work as well.

My theory is it’s because the cast—Chloe Petts, Isy Suttie, Matt Lucas, Nina Conti, and Richard Ayoade—had barely any in-studio chemistry. They rarely reacted to, or interacted with, each other. The best it got was Chloe’s increasing outrage at Richard’s skirting the rules, which played well off of both of their strengths.

I didn’t know Chloe Petts before the show, but quickly fell in love with their intense competitiveness and humor. I previously enjoyed Nina’s ventriloquism and comedy, and she was fun in the tasks, even if her prize tasks were annoyingly repetitive.

But Richard’s apathy and Matt Lucas’ aloofness were like an anchor on any potential momentum in the studio—and sometimes in the tasks. Even if it’s Richard’s shtick, the tasks just don’t work when he acts as if he’s there against his will.

Season 22 wasn’t unwatchable! When the Taskmaster stars aligned, I was laughing and laughing, like at the sight gag at the start of the finale as Greg introduced each contestant.

By comparison, though, last season’s group is one I want to spend more time with. Amy Gledhill, Armando Iannucci, Joanna Page, Joel Dommett, and Kumail Nanjiani constantly played off each other. Joel’s improvisational callbacks were a particular highlight, but so were Joanna’s looping stories, Kumail’s self-deprecation, Amy and Joel being star-struck by Kumail—it all worked.

So is it just me, or is season 21 vastly superior? And when can I see Chloe Petts, Joanna Page, Joel Dommett, and Kumail Nanjiani on The Traitors as the Taskmaster alliance?

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