Bill Blogs

I really love Taskmaster, but I was disturbed on the episode of 5th June 2025 by the American guy teaching Alex Horne to be rude and arrogant to his staff. It might have been funny before the election of Donald Trump and his nasty little maga group, but it is no longer funny when real people, in the real world, are being treated like dirt by those in power. In fact it is now a joke in extremely bad taste. I was disgusted by the complete insensitivity of showing this nasty little routine at such a time. It should have been cut from the show and it certainly didn't show the American contestant in a positive light.

I really like this show even though I don't know exactly what is going on half of the time. The interest is in the interactions between the players. The only thing I haven't liked so far was the death match on Wednesday 14 May 2025 between Amanfi and the other guy who is a bit of a nonentity. The death match is supposed to be a clever, tricky game played with an opponent, NOT some silly card game where the cards are chosen for you by people who want to get rid of you. If you want the players to vote someone off the show then get them to do so in another part of the programme. Don't use the very interesting death match for this purpose. The death match last night was just a bore and a really dull way to end the programme.

This show was interesting, but also irritating. The last temptation with the £20,000 tested all of the contestants and, surprisingly, only two decided to take the money. The greedy and the selfish. The Anglican vicar seemed to think he was God's gift to the human race and, as such, deserved anything he decided to claim. What a hypocrite! I am reminded of Paula Venables her despicable behaviour in the Post Office scandal. Really makes me glad I'm not Anglican. Their clergy seem to have very flexible morals. The vicar's partner was just an ordinary selfish man. It's interesting that it didn't seem to occur to the first pair, with the very moral young man, to take the money and then distribute it equally to the rest of the group. That would have been the best scenario for all concerned. I think you should do a series where when the contestants get to the end they are told that the money has always been divided equally among them and that every temptation that they took was deducted from their personal money and no-one else's. You could only do that once, though.

The Traitors is an enthralling show and I love the The Traitors Uncloaked which is on directly afterwards. The comments and discussions are amusing and informative. One thing that was interesting in last night's show, (12/1/24), was the reaction to Paul the traitor telling Jaz that he wanted him to believe that he was faithful. It seemed like a mistake that he he said 'believe ' rather than know, but I don't think it was. What Paul was doing was subtle because he was actually bringing Harry's name to Jaz as a traitor because no-one thinks Harry is a traitor. The subtext was, you know I'm a traitor, but so is Harry. Harry and Paul both want to be there at the end, but I don't think either one wants to share the prize with anyone else.

I would have given this four stars if it hadn't been for the odd summing up of the final three recruits. The instructors dismissed the remaining female recruit by saying that she wasn't physically strong enough to pass. I thought she did so well lifting awkward heavy items around without complaining and doing her share that I was quite disappointed with this summing up of her abilities. The plain fact is that you can't expect female recruits to be as strong as the male recruits. That's just basic physics. And maybe in the real SAS you don't have female recruits, but a television programme is not the real SAS. If you include female contestants then they deserve to be assessed fairly for what they have achieved. Also is there some rule that says there can only be one winner. Because that would be a really stupid rule. All three contestants won as far as I am concerned.

I was really enjoying this programme until I realised that the result was fixed. I saw it on 16th February 2023 on 4 seven and I was disgusted to realise that Derek seems to have a free pass however bad his work is. He produced the most hideous, black lamp I could ever imagine and I was sure that he would be eliminated, but it was George who left. The thing is that Derek is always in the bottom two, but miraculously manages to avoid elimination every week. I wonder how long his slimy, cheating protector will be able to keep him in. Will we find the worst potter ever being awarded the top prize? The really funny thing is that it is really hard to disguise bad pottery so it's becoming more obvious just how poor his work is. I am absolutely disgusted that a pleasant pottery competition is rigged to allow some cheating snake to advance to a level way beyond his level of competence. I will not be watching the show again. What a con!!! Regards Alison McFadden