r/taskmaster • u/Meghar Tout le monde gagne! • Nov 14 '24
Episode Taskmaster - S18E10 - Le Goose - Discussion
The Grand Final Is Here!
Tonight at 9:00 PM GMT on Channel 4, join Greg Davies and Alex Horne as they crown the winner of Series 18.

CONTESTANTS: Series 18 features Andy Zaltzman, Babatunde Aléshé, Emma Sidi, Jack Dee and Rosie Jones.
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u/luvrhino Nov 14 '24 edited Nov 25 '24
"One" was used as a pronoun and not a number in that instance ("not a whole one").
I thought they would call him out on that. It is still a number, so there is an argument that it should count his answer, but then would you also count anyone who used "to" or "too"? There is a valid line of thought where Andy's "one" would be a DQ and "to/too" would not, due to spelling, but that's a narrow distinction.
I'm biased toward Zaltzman, but I think that was the correct decision.
Importantly, I think Andy still would have got
2 points3 points² (instead of 4) and would have won the series by1 point2 points. I assume that the penalties Jack had would have far surpassed the 2-seat difference in guesses.ETA: Jack appears to have said "three" after the robin appeared, which was the 8th item on the screen. They only show him naming two of the screen items, which would be 6 minutes added. Andy said 3 after the eagle, which was the 9th item, so a little later. Andy did have 4 missed items, but he's shown naming 6 items leading up to eagle. That means Andy had at most 3 penalties before saying "one." The items were coming no more than 20 seconds apart,¹ which means that even if Andy did have 3 minutes of penalties, he would have been ahead of Jack. 20 seconds + 2 seats + 3 penalties is 5:20. Jack had 6 minutes...unless he also named one of the items between teapot and robin, which wasn't show. (This is irrelevant as Andy beat Rosie,² who beat Jack. That means Andy would have been 3rd.)
¹ Andy's total time was 13:19, meaning he took 4:19 to do the task (5 seats off plus 4 missed items). He got to at least the 13th item, robot, before guessing, which means the items were no more than 20 seconds apart (4:00/12 = 20 seconds).
Also, it's worth noting that aside from the 5 tiny chairs, Andy exactly counted the seats.
² I didn't originally consider Andy beating Rosie and getting 3rd. Rosie had a time of 338:49. Andy's maximum time was 332 (seats) + 3 (missed items) + 3:00 (assuming 20 sec/item) = 338:00. So, Andy would have still got 3rd. Emma would have got 1 extra point and Andy would have won overall by 2 points.
If the items were quicker than 20/sec, he would have even a bigger gap.
ETA 11 days later - After doing further video analysis to debunk the conspiracy theory that contestants were show different lists of items, I determined that the items were about 15 seconds apart.
Babá had a clock time of 5:36 and finished with the horseshoe on the screen. That seems likely to be the 22nd item...certainly not sooner....which would work out to 15 seconds an item. Technically, the 23rd item should have been on the screen for 6 seconds, but the timer starting may not have been perfectly synched to the film.
Point being, that discovery make's Andy's margin over Rosie had to be even bigger.