I learned about Taskmaster near the end of last year, with two friends giving the show glowing recommendations. They described the premise, including a play-by-play of the very first task, and I was sold! However, my problem at the time was that there was no straightforward way to watch it. There were episodes unofficially available on “sketchy” sites, but nowhere that was easily accessible.

However, the official YouTube account started uploading full episodes, and I spent most of this year devouring them. Over the course of quarantine, I’ve binged eight full seasons with my boyfriend! We’ve sat through most episodes together, talking through how we would do different tasks, judging contestant’s attempts, and have generally used the show as another way to bond with each other.

Throughout the year, we also hosted and participated in our own little Taskmaster competitions among our friends. We had three sessions overall, one that we hosted and planned ourselves, and two others that were run by our friends, and they were all interesting little diversions from the otherwise boring day-to-day of quarantine life.

We did many different challenges, including “cook an egg,” “create a bouquet,” “make a Rube Goldberg machine,” and “recreate a classic painting.” You can see our attempt at the last challenge below!

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These Taskmaster games were not only fun and creatively challenging, but they were also a great way to keep in touch with friends! We’d chat with the hosts about rules, with our friends about their attempts, and always had an in-person finale at the end where we’d get to see each other’s submissions and crown a winner. Any way to keep in touch over this quarantine is a plus for me! (Looking like fools in the process is just a cherry on top!)