We happened to watch a single episode of Taskmaster over Christmas at my parents and I had been pleasantly surprised by the content. In the last couple of years it's become clear that the show had tapped into something, with posters and billboards all over London, and even American bloggers and podcasters that I follow beginning to talk about it, but we had no way to watch it and the central premise seemed a bit boring.

I was definitely wrong. I'd thought it was going to be some banal, grown-up version of Saturday morning kids shows like Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow, where celebrities had to perform uncomfortable or somehow gross acts on camera. I mean, I really think Greg Davies would be a good hosting choice for a show like that, so it all fit together.

And yet, whilst Taskmaster definitely shares some of that DNA, it goes about things a lot more interestingly than I had predicted. For starters, the guests are all comedians (mainly literal stand-ups, though generally "funny" TV personalities seem to be fair game as well) and of quite a high calibre. Combine that with the really bizarre (yet positive) choice to have the same five guests on every episode of a season, and it neatly avoids the Never Mind the Buzzcocks trap of wildly varying quality in terms of on-screen banter. Plus, you get at least a little invested in the overall competition, though this is not stressed too much (possibly thankfully).

Season two "starred" Richard Osman, Doc Brown, the wonderfully dry Katherine Ryan, Joe Wilkinson (who predictably came last 😂), and – an absolute personal favourite – Jon Richardson. The combination was well balanced between the surreal, the sarcastic, and the cerebral, and I'd say each comedian had at least one genuinely brilliant moment each episode.

But where the show really surprised me was in the challenges. These were varied, fairly novel, and surprisingly inventive. At their best, they reward out-of-the-box thinking and clever use of wordplay to open up loopholes, but Davies plays a fair Taskmaster that will punish those that push the rules too far, whilst permitting enough to keep the show entertaining. At their worst, they do veer a little close to Dick & Dom territory, and that does lead me to my one main criticism: episodes are a little uneven. Some are treasure troves of interesting ideas and clever comedy, whilst others just feel a little by-the-numbers. To their credit, co-hosts Davies and Alex Horne do a good job of keeping the pace going and providing keystone comedy, but the nature of the show is that some tasks likely work better on paper than reality.

Still, it had us laughing out loud many times over, from Joe's "impressive" number of Calippo ice lollies, to Jon's surprisingly inventive pineapple smuggling or deeply dark children's nursery song, Doc's bridge blindness, Katherine's beautiful yet useless potato support, or Richard's consistent rule-bending. I hope there's more focus on the malleable rules and task wording moving forward, but at the core there's something quite unique and fresh about Taskmaster and all worries are fully dispelled.

A slightly weaker line-up and distinct lack of out-of-the-box thinking (despite a really solid start with the whole "get from A to B in as few steps as possible" gimmick) made for a less funny and less interesting season, but it still resulted in plenty of laughter. One area which definitely felt improved was the live final games; I thought the finale donut stacking was particularly fun, but in general, these just seemed to work a bit better. The pre-recorded tasks, though, felt more like "here's a quirky situation" than "here's a puzzle to solve", and they seemed to really go hard on encouraging littering, which felt a bit strange.

Al Murray constantly buying his way out of challenges also got a bit meh – in fact I think I was most disappointed with our shipping namesake. Here was a chance for this incredibly posh, incredibly intelligent comic to shake up their image a bit, but instead he just leant into the whole "Oxford UKIP" gag. I mean, really, you made the Union Jack and spent all your time ensuring you got the damn lines the right way up instead of doing something interesting or funny. Of course you did... yawn, we get it, we got it a decade ago.

And then there was the episode that Paul Chowdry won. Look, he did well at some of those challenges, and he was a genuinely fun member of the panel (even if he, too, went a bit hard on the character work early on), but they clearly gifted him points that episode just for the sake of it. At least two of the tasks saw other people get unfairly knocked back once they realised he had a shot, and it felt weirdly transparent and unearned. Drum up the tension, sure, but don't gift someone a win.

It's still a fun show, but I guess season three highlights the risk of having a set cast for an entire season (even if they are only a few episodes): if the group don't click well with each other, or the with the tasks, then you're just stuck 😬 It still had some great moments, and it was fun realising that the house is just up the road from us near Chiswick, but lacking the edge of season two.

It is going to be hard for Taskmaster to come up with a better lineup (on paper) than this for me. Hugh Dennis, Joe Lycett, Noel Fielding, Mel Giedroyc, and (the – personally – previously unknown), Lolly Adefope. Did they gel? Pretty well, actually. Fielding and Dennis both brought their fairly unique styles of "interpretation" to proceedings, and Giedroyc is just a chaos demon in human form 😂 Adefope fit the bill as the "every person" and had some excellent moments, and Lycett had some strong moments.

Still, I was expecting a bit more, particularly from Joe and Hugh. These are comedians who have built careers on strong, improvised, observation-based comedy, yet neither of them really stepped outside of the box all that much, which was surprising. On the other hand, Hugh Dennis is extremely up for getting physically involved, with several tasks being solved through some surprisingly athletic solutions, so fair play there (alongside a special shoutout for "hopping champion" Noel 😁).

As for the tasks, these were a further regression away from ones that purposefully contained tricky wording that could reveal potential shortcuts, but overall I actually thought they were a bit more varied and interesting. Plus, both presenters felt like they had found a slightly better balance. Alex had some excellent comebacks and moments throughout the season, and Greg Davies allowed himself a bit more levity and charm, rather than simply playing the stern headmaster constantly, which made for much better chemistry (which was, admittedly, already excellent). We also didn't get any clearly gifted wins, and Noel's overall win felt genuinely earned. Overall, then, a much better season and strong return to form, but I can't help but feel that, with this set of contestants, it should have been even better.