including every international series I've watched so far! I'm going to try to sort them from favorite to least favorite within the tiers also. obligatory disclaimer of "a C tier series of taskmaster is still good" D tier though...
S tier: 12, NZ 2, 4, 14
A tier: 13, 9, 8, NZ 3, 6, AU 1, norway 1, NZ 1, 5
B tier: 10, 2, 7, sweden 1
C tier: 1, 3, 11
D tier: finland 1
I've got some stuff to say about series 1 of suurmestari, taskmaster finland, which I'll put under the cut along with tentative tiers for series I haven't seen all of
series 1 of suurmestari is far and away the worst taskmaster I've seen. the cast isn't terrible (I really liked the winner actually), there were a few great tasks, and the assistant pilvi has her own vibe which is pretty funny and charming, but I think it was really dragged down by a few things which imo just do not work. and obviously this is just based on the first series and I do intend to go back for more eventually
I am just not sold on the rotating guest seat. sweden does it, and it's fine, but I don't like it as much as a consistent five-person lineup. the prize tasks were abysmal. the taskmaster, jaakko saariluoma, was so dull and occasionally just gave everyone the same score like he couldn't be bothered to have any presence within the format of the show. also this is entirely superficial but the studio is a cold, uncomfortable purple. it's on series 4 now I think so I have to assume it gets better. I've heard they eventually cut the prize tasks completely (lol) so if jaakko gets into the role more I could see myself enjoying it quite a bit... but yeesh that first series is rough
tentative tiers:
A tier: 15 (2 episodes)
B tier: norway 2 (3 episodes), portugal 1 (1 episode), sweden 2 (5 episodes)
C tier: denmark 1 (1 episode)
D tier: US 1 (assorted clips)
taskmaster portugal honestly has fantastic energy but hoooooly shit 90 minutes is way too long for taskmaster. sweden stretches it out to an hour but makes some format changes that let it breathe a bit more. denmark also goes an hour but leaves the format mostly unchanged which I think is to its detriment. the clips I've seen of taskmaster US aren't like, the worst thing I've ever seen, but they're not good lmao
