April-May 2023 news round-up

It's been a little while since the last news post, but I've been very busy, since March, just trying to stay on top of all of the various versions of Taskmaster which have been airing concurrently. There was one week, at the end of March/start of April, where there were SIX iterations of the show airing around the world, which is a record, to date.

We're now entering the slight lull, during the middle of the year, when there won't be as much new Taskmaster content to digest, but things certainly haven't stopped in the Taskiverse. There's been lots of news, in the past few weeks, so here's a quick round-up of everything you need to know.

Taskmaster NZ season 4 is imminent!

As of 11 April 2023, an advertising rates schedule for TNVZ (the TV network which broadcasts Taskmaster NZ) indicated that the fourth season of the show might begin airing slightly earlier than anticipated, on 21 June 2023. This was confirmed by a subsequent version of the schedule, which was published on 26 April 2023.

Then, just today, a Reddit user posted that tickets are now available to attend the live studio filming sessions for the season, starting on 31 May 2023.

The cast of this new season has not yet been revealed, but it looks like it shouldn't be too long now before we find out who they are.

Bäst i Test is changing channels

On 24 March 2023, it was reported that the Swedish national public TV broadcaster SVT would no longer be commissioning new seasons of Bäst i Test, after Avalon (who own the rights to the Taskmaster format) increased the price for the rights by what was described by an SVT representative as "several hundred percent".

The public broadcaster, with its eyes set upon bringing the public the best value within their limited budget, decided that it just couldn't justify the cost of continuing to commission seasons of the show it has aired for seven seasons since 2017, and so it allowed the rights to be bid on by competing TV networks.

The commercial Swedish channel TV4 then stepped in and snapped up the rights, and both Babben Larsson and David Sundin agreed to follow the show over to its new home.

While very little else is known for sure about what changes might be made to Bäst i Test by its new broadcaster, Babben herself has indicated in interviews that some changes are on the cards.

One of the notable changes, which has already upset some fans, is that the show will now be interrupted with commercial breaks. However, Babben has indicated that she believes that the total run-time of the episodes will be increased to 90 minutes, from an hour, to ensure that the episodes still contain the same amount of content overall.

Otherwise, the show will continue to be produced by the existing team at Baluba, so it should be in safe hands.

Production in full swing on Taskmaster PT season 3

With the final episode of the second season of the Portuguese version of Taskmaster not having even aired yet (it goes out tomorrow), it has already been confirmed that production began on the third season of Taskmaster in March 2023, and things are certainly moving along at a clip.

On 2 May 2023, Nuno Markl shared on Instagram that he and Vasco Palmeirim were already working on their scripts for the live studio segments.

It has since been shared with me that filming of the live studio sessions for season 3 begins in just a few days, on 9 May 2023!

It is anticipated that the season will air before the end of 2023, suggesting that Taskmaster PT could now be moving to a two-seasons-per-year schedule.

While the fixed panel of contestants in the first two seasons of the show featured the same four personalities, it has been confirmed that season 3 will feature four new fixed panellists.

Although the cast has not officially been announced, it was reported on 3 May 2023 that they are Gabriela Barros (an actor who appeared as a guest contestant in season 2), Cândido Costa (a football commentator, who also appeared as a guest in season 2), and the influencers Madalena Abecasis and Wandson Lisboa (neither of whom have previously appeared as contestants). This report backed up rumours reported on 13 April 2023 that Madalena Abecasis and Gabriela Barros had been spotted filming for the show.

According to one of the producers of the show, the third season will also feature several completely original tasks, for the first time.