Britian’s Channel 4 celebrity game show, Taskmaster (created by Alex Horne, The Button), was dropped by the CW on August 2nd after receiving disappointing ratings, per The Hollywood Reporter. The show, which is very popular in Britain, has run for nine seasons with a tenth on the way. Taskmaster previously took up the 9pm Sunday slot and will now be replaced with reruns of Supernatural (created by Eric Kripke, The Boys) until the CW can fill its place.
Taskmaster is hosted by Greg Davies (The Inbetweeners, Man Down), who portrays a tyrannical host, lording over his assistant (portrayed by Horne) and often doling out harsh judgments to the competitors. Every season, there are five contestants who have to compete in a series of ridiculous, comedic tasks before the filming of the show. When the show films, the contestants sit with Davies and Horne in front of a studio audience and watch their own and their competitors’ performances for the first time. In the UK, the show regularly garners more than one million viewers per episode. It also won a BAFTA in 2020 for Best Comedy and Comedy Entertainment Programme, as well as two Comedy.co.uk Awards for Best TV Entertainment Show in 2016 and 2017.
The show’s US debut, however, had only 212,000 same-day viewers, which is the CW’s smallest first-run audience in 11 months. The US also premiered an American version of the show under the same name, with comedian and musician Reggie Watts (The Late Late Show with James Corden, Key and Peele) replacing Davies as the host and Horne remaining as the assistant. Unlike Davies, Watts did not have the harsh demeanor that many fans of the British version find amusing. The show ran for one season on Comedy Central in 2018 but was not renewed for a second. You can watch one of the tasks form the American version featured on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel below:
The British Taskmaster may be uploaded to the CW’s free streaming platform, CW Seed, allowing American fans to view the show despite it not being on the CW’s lineup.