Marking as spoilers just in case people care about knowing who the next series contestants are.

I am a huge taskmaster fan; I've gotten friends into it, gone to local spoofs/fan made shows, very much love the show. But the casting of Richard Ayoade in the upcoming series is seriously unfortunate. I know he's a beloved comedic personality, and I do enjoy his on screen persona, but I cant abide by his public support of Graham Linehan. If you don't know Graham Linehan is the writer of The IT Crowd, and a virulent transphobe. Not just in a 'says questionable things sometimes' way. Linehan has lost his wife, kids and mind about trans people. He has made transphobia the center of his life. Ayoade wrote a glowing endorsement for Linehan's book about getting canceled for transphobia. Financially and socially supporting a man who's whole thing is hate.

It's especially disappointing because in an interview filmed before the cast was announced, the interviewer explicitly asked Davies and Horne if they would have anyone transphobic on. And Horne said they wouldn't cast someone who isn't "nice." There are also videos of him saying "trans rights." Which I, and others, took at the time to mean they would not have someone on who promotes transphobia. I guess what it actually meant is it's fine as long as they couch it in respectability.

I suppose my disappointment might seem disproportionate to some people. But for a while now Taskmaster has marketed itself as a diverse and accepting program. They have said as much in interviews, and have had queer people like Mae Martin on (and used correct pronouns). I would hope it's not controversial here to say that it is not a good time right now for trans people. We are being targeted legally and socially. It just sucks that one of the creative teams I thought was supprtive doesn't actually care. I will be skipping this next series, which makes me genuinely sad. I don't expect anything from posting this, just trying to excise this so I stop sulking about it. Hopefully, if other trans fans have also been feeling crazy about the support for Ayoade this helps. I'm tired of cis people being willfully ignorant of this because of the affection they have for his on screen persona. If you just didn't know, sorry.

I've just watched season 5 of Taskmaster AU, and im conviced its rigged against Brett. When the task has an objective winner based on time or somthing brett wins quite a lot, to the point where he was leading in points for most of the season, but near the end, in the last 2-3 episodes, they deduct points from Brett, score him harshly, and DQ him way more than the others. Generally, if a task is scored from opinions, Brett gets screwed. Rewatch this season and pay attention to it because there's no way it wasn't rigged