From our trusted episode performance report card in Figure 2:

• Kumail finally wins his first episode of the series. He finished the episode with a personal best of 20 points.
  • It’s about time, it felt like an Eternals event that he was often the 2nd or 3rd place bridesmaid, and never quite the 1st place bride.
• With Kumail finally winning an episode, the entire cast of Series 21 have won at least one episode now.
  • It took 6 episodes to achieve this. The optimal and least amount of episodes would be 5 episodes; part of me wants to see if this is the earliest in a series for the entire cast to win at least one episode….
• For a second week in a row, we have a three-way tie for 2nd place between Amy, Joanna and Joel. They accumulated 16 points each.
  • For Amy and Joel, this was a “good” and “very good” episode respectively compared to their prior episode performance. For Joanna, this was considered a “bad”, below average episode.

Figure 3: The collective reaction to yet another three-way tie for 2nd place in an episode. But at least it wasn’t for the series championship…

• The episode scoreboard was rounded out at the bottom by last episode’s winner, Armando. He accumulated 11 points during the episode, which is considered a bad episode for Armando.
  • Armando’s fall from grace from his previous episode (a 13 point difference), is potentially the last we have seen in UK Taskmaster. Again, can we confirm this?

From the points distribution table in Figure 4, we can see that:

• _Amy had a middling episode, with 2 points being the most common occurrence (the mode)__, during this episode. She does have some moments of brilliance and was consequently awarded points in the higher range.
  • However, this episodes points distribution is quite the departure from Amy’s typical points distribution which is heavily skewed towards the top end.
• Armando’s points distribution is skewed towards the bottom end, with 1 point being the mode occurrence. Armando didn’t score anything above 4 points in this episode.
  • Interestingly, Armando’s points distribution is relatively uniform, with a peak of 5 points being the most common occurrence. This is likely heavily influenced by Armando’s stellar performance in Episode 5.
  • I suspect that Armando’s points distribution will become more uniform, and potential even more skewed to the lower end following Episode 6.
  • Armando has been disqualified the most out of the Series 21 cast, as measured by the number of times 0 points have been awarded to date.
• Joanna’s points distribution is identical to that of Amy’s. She had a middling performance, with 2 points being the mode event.
  • Joanna has been awarded the most 5 points for a single task amongst the Series 21 cast. No wonder why she is the series leader at the moment.
• Joel’s distribution is skewed towards the higher points range, with 3 points being the mode. He wasn’t awarded more than 4 points for a task in this episode.
  • Joel’s historic points distribution is relatively middling, with a noticeable peak on 3 points being the most common number of poitns being awarded.
• Kumail’s points distribution for this episode is skewed towards the high end, with 5 points being awarded for 3 out of the 5 tasks. It’s no wonder he won the episode!
  • Historically, Kumail’s point distribution is centered around receiving 4 points for tasks most of the time.

And following Episode 6, our series score tracker, as seen in Figure 8, has changed as followed:

• We have finally broken the 100 points ceiling! Two contestants (Joanna and Amy) have achieved this feat at the moment.
• Armando has fallen back into 5th place for the series, and Joel has risen into 4th place.
  • The current series standings after 6 episodes, in descending order, are: Joanna (1st, 102), Amy (2nd, 101), Kumail (3rd, 95), Joel (4th, 88), Armando (5th, 84).
• Kumail’s personal best episode has meant he has closed the gap between the men and the women. There are only 6 separating them, compared to the previous 10 lead. If Kumail continues this high performance streak, he has a potential chance in being a serious contender for series champion.
• Armando’s less than exemplary episode has also widened the point difference between the men. There is now 11 points separating the men, compared to the prior weeks lead of 3 points.
  • Such a gap will mean that it will be hard, although not impossible, for Armando to place 3rd or above in the series.

Figure 10, a scatterplot of all Taskmaster contestants (present and past) and their average episode score (x-axis) and standard deviation (y-axis), indicates that the cast of Series 21 are relatively well behaved and conforming to the main cloud of historic contestants.

Not a surprise given that this series has been light on point inflation gimmicks or heavy penalties.

From Figure 11:

• It’s official! Amy and Joanna are now neighbours! They share 4 common neighbours, namely Series 19’s Mathew Baynton (1st), Series 1’s Josh Widdicombe (1st), Series 7’s James Acaster (4th), and Series 12’s Gus Khan (2nd).
  • Amy does have an additional neighbour in the form of Series 3’s Dave Gorman who finished in 2nd place eventually.
  • Joanna’s additional neighbour is Series 4’s Hugh Dennis who placed 4th by the end of his series.
• Armando’s neighbourhood is dominated by neighbours who placed 4th in the series eventually.
  • Series 20’s champion (Maisie Adam), is a neighbour of Armando’s and continues to provide encouragement and hope to Armando that he could win the series.
  • But his hopes shouldn’t be too high; Armando’s nearest neighbour is Series 16’s Lucy Beaumont who finished in last place.
• Joel’s neighbourhood has a majority of neighbours who placed 2nd in the series eventually (Series 20’s Phil Ellis and Ania Magliano).
  • His nearest neighbour is Series 20’s Phil Ellis.
• Kumail’s neighbourhood is dominated by two 2nd place finishers; Series 13’s Chris Ramsey and Series 16’s Julian Clary.
  • His nearest neighbour is however Series 6’s Asim Chowdry who placed 4th by the end of his series.