Who would have thunk it? The first male contestant (and second contestant overall) to win 2 episodes in Series 21 would be Armando Iannucci!

• It’s hard to believe but it’s true! Armando had a very good episode, scoring 22 points and finishing top of the class. He’s awarded a B+, as this score is in the upper quartile of his past episode performance.
• Kumail also had a very good episode, ending up in 2nd place with 19 points. He is graded a B+ for his episode performance.
• Joanna finished in 3rd place with 15 points. This was considered a very bad episode for Joanna, achieving a grade of C- as her episode points are in the lower quartile of her distribution.
• Amy and Joel both had their worst episodes to date, and thus have been graded a D. They both accumulated 10 points each, and finished in joint 4th place.

See me after class Ms. Gledhill! Mr. Dommett is evidently having a bad influence on you and is affecting performance.

Those muscly Hollywood arms are finally paying off! The Series 21 gender points gap has finally been closed; gender equality has been achieved (for now)!

It’s all change in the series scoreboard (Figure 3) after Episode 7.

• Joanna is the current series leader with 117 points but…
• Kumail has managed to muscle his way into 2nd position for the series with 114 points. He’s ousted our favourite girl Amy down to 3rd place with a 111 points.
  • Do they not teach chivalry in Hollywood or Pakistan?
• After another excellent episode performance by Armando in Episode 7, Armando’s managed to wangle his way into 4th place for the series with 106 points.
• Like the naughty, acne ridden schoolboy he is, Joel is the runt of this series litter, currently in 5th place for the series with 98 points.
  • If he spent less time listening to Shaggy and Sting collaborations, winking or wanking, and concealing eggs, perhaps he would fare better in this series.
• 4 out of the 5 cast members have broken through the 100 point ceiling; only Joel is lagging and yet to break through this ceiling. Get your act together boy!
• With Kumail muscling his way into 2nd place, we can now say that there is no longer a performance division between the genders.
  • All hail the Marvel superhero for closing the gender point gap and achieving gender equality for this series.
• With 6 points separating the top three, these current series standings could change yet again following Episode 8.
  • No one is safe with such a small points lead; all it can take is for Amy to regain her Northern competence (and get out of The Performance Dip), or Kumail to get tired from his improving performance.

Series 21: The Taskmaster Conformers! Coming to a cinema near you!

With the change in series standings, there is a change in the episode score statistics (average and standard deviation), as seen in Figure 5:

• In terms of average episode score, the order is now **Joanna (highest episode average), Kumail, Amy, Armando, Joel (lowest episode average).
• With regards to episode score volatility (standard deviation), the order is now Armando (most volatile), Amy, Kumail, Joe and Joanna (least volatile).
• Amy, Kumail and Joanna are very close to each in terms of their episode score averages and standard deviation. This is an indication of how close this series has become.
• The cast of Series 21 are still well camouflaged in cloud of past contestants. They are such conformers!

From Figure 6, neighbourhood watch has turned interesting. There is less of a consensus amongst the neighbours with regards to how they eventually finished the series, and this consensus sometimes does not match the current Series 21 standings.

• Joanna’s neighbourhood does not consist of any neighbours who eventually placed first in the series. The majority of her neighbours placed 2nd in their series.
  • I suspect the lack of first place neighbours is because Joanna has an average episode score which is on the lower end of average episode scores for prior series champion. Visually (and very quickly), I see only 3 out of 20 prior series champions who have achieved an average episode score lower than Joanna’s at a comparable point in their series.
  • The use of standard deviation to also define the similarity neighbours also adds to the lack of series champions as neighbours.
• Amy’s neighbourhood does have one neighbour who placed 1st eventually (Series 18’s Andy Zaltzman), but there is a wide variety of how they eventually placed (all but a 5th place contestant). The majority of her neighbours placed 4th in the series.
• Armando’s closest neighbour is Series 10’s Richard Herring, they have a near identical average episode score and standard deviation. Richard placed 1st in his series, which may provide some hope for Armando.
  • Elsewhere in Armando’s neighbourhood, he has a fully mixed bag with neighbours placing in each possible rank by the end of the series.
• Joel has a neighbourhood which placed 4th and 5th in the majority. There is a glimmer of hope that Joel could end up 2nd in series, if he pulls something out of the bag ala Series 1’s Frank Skinner.
• Kumail’s neighbours consist of two contestants who placed 2nd, two contestants who placed 4th and one contestant who placed 1st (Series 1’s Josh Widdicombe).

This is a potential drawback of using the neighbourhood watch method in predicting series ranking. It may not correspond to their current standing in the series.