Taskmaster leaves viewers desperate for answers in puzzling task

Taskmaster season 18 spoilers follow.

Taskmaster's penultimate episode dialled up the chaos with a tech-less task which sent fans in a Google frenzy.

Seemingly inspired to Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, tonight's (November 7) first task called on the five comedians to guess how long a furlong is without using any technology — except for three, very short phone calls — and then walk the exact distance in exactly 10 minutes with a hat on.

Contestants Emma Sidi, Babatunde Aléshé, Andy Zaltzman, Rosie Jones and Jack Dee had to hand their phones to Alex Horne, but were given the chance to ring a friend. They were allowed three 5-second phone calls each to ask any of their pals if they had any clue as to how long a furlong was.

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During the frantic phone calls, Emma's mum suggested a furlong was eight miles long, while Jack's son and Babatunde's friend both guessed correctly that the unit of measurement was equal to approximately 200 metres, or 220 yards.

Before Greg Davies and Alex could reveal the answer, viewers at home were left wondering the exact length of a furlong, which is primarily used in agriculture and horse racing today.

Some Taskmaster fans resorted to search engines to find out, suggesting the show caused a spike in searches for the term.

"'Furlong' is possibly shooting up the Google rankings right now," one person wrote on Twitter/X, while another admitted jumping to check online.

Related: Taskmaster's Sara Pascoe and Lou Sanders join comedy series

Babatunde ended up walking the closest length to a furlong, earning five well-deserved points, while Rosie, who didn't use her phone calls, walked "about one furlong less than a furlong", as Alex put it.

Other tasks of the night included cleaning "a profound picture of majestic nature" into a dirty surface and guessing where 10 different items would float or not.

It was Emma who won the ninth episode with 21 points, while Jack topped the season's leaderboard with 128 points ahead of next week's grand finale. Who's going to go home with Greg's gilded head this time around?

Taskmaster season 18 airs Thursdays and streams on Channel 4. A Junior Taskmaster spin-off has been confirmed.

Read more Taskmaster news on our dedicated homepage

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