Previous episode: The Biggest Loser Australia: Singles Season Seven – Elimination #2…and then some
Tonight, the contestants will be locked inside their bedrooms for a VERY long time. Their walls are lined with fatty foods and the table in the centre of their rooms are no healthier! Will they take temptation? I hope not- their trainers are watching their every move!
We’re given a recap of last night’s powerful episode. Michelle’s song gets me again.
We get back to that ‘reward’ Hayley was talking about. What, of course, was it? She tells them that their ‘surprise’ is waiting for them back at camp biggest loser.
Back at the house, the contestants see pictures of their loved ones on the wall. Lydia is very tearful, but to top things off, the ‘markers’ that showed what pictures belonged to who, doubled as letters from home.
Simon is first to read his letter. It is from his son. It doesn’t take long for him to break down as his kids look forward to seeing him thinner.
Michelle is next and her letter is from her mother. She too breaks down. Bek too finds it hard to read her letter from, I believe, her mother or sister.
We then get quite a sad montage of all the contestants’ letter readings.
Luke really takes the letter with a lot of emotion. Lisa is also among those who really break down.
When Selena finishes, the contestants get up and take it all in.
Opinion point: What did you think of the letters-from-home scene?
After the break, it’s time for another training session! Shannan gets his boy’s onto the spin bikes. He is unhappy to hear that only Luke has done his 600 calories and only for this morning. No one did their 600 calorie burn last night. He gets them to do a 5 minute session and wants them to double their record for kilometres. All of a sudden, Hamish began to try! He comes within metres of Luke and soon overtakes. Luke finally had competition. At the end of the race, they are both at the same distance. Shannan wants him to do that good all the time. Hamish breaks down when he tells him that when he trains, he has no idea what to think because he’s never trained. He teaches Shannan that non-athletic people wouldn’t know what to think.
Shannan gives him some advice and by making him think, he is capable of so much more. We finally get some training out of Hamish. Shannan gets him to get back on the spin bike for a repeat performance- just to make sure what he did before wasn’t a one off. With upbeat music, we realise it wasn’t! He does it again.
Opinion point: Are you proud of Hamish through this breakthrough?
After the break, Michelle walks into the living room to see all of her contestant’s training- except Margie, who is sitting down with a broken arm. It was the boxing she did in the last training session.
Because of this, she is out for today. With that, she takes her team down to the courtyard for the training session. She quizzes Lydia about her letter and Lydia reveals that the letter taught her a lot of things- like to stop being so judgemental and to stop giving herself a hard time. Michelle is surprised by the outburst and revelation- congratulating her on this.
Lydia promises herself that she can’t go home the same. And with that, she continues to pull her tyre with much more force.
Michelle then moves on to Lisa, congratulating her on her speech last night. (read the episodic blog by clicking the link at the top of the page)
After the training session, the contestants head back to their rooms where they find a smorgasbord of unhealthy food waiting for them!
We see all this through the cameras in their bedroom. Does this mean The Bunker will come into play?
Michelle runs through the kind of stuff found in the room. Kasey could eat two of the pies in the room easily. The contestants seem already tempted.
They all find a letter that explains they are in bedroom lockdown for 12 hours. They will not leave, but they do have plenty of food to keep them satisfied! Temptation is simple; the team who consumes the most calories will win team immunity. This really does get to the white team, who could use it.
Selena doesn’t think she will keep out of the food. The contestants haven’t had an evening meal yet.
But hang on, isn’t this making them eat bad food? And if they don’t, does this promote poorly planned diets? Hmm, how will this go down?
The trainers enter the bunker to watch the lockdown live! Hmm, cameras, locked off from the outside world completely, twists, microphones- bedrooms! Maybe TEN isn’t taking the news of losing Big Brother all that well, haha.
The red team seem to decide at this point NOT to take temptation, finding the risks outweigh the positives.
The black team are considering it. Alex thinks they can work around it by finding ‘healthier’ option foods. They can’t find any, so they lose interest immediately.
The contestants on the blue team decide to take temptation, but are being careful about how they will go about working the food off.
Hamish seems to be the voice of reason. He wonders whether what they are doing now is going against all they have been brought here to avoid. Ryan, on the other hand, is trying to manipulate the others into taking the food. Shannan sees right through this.
But if you ask me, eat this stuff or go starving for 12 hours, both options are very unhealthy, and portray a very unhealthy image.
Opinion point: What are your opinions on this temptation?
Hamish, who was against the idea of playing, is pretty much sucked into doing it to the point where he is first to put his hand in officially.
The white team believe that they can risk eating 300 calories as they haven’t had their 300 calorie dinner.
Besides, they don’t want to go to elimination again. Tiffiny, meanwhile, is screaming ‘NO!’
After the break, the white team are discussing their options. Christ, if they do this enough, they will just run out of time anyway to eat!
The red team are sniffing out their food options, haha. Michelle is not happy at Margie’s habits, which includes sticking her finger into a sausage roll and sniffing it!
The black team, who are completely out of this challenge, have decided to walk, in relay, one hour each, for the entire 12 hours- how awesome of them! They really do have the brains.
Shannan just wonders whether their will power will still be there when they are hungry.
The white team are hungry, and they resort to smelling the food. Michelle gives them a piece of paper each to vote either ‘yes or no’ for playing. The trainers gasp at this. Tiffiny finds that this temptation is the same as putting drugs in front of drug addicts. Again another reason why this is such a bad idea.
Hamish, who was dead against the idea of taking temptation in the first place, is now first to eat, consuming a tub of cheese and crackers.
Shannan sees this irony and does not take this vision well. Luke is next to eat some cheese and crackers, to the further chagrin of Shannan. Ryan settles for a healthy looking vegetarian quiche. Commando comically jokes that it is the size of his thumb. He believes his team is focussed, as they are all now walking around the table.
We see more back story shots of their lives.
Margie is now considering playing temptation- and Michelle is getting nervous!
Opinion point: Would you play in this temptation?
After the break, the black and white teams are avoiding temptation while the blue team are spiralling out of control- now eating very unhealthy chocolate.
The red team are also not playing, they are all sleeping! Michelle however, feels they should at least be training.
After snaking, the blue team also don’t train- until Luke begins to train. He comes up with different things they could do and soon gets the other boys into it. Shannan, however, was NOT happy. He feels their activities, which included burying food (AFTER eating bloody half of it) and throwing a ball, was embarrassing, disgusting, and NOT exercise.
The time finally finishes, and they all hi-five each other. The trainers remind each other not to talk about The Bunker.
They all emerge from their bedrooms and head into the living room where Hayley is waiting for them.
She reminds them of the rules before asking them if they think ‘another’ team played. They all put their hands up.
Hayley turns to the black team and reveals to everyone that they ate nothing. Brenda thinks ‘good on ‘em’. Ryan wonders why an injured team did nothing.
Hayley then reveals that the red team also did nothing.
She then goes to the white team, reminds them of their poor weigh in track record, before revealing that the BLUE team consumed 2,745 calories in 12 hours. She then tells everyone that the white team consumed…well…we’ll find out tomorrow. I didn’t see them eat anything.
So the episode ends and it was quite a well paced episode. The production was brilliant and faultless as always. Well, maybe one too many back stories were shown; I can definitely say a few looked out of place, but the tone of the show was there- full of emotion, inspiration and challenge.
The temptation, however, was not good television. It sent out all the wrong messages. I guess this is the let down with this extreme weight loss show- extreme measures do usually have to be taken to ‘test’ the contestants. But was this temptation realistic? No. You don’t give people the option of either eating a lot of calories, or not eating at all. There were only ‘healthier option’ foods in that room, no healthy options at all. To me, it didn’t send out the right image at all.
Was it entertaining? Well it was a little dull, but it was interesting to watch- so I’ll give them that.
The Biggest Loser Australia: Singles next airs Feb 9 at 7PM on TEN.
(Advanced note: There may be a postage delay in tomorrow’s blog. I apologise for any inconvenience)
Production Values (visual and audio techniques, overall ‘bling’ of the show): 4.8/5
‘Sell-out’ factor (Cross-promotion and product placement free?): 2/2
Entertainment Value (emotional feel, storyline, eventful?): 2/3
Courtney’s Verdict: 8.8/10
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