Previous episode: The Biggest Loser Australia: Singles Season Seven – Weigh In & Elimination #6
Whether you’re an old dog or a young pup, this week will surely get you in a competitive mode as the younger contestants verse the older contestants. Yep, three against six! With the older contestants dominating this game, do the young pups (the white team) have what it takes to take out Battle of the Ages week?
It’s after elimination and Michelle is sitting alone on the stairs. Hamish is allowed back into the house for a more in-depth goodbye to Michelle. Well, this show really wants this to succeed, don’t they!
It’s emotional and very real. Michelle gives Hamish a letter she wrote to him on camp. Michelle knows that their goodbye won’t be forever. She hugs him goodbye and he leaves Michelle alone again, on the stairs. He is the first boy she has ever kissed.
In the car home, Hamish reads Michelle’s letter. He fights back tears as he looks into the setting sun. He knows he can love himself.
Back at camp and the cameras are set on the bare looking house. The black team waits to see if Graham has survived elimination.
The trainers enter the room, and Shannan is hoping his last team member is safe. With that, the black and white teams return to the room before Graham returns safe and sound. Saying Shannan is gutted is an understatement.
The last blue team members of season seven has been eliminated. Michelle is equally shocked, but a lot more emotional.
Lydia lays out the state of play as the contestants discuss the reasons for their vote. The red team mask their vote as because Graham ‘worked’ harder. Well, Shannan knows from the bunker, and we know as contestants, that Graham’s lack of trying is in fact a huge issue. The red team knows this as well.
What Shannan also knows is that the red team and black team were in some sort of alliance. If you listen to Margie and Simon’s terms closely, you would know that this alliance ends today, as it only lasted for a week of competition.
But still, they deny everything. Shannan isn’t that ignorant though, again, having watched the terms of the alliance unfold before his very eyes in the bunker.
Selena then discusses her vote. Tiffiny and Shannan are both shocked, knowing the white girls should have Hamish’s back. Tiffiny notes that Michelle (and Kasey) has had her back through her toughest week this week, and she voted her boyfriend out.
Now Selena has created a massive rift. When Tiffiny puts it like that, the severity of her decision is really highlighted. Shannan could not believe that Selena was the executioner.
Shannan wants to hear the reasons for her decision but nothing would calm his attitude towards this. He feels like a failure of a trainer. Everyone has three contestants left- he has none. Seems very unfair.
With that, Shannan is out of the competition, and he leaves slamming doors behind him.
Opinion point: What is your take on this whole situation? Who do you agree with? Who do you not agree with? So we didn’t have a situation where trainers were left without team members, would it be wiser to merge the groups sooner into two bigger teams trained by two trainers?
After the break, the contestants are called to the top oval where Hayley is waiting with an older god and a young pup.
She tells them that the rules are about to change- which is where the dogs come in to play. They will be playing old dogs v young pups for this week.
From oldest to youngest, Hayley calls the older team members over to the old dog’s team. At the same time, she calls the younger contestants from youngest to oldest to the young pups team.
To balance things out, Margie, as the youngest ‘older’ contestant, will join the young pup’s team. Margie doesn’t feel good wearing a white shirt.
Margie does relish the fact that she is a ‘young’ player. Hayley gives them a word of advice- work hard and compete together because only one team will be above the yellow line at the end of the week.
To their first training session, the old dogs visit their trainers- Michelle and the Commando. It’s your state-of-the-art military style training session. Graham feels as if Michelle is as ‘good’ as the Commando, except without the deep voice.
Lisa realises how much noise the boys make during their training session. Michelle thinks they will give the young pups a run for their money.
Opinion point: Who will win this week? What are both team’s biggest advantages and disadvantages?
The four young pup girls will be trained by Tiffiny, who is happy to have Margie in her team. She claims she is the most mentally tough contestant, so she pairs Selena with her. This has to be good. If Selena needed any payback for ‘that’ challenge and ‘that’ elimination, this was it.
As much as Margie can come off mean, this is where I absolutely LOVE her!
Tiffiny talks to the other white team members about the elimination and while they accept that Selena had free choice, they are very obviously disappointed.
Margie thinks Selena trains as if she is in week one and she is getting angry at her. Selena is having enough of Margie and wants her to shut up.
Selena is carrying a tyre and as Margie motivates her, Selena drops her tyre and screams at Margie before heading out of the training session to a chorus of ‘don’t leave’s’ from Tiffiny. Personally, I don’t think Margie was going too far, as the promos suggests. This is week seven afterall, why can’t Selena push a little bit harder?
Opinion point: The promotions ask if Margie has ‘gone too far’ with Selena. Well, you’ve seen the scene, so has she?
After the break, Tiffiny tells Selena that Margie is pushing her out of love because she requested help. Tiffiny loves how Selena’s heart rate is up. After a pep-talk, she returns and apologises to Margie. She accepts her apology, but tells Selena to push herself or she will go home. It was a very well-spoken speech.
Margie should be a replacement panellist on The Circle when she leaves this place! I think she’d be brilliant.
Now, it is time for the Contest and Margie is ready to beat Lydia and Lisa.
Hayley tells them that this contest will consist of three rounds- testing brains, endurance and skill.
The first team to win two rounds will win with the winning team winning the right to go on The Walk.
Round one is to do with the brain. The teams now chose their champions. The young pups choose Kasey and Lisa, the school teacher, is competing for the old dogs.
The round is called ‘The Calorie is Right’. Each team will have ten cards which show one type of food each, with the corresponding weight of those foods also found on the cards. The teams must stack the cards, on a board, in order of calorie content.
The foods are: 300g of Avocado, 150g of hot chips, a 235g apple, a 70g croissant, smoked salmon, Turkish bread, a Caramello Koala, boiled rice, choc-coated almonds and a 155g Grilled rump steak.
Kasey has formed some ideas, but not many. Lisa thinks she can guess half the board and was OK with the other half.
Their time begins and they begin to place the boards in order. Kasey is relying on her team mates, but it isn’t looking good.
There looks to be some variation, but things could change. Kasey is getting a bit agitated with Marge’s instructions, but it is neck and neck. This isn’t about how many they get right, but who can place them in the correct order first.
Opinion point: Who do you want to see win this contest?
After the break, we recap the final few minutes from before the break. Kasey had her hand up first, but they are both wrong, so the go again. Lisa decides to focus more on the amount of each item. They all have the chocolate at the bottom but they both continue to get it wrong.
Lisa changes the avocado to the top, due to the size of it, and Hayley says it is correct, but as a whole, she is not correct.
Kasey gets ten correct, which is the chocolate at the bottom. Lisa is close after changing the Turkish bread to third.
Lisa changes a few more things, and she gets the board correct, winning round one of three.
The order was from most calories to least:
LARGE AVOCADO
HOT CHIPS
TURKISH BREAD
GRILLED RUMP STEAK
WHITE RICE
CROISSANT
CHOC COATED ALMONDS
SMOKED SALMON
LARGE APPLE
CARAMELLO KOALA CHOCOLATE
With that, it is time for round two, and it is all about…endurance!
For champions, the young pups choose Michelle and the old dogs choose Lydia, of course. The round will be about sit ups.
Who is the fastest at doing 100 sit ups. The old dogs will go first, setting the mark that Michelle has to beat.
Lydia begins.
Opinion point: Which round would you expect each team to be best at?
She gets nervous early about making it to one hundred due to the intensity of doing full push ups. She makes a good comeback late into the competition, and gets her count right up there quick.
It takes her 2.43 seconds to make it to one hundred, and that is the pace to beat for Michelle.
Michelle is next, and with the help of Tiffiny, mind you, she has been able to take down powerhouses before.
She looks like she is going slower, but will this be the end of her and her team? At one point, she actually took a few breaks and Margie is wondering if she would have done better at this.
She gives up almost entirely near the middle before picking up the pace. Her bursts don’t look too long lasting but all her team can do is give her encouragement. They all think that after her shocking week, this is all too much for her.
In the end, it’s all about not quitting, and she doesn’t. She finishes, and breaks down as the other contestants from both teams comfort her.
Her time was 4.05 seconds but cheers all round for her. Afterwards, Lydia is congratulated on her work and for winning the contest.
So, who is going on the walk? Well, Lydia has been, so she doesn’t go again. They end up choosing Simon and they insert a cutaway of Margie saying she doesn’t trust Simon. Umm, didn’t you instigate a deal with him?
Simon heads down the walk and we recap all the walks so far. Will this happen every week?
This ends the episode, and boy did I love it. Disregard the episode’s tendency to recap things more than they should on some occasions, and the somewhat depth-less sit-up challenge, and this episode entertained with a brand new twist, entertained with brilliant dialogue from the contestants (particularly Margie) and entertained with a few shocks from Shannan and Selena’s confrontation.
It was definitely a well-produced episode with plenty of substance however, I did feel at times that when we returned from ad breaks, those recaps, especially of the Calorie is Right challenge, which wasn’t too entertaining to watch the first time, were a little too long.
The Biggest Loser Australia: Singles next airs Mar 7 at 7PM on TEN.
Production Values (visual and audio techniques, overall ‘bling’ of the show): 5/5
‘Sell-out’ factor (Cross-promotion and product placement free?): 1.9/2
Entertainment Value (emotional feel, storyline, eventful?): 2.8/3
Courtney’s Verdict: 9.7/10
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