The Block 2011

Nine are hoping for their biggest night of the year as they air the two hour finale of The Block 2011 at 6.30pm Sunday August 21, followed by the two hour premiere of Underbelly Razor at 8.30pm.

The 2011 finale of The Block will feature the auction of the four houses which will determine which couple wins the series taking out the grand prize. The winning couple takes home $100,000 as well as the profit their house delivers. The other three couples leave only with their profit – which could well mean – that should any of the properties sell below their reserve, the couple responsible for that renovation leaves with nothing to show for their time on The Block.

Nine are hoping the finale pulls at least 2 million viewers and delivers a solid lead in for the Underbelly Razor premiere. The 2003 finale of the first season of The Block pulled 3.3 million viewers and still remains amongst the most watched shows of the last ten years.

Underbelly Razor is the fourth series (excluding the three telemovies that aired earlier this year) and again is based on real events. This time, the series is set in and around Kings Cross in Sydney in the 1920′s. Promos show some spectacular scenes depicting Sydney of the time, including a partial Sydney harbour bridge as construction was carried out during the late 1920′s.

The Block 2011 finale – 6.30pm Sunday August 21 on Nine.

Underbelly Razor – 8.30pm Sundays from August 21 on Nine.

The second week of competition officially begins today as contestants face another one of Smilin’ Shelley’s Super Challenges! Well, that’s what I’m calling it anyway! Yay, so excited.

Last week, the contestants all spent too much money, so all the stuff they all use for room two must be second hand. We also see that tonight, Shelley will asking the contestants to produce something for auction; looks great!

Scott tells us about the budgetary problems of the contestants before we get a lovely glimpse of Melbourne’s skyline at dawn.

Scott gathers the contestants together before telling them all they have all gone over budget. If they keep this up, they will run out of money. So he’s put them on a budget, which means no new furniture! All the furniture has to be second hand. Josh & Jenna are excited as second hand creation is in their ballpark.

To help them out, Shelley has set them a task that the contestants then go to. The challenge is set at The Lost Ark, a furniture store that specialises in dealing secondhand furniture.

The contestants must today choose one piece of furniture out of the million pieces on offer; spruik it up and sell it at auction. The team who wins the highest amount at this auction wins the challenge and will get $1,000 to spend at an auction of their choice. For this challenge, they can use $100 of their own renovation money.

Their 15 minutes of raiding the ark begins and the contestants frantically try to choose the right piece for them.

Katrina & Amie are stressing about what to do and Polly & Waz are finding things, putting it down, finding another thing, putting it down.

Josh & Jenna are lapping this up as the other teams struggle to find the right piece of furniture. With 11 minutes to go there is a sneaky naked mannequin that the producers thought would be a good idea to slot in there.

Tania knows what she wants, but Rod doesn’t like anything she likes and doesn’t know himself what he wants. It’s a bit of a farce but as time runs out, it seems Jenna & Josh have chosen a set of drawers for their renovation and they score it at $100.

Katrina & Amie find a ladder that is overprice but they seem to also get a bargain and get it for $100. A curly haired man helps Polly & Waz choose a nice piece of furniture. The piece of furniture they choose is a table where on a good day; they can get triple their money back.

With three minutes to go, Tania & Rod find a vintage desk that they get for $80 provided they carry it out themselves.

Time is up, and we go to a break!

For nearly the entire challenge, the Antiques Roadshow theme has sounded in the background. Clever cross promotion anyone?

Overall, Josh & Jenna have paid the most for their set of drawers, with $100, tied with Katrina & Amie and their ladder.

Both Tania & Rod and Polly & Waz paid $85 for their desk and table respectively.

They are all hard at work on their pieces, waxing, polishing and sandpapering going on all over the place. With two hours remaining, the contestants seem quite relaxed and are all hard at work bringing their piece of furniture back to life.

Amie tells us that Jenna & Josh’s piece of furniture is junk and needs to go into the rubbish. Maybe she is so jealous that they finished quite early. I agree with her though, it does look a little scraggy.

Tania & Rod are the last to finish but their piece of furniture looks the best of the lot. When time is up, Shelley realises that some people have spent a lot more time on their furniture than others.

With that, Shelley calls out two men to take away the pieces of furniture, and seems to like the power she has as well.

The morning after, the contestants go to Young’s furniture store where their pieces of furniture are waiting for auction. Shelley invites the bidders in and one lady is a bit interesting in Katrina & Amie’s ladder, something that annoys Rod.

Polly & Waz’s table is first for auction and buying for $85, it sells at a nice $120. Next up is Josh & Jenna’s drawers. Buying at $100, it sells for $150, a very good result for a group who didn’t put much effort into it!

To Katrina & Amie’s ladder and it sells for the buying price, $100. Now for Tania & Rod’s desk and buying for $85, the team is able to sell the desk for a huge $220, making them the winners of the challenge.

With that, the contestants have got their first whiff of what will be a week of second hand goodness. Tania & Rod would be stoked at that result, meaning they now win a cool $1000 that they can blow on second hand goods for the week.

The episode was well balanced, had plenty of humour in it, and for once, had no massive recap after every ad break! I really think the half hour shows work better for the program overall.

What I don’t like is the fact that to start week two, we went straight into a challenge. It kind of makes the show feel like it’s losing focus on the main game, that is the block itself. I would have really liked this episode to concentrate on showing us all what room two will be for each house, but I guess we have to wait until tomorrow!

Courtney’s Verdict: 9.8/10

Laura & Emily Sayers, the twins that were eliminated in last night’s episode of The Block are hoping to score a new Fly-on-the-Wall reality television program, the Herald Sun reports.

The 25 year old twin sisters are after a show similar to The Hills and are approaching producers to discuss their ideas inlcuding the working title ‘Meet the Sayers Twins’.

Emily, one half of the duo stated; ‘it would look at all the ups and downs of our workplaces, relationships, family and fights. We always have a drama going on.”

The girls were beaten by New South Wales sisters and mothers Katrina & Amie who will join three other couples for the next eight weeks on The Block.

While I don’t particularly think this show is a good idea, I did want to see more of the Sayers twins on The Block!

In 2009, the Seven Network stole Ten’s Thank God You’re Here after a year hiatus. Rightly so, we wanted to see it, and Ten weren’t using it. But the almighty Nine, no, they’re going one step further and have decided to steal an entire timeslot of TEN!

Well, technically, every network ‘owns’ it and does what they want with it, but if we have a look at the utilisation of the timeslot; Nine are very well taking away and rebooting Ten’s former game plan.

From 2001 to 2009, Network Ten strategically placed its reality drawcards Big Brother, The Biggest Loser and MasterChef Australia in the 7PM timeslot and while these shows at the very longest took up about half a year’s worth of viewing, it did wonders for their failing evening schedule thereafter.

Sure, between the very first 7PM edition of Big Brother to the very last 7PM edition of MasterChef Australia, there certainly wasn’t much change; Ten were still coming third and Ten still had massive holes left right and centre. I can argue that this comes down to many things; extra multichannels, change in viewing habits, growth in online and alternative media; and all would be correct; that and the fact the shows began to fail later on (well not MasterChef, but certainly the others) also contributed to this.

But we only have to look as far as shows like Friends, Bondi Rescue repeats and Taken Out to realise what sort of mess the network would have been in if they didn’t do this. Back in 2001, the 7PM timeslot is like it is now, ripe with potential competition, but not much flaring. A perfect opportunity to score some extra wins and boost that schedule.

Now, I’m too young to remember what was on pre Big Brother but someone told me it was the sitcom, Becker (feel free to correct me) for the most part at least. Well what do you know? Ten years later (almost exactly) and what are the Nine Network playing at 7 O’clock? Sitcoms! Repeat sitcoms at that. What this means is that Nine is basically throwing away this timeslot on a tried and just recently failing strategy.

And like Ten did ten years ago, Nine are going to attempt on Monday. Bring reality television BACK to 7PM.

But remember what I said about changing viewer habits? Yes, well let us remember that while the timeslot did all sorts of wonders for MasterChef, for the past year and a half it has been void of reality with viewing audiences clearly finding new homes with Home & Away and The 7PM Project with both shows seeing rises, even if this is due to the winter effect.

Now if you were to ask me, I’d say the fourth season of The Block is about to begin on a successful note; if I were to predict the future. As it happens, I can’t and therefore this blog now just goes into all sorts of predictions.

The Block was able to manage close to 3 million viewers for its finale and 2 million viewers on average per week in 2003 and 2004. Surely this could be put down to the peak of reality television, when Australian Idol was taking over the headlines and Big Brother was screaming along nicely and all sorts of niche reality shows were bobbing up all over the place.

As it goes, The Block season three that returned from a long hiatus last year didn’t do so well. So what does this all mean for season four?

Well firstly, lets just remember that a show doesn’t always perform swimmingly after a 6 year hiatus, so this may have contributed to the lower numbers; but let’s also remember that if a show in its first season can build from nothing; surely a returning season of that show can pull similar numbers. Season three was well down on its predecessors.

But if familiarity was lost on viewers over the past 6 years, could a second season shown five nights a week wake up the brain cells of former viewers and entice them to return? Possibly, not out of the question no doubt.

But also remember, for the past three seasons, this show was aired in a 7.30pm timeslot once a week! What is familiarity when it’s schedule is so vastly different. Can The Block actually regain Nine’s share of viewers and put them back in the channel?

The production of the show certainly looks promising; four houses and extra hosts will surely make the show more energetic however at the risk of making it look too busy.

But the 7PM timeslot in general would have to be the most divisive timeslots of them all. On one hand, it is praised for its treatment of Home & Away; allowing it to probe into more interesting and dark storylines than regular rival Neighbours. Many even want the latter to move to 7PM. On the other hand, it was pointed out as one of the biggest problems for Big Brother; many citing the timeslot wasn’t appropriate for such a show.

Now The Block may not need as much leeway as Big Brother, but it wasn’t just the content that was the problem, it was the length. Regular viewers of The Block will certainly notice the fact that although they can watch their show five nights a week, it has been chopped in half for the most part.

This means, less content for each episode and probably more cliffhanger moments. Maybe not the latter, but this could be deemed a problem for the show when it attempts to claim new viewers.

Either way, I’m sure we are all in for a treat come Monday; we all love a good television risk and experiment.

But lastly I want to discuss the long term effects The Block may have on the timeslot. If it is a failure, does this mean the end of The Block, or The Block at 7PM or the end of reality in the timeslot as we know it?

On the flip side, if it a huge success, what will this mean for other reality formats in the future. Especially those that are currently only an hour in length, can this mean that they too can be spit into five half hour episode per week?

Who knows, but we can rest assured that answers to these questions will begin to be answered as soon as tomorrow!