The Block: Triple Threat

Just what is it about Renovation that makes Reality TV viewers go weak at the knees? They can’t seem to get enough of the stuff, so Nine is filling up their cup with a whole lot more of The Block while it’s on a roll.

Ever since Nine’s inspired decision to revive the series -and then strip it across the week- the show has defied the naysayers: bumper ratings, (mostly) lucrative winnings, plenty of media coverage and a Gold Logie for host Scott Cam. Even two seasons a year hasn’t dented its place in the Nine schedule.

This year the first of two seasons, The Block: Triple Threat, is again set in Melbourne -apparently the property market suits the show, but it’s also the biggest audience for the show. Nine confidently rolls the series out some 2 weeks before the start of official ratings, and ahead of its key rival, Seven’s My Kitchen Rules.

Six new teams will vie for three places on The Block, a run down apartment block in Darling Street, South Yarra. Four returning teams will battle for the final fourth place. It means we are in for plenty of preliminary challenges before we arrive at the final cast.

Using the theory that bigger is better, the six new teams will be forced to renovate an apartment block that is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the actual Block. It’s an ugly, dated dog-box and they are given just days to renovate entire rooms on limited budgets. No question, it’s the toughest hoops the show has ever asked contestants to jump through just to get to the starting line.

Yes, it’s sort of like watching the real show on fast-forward. We go through all the dramas, conflict, judging and reveals in extended pop-choon episodes (around 1:15 hr) and it takes two nights before the first team is culled. But I couldn’t help but ask, all this preliminary stuff and we still weren’t at the final cast? How much renovation is too much renovation?

The six teams are a mix of partners, siblings and cousins, with varying experience in renovation and design. They joke, argue, and forget stuff that will cost them big time in the soapie storytelling way that works for the series. If the show became more ethnic last season, it appears to have reverted this time, but there are less of the chiselled models that seemed to define its earliest seasons.

For my money Scott Cam as narrator missed his calling as a kid’s TV host. His style is big, basic, brushstroke in delivery, and the show has a truckload of junior blockheads as a result. But it does have a way of cutting through the mire and signposting the bleedingly obvious, which is not such a bad thing.

For the 10th season, Cam will again be joined by Shelley Craft, judges Neal Whittaker and Darren Palmer -Shaynna Blaze is absent from early judging- foreman Keith Schleiger and new ‘foreboy,’ former contestant Dan Reilly. It’s impossible not to notice the colloquial “mate / buddy” factor has boomed this season.

It’s fair to say everybody loves a good reveal so fans will be in heaven with a slew of them here. Based on the show’s ratings success it’s not hard to see why Nine has opted for more of everything: more contestants, more challenges, more airtime. As it seeks to dissuade fragmenting audiences, a stripped reality hit has proven to be solid insurance. Eventually there will be a tipping point, and in 2015 TV is offering more Renovation than ever before.

So here’s a radical thought: when does The Block go back to basics, a move that arguably rescued MasterChef from oblivion? I would be keen to see the show zero in on what it does best: renovate (no silly challenges) as a twice-weekly show, with more compact judging and elimination, and less horrendous recaps.

I would also consider an Uncut Block somewhere in the schedule. There is so much bleeping over the swearing that it just reiterates how censored the show really is. Give adults an ‘adult viewing’ option. The show has also become too inward in its Melbourne backdrop -show me new property markets, new weather challenges, new local cultural enhancers. One season, not two, would also restore a freshness when it pops back into the schedule.

The next season this year is also reportedly in Melbourne, and I feel like I have seen it already.

Of course The Block does not have MasterChef‘s problem of diminishing numbers. It is striking while the iron is hot. Ratings would suggest more, more, more is still a viable storytelling strategy. Who am I to argue?

The Block: Triple Threat premieres 7:30pm Tuesday January 27 on Nine.