Our resident Blockaholic Jane Yee recaps the highs and lows from week four of The Block NZ, including Dinner Wars going down the toilet and the Wolf sticking post-its everywhere for no reason.
Guest room week always has the potential to be a bit of a snorefest. Who gives a toss about a spare room that’s only going to end up piled with all the junk that doesn’t fit in the rest of the house anyway? Thankfully, we had the the excitement and drama of Dinner Wars foisted upon us this week, so we could ditch all the renovation stuff and enjoy a crappier version of Come Dine With Me instead.
1) ROOM REVEAL
Room reveal was bloody intense this week. The Challenge Warehouse was charged with emotion as the judges, via Mark Richardson, flung compliments and high scores in Niki and Tiff’s faces for their top notch bathroom.
Once again I was also impressed, which is worth absolutely nothing. Emma and Courtney’s bathroom was well received by the judges, as was Sam and Emmett’s. But what of Dyls and his mate Dylz? Well, fair to say it’s been a bit of a crapper for them. If you would care to read on…
2) THE DOWNFALL OF DYLS (AGAIN)
Honestly, this column could be solely dedicated to Team Dylsz. Week four on The Block has been another challenging one for our resident manchildren. Big D is coming apart at the seams. Things started badly when the judges didn’t rate their alpine-lodge-meets-woodsman-cabin-meets-corporate-hotel bathroom, and the D’s found themselves at the bottom of the leader board.
Lookie here, the Dylsz poured their hearts into that goddamn bathroom. Apparently, if the judges can’t appreciate a quality collision of schist, Macrocarpa and glass then they “deserve to be shot” – a teeny overreaction and probably a bum editing call in light of recent events. Dyls also suggested Paul might have been looking out of his arse when judging their bathroom.
When is a strategy not a strategy? When it’s executed by Team Dylsz. Fellas, if you’re after the 2k in the team judging, and you have the least lovely bathroom of the lot, then you need to score everyone zero to be in with a shot, not just one team. All that does is make you look like jerks with absolutely no payoff.
3) TERRIFYING TIFF
Grooveddoorgate was in full effect as the week kicked off, showing us a terrifying side of Tiff we all knew was hiding in there somewhere. She was annoyed the competition had copied her choice of doors and things escalated at the end of the week when she found out Sam and Emmett were using hardwood floors in their guest room, something Niki and Tiff did in their not-kid’s room.
She’s pretty pissed that everyone seems to be jumping on her idea train. I mean, sure it’s nice to see her expressing something on her face that isn’t resigned indifference and all, but it would be sweet to see her smile or maybe appear a little bit like she isn’t counting down the days till this nightmare is over.
Tiff is actually too cool for The Block, what is she even doing there, and how did they convince her to do those fruity jumping promos?
4) CHALLENGES
There’s really nothing like an invigorating facial scrub with a toilet brush, no? Luckily for Sam, rubbing his face in bathroom related products resulted in an extra point and the opportunity to open their safe, which contained a couple of sweet opposition-shafting bonus prizes.
The others had to rub their faces on toilet brushes for nothing. But not to worry, the remaining teams may or may not get to open their safes later in the season. Their prizes may or may not be the same as Sam and Emmett’s, because the producers are clearly making this show up as they go along.
5) DINNER WARS
Forget building houses, this week was all about average food and even worse entertainment. Dinner Wars is notorious for tearing apart friendships and making me fall asleep on the couch. I have a love/hate relationship with this challenge.
On the one hand, it’s boring as batshit given it’s night after night of crappy flat dinners put on by people who’d rather be painting. But on the other, it’s also a high stakes challenge with a mega-prize (as we’re oft reminded by an ever-hovering Mark Richardson) which helps bring tension aplenty to the table, and hopefully some dramatic strategic scoring.
Team Dylsz managed to pop a balloon without a condiment exploding on their face (normal), so they won the right to select the running order for Dinner Wars.
Niki and Tiff, the new objects of The Dylsz antipathy, kicked things off. Given it was the first party of the challenge, everyone got themselves gussied up for the occasion. Everyone except Big D who was still hacked off the judges thought Niki and Tiff’s bathroom was better than his.
Not only did he score them a big fat zero in team room judging, but he also showed up late to their dinner with not so much as a skerrick of lippy on. Just a flannie shirt and a bad attitude for our Dyls.
Niki and Tiff entertained their guests with some really famous local musicians busting out freestyle raps about The Block contestants and it wasn’t at all awkward.
Emma and Courtney were next to host and they served up some delicious lungs and massages.
Big D was well keen on the lung steaks, but wasn’t having a bar of some weirdo he’d never met touching him. Happy to get nekkid with his BFF and share a bar of soap and a cheeky rubdown though, just btw.
Much like most of Emma and Courtney’s efforts on The Block, the night was fine. It wasn’t spectacular, it wasn’t a total failure, it was just fine.
Sam and Emmett served up steaks for tea and got bit classy with a mixologist concocting fancy drinks before presenting a crazy plate-less shared dessert situation that involved eating smeared treats directly from the table top. It looked gross and delicious all at once. Emma was really into it.
It should’ve been Sam and Emmett’s time to shine but – in case you hadn’t noticed – The Block NZ 2016 is really all about Big Dyls. Our mate had eaten chicken curry for breakfast and ended up with nasty food poisoning that had him extremely thankful they’d just completed a functioning bathroom.
The awful stomach cramps and all that vomiting very nearly affected his ability to eat a 1kg steak, down a cocktail and finish it off with a plethora of desserts at Sam and Emmett’s party. His commitment to the cause is actually kinda admirable – I mean the guy nearly pooed at the table while eating ice cream, which is pretty good telly imo.
The last dinner party was hosted by The Dylsz and they put on a spread of fish and salad with entertainment provided by a dude with a guitar who, disappointingly, wasn’t Big Dyls. Shelley turned up for a ‘Kumbaya’ moment and all I could think about was whether or not Kumbaya is in the public domain and, if not, did Mediaworks pay the appropriate fees for its usage?
6) BIG BAD WOLF
Four weeks in and there’s no doubt in my mind that the Wolf is being extra dicky this season. He seems to be doing a lot of nitpicking and deliberately trying to trip the contestants up. I can only assume this is because the teams are actually organised this year and not creating enough time-pressure drama to satisfy producers. So, they send in a post-it note wielding Wolf to highlight minor blemishes on yet-to-be-sanded walls.
7) THIS YEAR’S HOT TREND
Negative detailing. Never have these two words been said together so often by so many different people in one suburb than they have over the last four weeks in Meadowbank. I don’t really know what it is, but everyone’s doing it. If you want to be on trend, whip out your negative and get detailing!
But not you Tiff, you’ve got enough negative detail as it is Miss Grumpenstein.
8) THE CLIFFHANGER
This week’s cliffhanger is the scoring of Dinner Wars. I don’t want to ruin things for you, but I suspect everyone plays fair with the scoring this time around as there was nay a mention of scores in the Next Week promo.
I feel like the food was pretty good this year, but the entertainment was unoriginal and, sorry what was that? I fell asleep. Fives all round from me, except I’m giving Big Dyls an extra point for keeping things interesting by being childish and also getting food poisoning. I don’t think I would’ve survived the week without him.
The Block NZ airs Sunday 7pm and Mon-Wed at 7.30pm on TV3