If you thought last year’s season of The Block was hard going – wait till you see what’s being thrown at this year’s group of intrepid Blockheads.
Not only do this year’s contestants have to contend with the advent of coronavirus, which shut down production for the show for six weeks in March, they were also thrown the added challenge of having to renovate each of their homes to a very specific era.
The Block 2020 will see homes from different periods being renovated. Picture: Channel Nine
“We have got five different eras of home this year – the tens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties,” said host Scott Cam of the five existing homes that were craned into position on the New Street Brighton site for this teams to work on.
“Each contestant has got to put a nod to that era in their front part of the house, in the first three or four rooms.”
Read more: Scott Cam on why you can’t keep a Blockhead down
As Cam explains, this proved tricky for some.
“It’s very difficult for them to work out how they are going to do that and still have a modern, 2020 version of, say, a bathroom or a bedroom, with a nod to the 1910s, ’20s or ’30s,” he explained. “They [are being ]judged on that, and that really brings a few of them unstuck in the early days.”
Read more: The Block 2020 – Meet the contestants
Judge Neale Whitaker, who endeavours to judge each room on its own merits, taking into consideration functionality, finish and presentation, appropriateness for price-point and emotional connection, admits that adding these constraints in the early weeks put extra stress on the contestants, who needed to be conscious of their rooms gave a “nod” to the era, without feeling too much like a museum piece.
Neale Whittaker says this year’s challenge isn’t for the faint hearted. Picture: Channel Nine
“Even if we didn’t have a global pandemic on our shoulders at the moment, and if we hadn’t had that five-week hiatus in the middle, it would still have been a remarkable season, I think, because of the sheer size of the task the contestants had to take on,” he said.
“Nobody wants to live in a museum so I think [it was about] finding the defining characteristics of each era, and working out how to adapt them to create a modern home.”
House four will need to have renovations that fit with the era of the home. Picture: Channel Nine
Do they succeed? You’ll have to watch. But Whitaker says to expect some truly remarkable transformations over the course of the season.
“There was a real sense of individuality this year,” he says. “And I think it’s all credit to the contestants that they have created five homes that are so individual and are so different, yet somehow sit harmoniously alongside each other.”
The Blockheads have their work cut out for them in 2020. Picture: Channel Nine
The Block premieres this Sunday August 23, at 7pm on NINE and NineNow
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