The man who came in to double-glaze Sarah and Minanne's windows stayed for an infomercial. He demonstrated something or other with two pieces of glass. One got hot, and the other got less hot. "Wow," droned Sarah. "It's a huge difference." But does it soften hands while you wash the dishes?
Sarah's performance was a reminder of years and years of advertisements featuring housewives in various states of ecstasy as they scrub pots, vacuum floors, flush toilets, etc. So much of The Block feels stuck in a 1950s state of mind - household drudgery, the worship of kitchen appliances, the fundamental belief in domesticity and suburbia. Perhaps the series was actually filmed back then. Jeremy looks like the sort of guy who belongs to Rotary. Easy to imagine Brooke as an active and probably aggressive member of the Country Women's Institute.
Hard to believe that the average age of the contestants is about 25. Youth is wasted on them. They act like solid citizens, establishment figures, town burghers, squinting into the sun and putting their shoulder to the wheel. She'll be right. Can't complain. Gidday mate. Yep. Nope. Buddy can you spare a monosyllable? The Block is a nightmare vision of New Zealanders in chains, locked in their homes, daring to venture only as far as the back yard and the front porch. They lack the language to escape. "Creak," croaks Cat, incarcerated.
But a free man exists. A rebel, a subversive element - there was Hayden last night, wandering off with an aerosol can and a plan to bust out of blandsville. He graffitied the message, BE BOLD DON'T CONFORM. He's like John Connor in Terminator. He's fighting the machines. The machines wear scarves: they all look like judge Jason, that high priest of middle-class taste.
Another subversive act featured on The Block last night. It occurred during a tremendously boring quiz. Contestants had to guess the correct answers in a multiple choice about each other's lives. When it came to Sarah's turn, the contestants were asked: which TV show had she appeared on previously? It seemed like an innocent question.
Imagine, however, TV3 chief executive Mark "Useless" Weldon as he sat down last night to watch The Block. It's just been another day at the office. He took the journalists out of journalism by canning current affairs show 3D. Now he just wants to relax, and join the nation in watching concrete dry.
It duly dries. All good. And then: which TV show had Sarah had appeared on previously?
Weldon sits up. This could be interesting. He knows a thing or two about television. He's aware of its rich history, stretching all the way back from The Block season four to The Block season one. The host Mark Richardson reads out the three options. "A: was it X Factor? B: was it Campbell Live? C: was it a commercial for yoghurt?"
Weldon spits out his pinot gris, bottled at his own Terra Sancta winery. God almighty! Did they just say Campbell Live? Campbell Live, the show he worked so hard to destroy, to annihilate, to remove from every last television set in the land? And yet here it was, being referred to on his own network! Unbelievable! Bad enough that option A was X Factor, which he also canned. He doesn't want to be reminded of failure. But no one really cared about X Factor, unlike Campbell Live, which led to howls of protest, although he'd been assured that was only from 17 people on Twitter.
He refills his glass with a trembling hand. Please, he whispers, let the answer be C. It has to be C. He can easily imagine Sarah on a commercial for yoghurt. Her performance, he thinks, was certainly very convincing when the man demonstrated his double-glazing.
He sits on the edge of his chair. His whole brief and essentially useless career in television flashes before him. Mark Richardson says, "And the answer is, Campbell Live!"
Weldon sits and stares at the screen, open-mouthed. He opens it wider, and wider, and lets loose a long, piercing scream: "AIEEEEEEEEEE!"
- nzherald.co.nz
