House Rules starts Mon

House Rules is back on this Monday and there’s a Gold Coast high-rise involved – wait, is this The Block?

Will social isolation compel me to watch this season, even with Jamie Durie as host?

Probably not, given MasterChef returns a week later, on Easter Monday. Oh well, maybe next year …



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20 Comments

  1. Yeah, after the horrible disappointment of last season, it’s not worth tuning in again. I’m voting with my remote control.

  2. I suspect I am reflecting the majority here. I, too, am out.
    Having said that, there may be little option, given most other reality shows can’t be made under social distancing rules.

    • I actually felt really good culling MKR from my viewing habits, this year, so far (and besides, “Survivor” ended up being far more entertaining, than both MKR and last year’s “Survivor” series). Life’s too short for awful TV, not when there’s actually plenty of decent shows on (moreso than ever).

  3. Dear God! I’m watching the reveals only, because the minute snippets l could stand to watch last night and tonight were unbearable.
    LLB is in fine form tonight, not even attempting to hide his disdain for his fellow judges. More reveals to come tomorrow night.
    Judge Saul appears to be, in more ways than one, to House Rules as Hayden is to Family Food Fight.
    Fairly woeful so far.

    • “Fairly woeful so far.”

      Yeah, I had it on in the background when I was sorting some old paperwork (another corona-quarantine chore that I’m taking the time to do now). It seemed pretty dismal. A bunch of no-hopers and bogans who have no idea what they’re doing, while LLB struts around like, well, like giant ponce. I didn’t mind his gimmick, at first, but after the last series, the dude’s a tool. I have no respect for him.

      I didn’t care for any of the teams or any of their problem. I won’t be coming back.

    • PollyB thank you for your excellent analogy. I have no intention of watching but now I know just how superfluous the new judge is

  4. Windsong, I too have been going through old paperwork. It’s pretty bad when the paperwork is more exciting than the TV show!
    I tuned in for a few moments but just can concentrate on it, I would tune in for the reveals but if they are anything like last year they seem to drag on for a few nights trying to keep people watching

  5. We lasted two minutes. Have now tried recording it to go to reveals as at least there is something to see, but given the comments here, doubt we will be pushing the Play button!
    Bring on masterchef.

  6. I don’t think I will bother doing new threads for this each week but if any due hardship want to give us updates, that would be great. The ratings for the premier have it in 12th spot, beaten by various news programs, Four Corners and Australian Story and The Chase Australia.

  7. I have now watched the first two, and tried to keep an open mind. I was going to go into my likes/dislikes in detail, but I think I will summarise, if I can.

    First ep: Apart from the team who went home (who did not save their “dignity” at all by behaving like two-year-olds) at this stage I quite like most of the teams, and I think they have cast quite well. Surprising, the girl who describes herself as having a RBF is quite appealing – I think she has common sense. Another surprise was the female presenter Abbey with the beautiful voice. Get rid of Jamie and just have Abbey as the presenter – huge improvement.

    Those are the good things. The bad (and they are big) summarised: Overdramatics; endless repetition of being there to have their house renovated (what happened to winning? and no mentioned of an ultimate prize? and a Finale back at that extremely ugly tower – what the?); endless repetitions of the same phrases (I know this has always been a problem but it seems worse); constant sexual innuendo and double entendres nixing the “family” feel of the show; false eyelashes and other body parts and overbuffed men, grabbing of bottoms; awful background music (I had the subtitles on, and the lyrics were yuk); the Gold Coast; the high rise building; calling the season High Stakes so that the pointless phrase can be churned out every ten seconds. Out of all these, it was the sexual overtones at every turn that really repelled me, also reflected in the house rules.

    Second ep: Better but still not. More reno, more about the teams with no definite villains or teacher’s pets yet. If you could ignore the terrible penthouse vibe, the first half felt more House Rules normal.

    Judges/Judging: I like LLB so no difference there. Kyly seems OK but I wish they would dress her better – she isn’t going to the Logies – again with all the fake stuff. The guy started with promise about being all about the quality of finishes, but so far he hasn’t made a single technical comment, and in fact has shown himself to be more “fashionista” than LLB. He needs to pick up his game soon or he will suffer that same fate as the other pointless “third wheel” judges.

    Re the contestants:
    I like the plumbers and I think they have great skills;
    Mother and son seem okay, but mum could become annoying;
    Twins are good tv but they could tone down the swearing;
    The couple with kids seem nice;
    Cheerleaders are out of their depth at this stage and could possibly be the ones who don’t move to the next stage;
    The friends – love George, Laith is going to be the clown/whipping boy obviously (pity about his foot preventing him from driving – hope that it temporary);
    RBF girl and her muscly boyfriend – I like her, he doesn’t have much personality yet.

    I have seen enough to make me want to go through to the houses stage, and it is mainly the contestants to thank for that. But the format of the show will need to really improve. I suppose that is what I am waiting for, a return to normal when they get to the houses.

    In terms of ratings, they have to find a sweet spot to keep the fans (mostly older and like the casual Non-Block vibe) while trying to attract the MAFS/Bachelor fans (with more bling and drama). I think they may fail with both unfortunately, and in the process ruin a good show. In hindsight, just a straight swap of Joh for Abbey and no other changes, would have been fine.

  8. I had another go at this tonight, although ffwded most of it. A number of the contestants do seem quite normal and possibly worth watching. I caught a snippety bit of Durie’s sidekick and she seems tolerable as well. I’m a bit over LLB’s old schtick, but he usually tones it down as the series progresses so there is hope there.
    I think I’ll have another go at it, but won’t really get engaged, if I do, until they get to the contestants homes.
    Happy Easter everyone. I’m still going to work each day which I’m happy to do, but really looking forward the Easter break. Enjoy 😊

  9. They’ve started the first home reno. I tried and I’ve failed. What I saw was monotonous argey bargey about taking space from others’ zones, not following owners wishes and impacting on others’ zone. I may watch the reveals.

  10. I have had to binge a bit to catch up, but that won’t be a problem from now on because I have watched my last episode of this season. I feel sad because it has been one of my favourite competition shows over the years.

    I thought the home reno would be better watching than the tower, and it was…a bit. But the reveal, from an entertainment POV, was terrible. It feels like they have ditched the best parts of the show (the homey feel, a good volume of actual renovation footage) and replaced it with 1. glamourising everything, 2. masses of swearing and innuendo 3. the Gold Coast and an ugly building and alcohol 4. endless questions about “how does it feel to…” 5. far more padding than before.

    As well, they have kept the parts of the old show that I disliked: scores that are inconsistent with comments, criticising teams for practicality yet praising horrible but “brave” design elements (bamboo walls and fake vines, anyone?), not penalising unfinished work enough, selectively editing to create villains and favourites, zones that appear hugely improved after the time runs out, contestants praised for structural elements decided by architects/engineers eg skylights, and reducing the value of houses by taking away bedrooms to create silly luxury spaces.

    The biggest hangover is the producer manipulation to bring the top team down to the bottom and elevate the bottom team each week. So obvious in the first reveal, with over the top praise for a dining table of the wrong size (one of only two elements in that room) and slamming a fireplace which was exactly on-trend and what you would see in any magazine. The judge’s comments and scoring was so fake. The two new judges are just meh, anyway.

    After watching this first round, I have lost the love for several contestants as well. Top of the list are the whining twins, who conveniently forgot their refusal to budge on the unnecessarily enormous ensuite, then whined for two days about “having to compromise” all the time, and then delivering a table that the owners will have to return to get a smaller one. Why would a couple without kids need a ten-seater anyway? And any dining table with a bench seat is an automatic fail. Plenty of options for a narrower, shorter table to get the same effect.

    Of four of the other couples, one is nice the other not so much. I like George, but Laith is a bit wet; I like the son of the mother/son team, but the mother is awful; surprisingly (because she was presented as unlikeable at the start), Tamara is one of my favourites while partner Rhys needs to focus more on building his personality than his body; Amy is fun, but for some reason Kaine is raising a slight red flag in me – I can’t describe a specific example, but my “sleaze” radar is activated. Dave is my other favourite, because he is no nonsense, speaks clearly, respectfully but without backing down, and refuses to be baited by the other teams. His wife is okay, but I can see her cracking under the stress eventually. As a team, I liked what they did because they were exactly right about there being no need for a fancy “hallway” or anything but a functional wardrobe.

    Which just leaves the “twist”. Basically a merge with MKR, that backfired this week because it made not one jot of difference in the end. I presume that the producers are hoping that in future weeks they can persuade a team to be “strategic” (the four-letter word that was flogged in the last season) in their voting. Maybe they will now that they know that their particular score is melded with the others and not identified. Still, this is one of the parts of MKR I didn’t like, so not happy to see it here. When they said there would be another score, I was really hoping it might be a viewer score instead. I think Tamara and muscle man would have won, and should have won this week.

    Final word (again) – a huge improvement would have been to ditch Jamie and just keep Abbey.

    Over and out for House Rules, and back to the love, love, love of Lego Masters!

    • I’m ffwding through reveals.
      “a huge improvement would have been to ditch Jamie and just keep Abbey’ – I agree
      I also agree about mum.
      I do disagree about Dave, and Tanya. I found myself saying , rather wankerishly, earlier ‘these two are wankers. Wankers of the highest order’.

  11. So, I’ve been keeping an eye on this, watching (ffwding) the reveals.
    We are down to the grand final.
    They have completed all contestant houses, eliminated two teams and now the grannie – 4 remaining teams have to build a house! They don’t get their yards done which I think is a bit of a bummer for them.
    On the whole this lot of teams were actually quite likeable. They seemed to like each other and helped each other. Granted I didn’t see much of them. I just couldn’t take to one couple though. I can’t remember their names lol.

  12. I watched, ffwded, the GF ep.
    This was actually a great idea – the teams fitted out a tiny house – metal box with windows – for a lovely man, Lionel. He’d had a bad run with health, lost his job and basically had nothing.
    The house looked lovely – as the judges said they balanced style and function. Although I love top line design, I am a girl who needs function in a home because why else do you live in a home and not a cave… Anyhoo, Lionel’s tiny house was zen, as per the rules, but I wonder where the vacuum was going to live.
    But Lionel was chuffed, so so was I. Except, this man who was overwhelmed that he now had such a lovely inviting home that he was speechless and in tears. And whilst exploring his new home the only company he had was the camera crew! Noone there to give him a little pat on the back, words of empathy or encouragement or a hug. Just the cameras in his face whilst he wiped his tears with his hanky. Yes, he was alone and needed the house, but the blatant exploitation of this lovely man was bloody awful.
    Upside, his life changed right there before his eyes.
    Twins Kimmi & Rhi from Tassie won. They deserved it, they were the best team from the start.
    The judge, Kyly Clarke, became deathly thin as the season progressed.

    • The female host is equally thin.It looked like they are competing who looks the skinniest on camera. I only watched the beginning though of the show, so if she got even thinner, that seems worrying to me.

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