The new Blockheads were always going to have their work cut out at The Oslo. It’s twice the size of The Gatwick – the building renovated in the 2018 season of The Block – and host Scott Cam tells TV WEEK the site in Melbourne’s St Kilda for the upcoming series was “100 per cent the toughest renovation we’ve had to date”.
Scott also hints that one team might not make it to auction!
“We thought it’d be alright, but then we started to think it was too big and that we’d gone too far,” Scott, 56, says. “But I kept saying to the contestants that I only needed one team to finish and that would mean [the renovation] was possible. It certainly broke people early on.”
Scott dishes the dirt on what’s to come.
Scott says his construction team ran into trouble from the get-go.
“Our team, who have to get ahead of the contestants, were finding it hard to keep up. The sheer size of the spaces and the high ceilings in the original building made it tough all round.
“And we discovered early on in the series, before the contestants moved in, that all the floors had to come up. We had to remove all those and underpin the walls too. That wasn’t anticipated.”
Not surprisingly, some of the contestants couldn’t handle the pressure.
“There are a lot of people talked off the ledge on this series,” Scott reveals.
Viewers can expect plenty of fireworks between Scott and the Blockheads too.
“There was frustration from the contestants,” he admits. “Everybody gets a bit argumentative when they’re lacking sleep. I was under pressure too. We had a few meltdowns throughout the series.”
The Oslo will prove to be a challenging renovation for the Blockheads.
But are any of the contestants as fiery as last year’s winner, Sara, who threatened to walk more than once?
“Probably a bit worse than Sara!” Scott says with a laugh. “The blow-ups were pretty full-on. Certain people didn’t listen to what I was saying and argued with me when they didn’t know what they were talking about. That’s a recipe for disaster.”
While some of the new Blockheads this year have more experience – “stylish grandads” Mitch and Mark have already appeared on Aussie Property Flippers and have 15 properties under their belts – Scott says it’s impossible to predict what will happen come auction time.
“They’re all very different properties,” he explains. “I never pick a frontrunner, because I’m never right!”
