The Block 2018: Teams introduced to The Gatwick, St Kilda in series return

Giddy up, folks, The Block is back. And like every former lover returning to your life, it’s showing off its new, improved assets in a bid to tempt you into its tender embrace for another 12 weeks.

We’re shown the vibrant cafe strips of St Kilda, Luna Park and the beach in classic seduction of the televisual kind. Sucked in, viewers, we’re at The Gatwick – the 58-room, 1937 hotel that lost its lustre in its most recent iteration as a rooming house.

“It’s the biggest Block ever,” says host Scotty Cam, in a traditional overstatement that he has used for the past few seasons… but this time, he says, he really means it because in terms of a construction project, this is the biggest.

As Cam stands atop the Gatwick where two new penthouses will be built, which surely no one will want (I jest, natch; I once stood on a St Kilda rooftop and realised all my previous real estate ambition was wrong), we meet our five teams. Let the games begin.

Norm and Jess

First up, it’s Norm and Jess, a Sunshine Coast builder and radio announcer. Parents of two, they say The Block is the biggest challenge of their lives. Surely the bigger challenge will be returning to Sunshine Coast quality coffee.

A couple who clearly aren’t above bribery, they pledged to name a new baby they could afford from a prize on The Block after our host. Oh dear.

Jess rocks up to The Gatwick with all the nerves of a first date. We’ve all been there, but perhaps not here. “We were pooing ourselves,” she said.

Sara and Hayden

Our next couple Sara and Hayden have been on screen less than five seconds and already there’s tension when flight attendant Sara doesn’t want to do a U-turn in the car because she’s wearing heels. Her construction manager partner, Hayden, 13 years her senior, sighs.

We fast-forward a few weeks (way to spoil the surprise, Scotty) and Sara has already lost it; screeching: “I’m over it, I want to go to my sister’s wedding; I don’t have time to deal with this shit.”

Back to day one and she declares: “We’re the A-team here, you can’t get any better than us.” Ronnie and Georgia eat your heart out.

Jess and Sara decide straight away they will be friends. I guess that will last about 2 weeks, or until the first room reveal.

Kerrie and Spence

Kerrie and Spence, the token older couple, from the Barossa are introduced but clearly their back story is not so compelling we must hear it right now.

Bianca and Carla

Now to the celebrity for the season: We see Melbourne team Bianca and Carla walk along a beach, because why not when you look like this?

“Absolutely we can win,” says Bianca. “We’re not doing it for a fun time.”

The only person who did it for other reasons was Amity Dry of season one, and the less said about her singing career is the better. Bianca reckons they will be underestimated because they’re two girls.

Hans and Courtney

Now our final couple: pilot Hans and flight attendant Courtney. Within 10 seconds of meeting, Hans is singing for us which is less than ideal. Hans, keep it for the cockpit please.

We fast forward to him [SPOILER ALERT] being told by foreman Dan to pull his ceiling down. Cue tears. It’s the second promise of tears in less than 10 minutes and I’m already wondering why Kleenex isn’t on board as a sponsor this year. Wait. Then there’s more tears from Courtney. That’s three bouts in less than 10 minutes … but who’s counting?

Hans is shirtless in his intro package, which is good fodder for the senior female demographic … and anyone else who fancies a buff, bald pilot (I know a few male fans of that genre.)

Hans and Courtney could be the good looking couple, say Sara and Hayden … which I thought was funny until Sara says: “not as good looking as us”. And she laughs in that way that people mean when they want you to think that they’re humble, but they also want you to know that they’re telling the truth. How exhausting.

Excitement quickly turns to horror as the couples examine their life choices and what they’ve contractually agreed to participate in for the next few months – and they see a dead mouse on the floor.

Then another flash forward to what to expect this season: besides tears and tiffs of course. There’s lots of sledgehammers, glimmer and a few cutaways of the judges … and a lot of yelling. And repeated threats of leaving the show. Drama! Then the bad news from judges… “soulless, fallen apart, rip it out”.

The couples walk through the old rooms as Jess declares that two toilets “is what rich people want”.

Up to the roof, and the teams are briefed on what’s to come this year. They’re shown the renders of what the finished project will look like, including the penthouses where nothing is going on right now.

So who goes where? A 48-hour bedroom makeover challenge will decide it but here’s the twist: it’s a kids’ room. Norm is already doubting Jess’ interiors research. But they’re on the money: they rate their chances as less than zero.

Dealing with wet carpets and smelly old furniture, the contestants start to feel overwhelmed, especially Kerri and Spence who “don’t want to be seen as those monkeys who got onto The Block and failed”.

Hayden and Sara choose not to take the old stuff out of their bedroom and go looking for somewhere to sleep. Can’t see that lack of time management backfiring on you guys at all. The Block is for work, not sleep. Sleep when you’re dead.

The teams start to plan their aesthetics and labour as, dear fellow viewers, I ponder how this show will take up our lives for the next three months, and how I’m glad I’m not decorating a kids’ bedroom because kids are notoriously picky and will either hate what’s created straight away … or the week after.

And now the show briefly turns into Perfect Match, sans Dexter, sadly, as Bianca and Carla discuss Sara and Hayden’s builders, who objectively are big and attractive.

“Maybe that’s an incentive to stay back late at the site,” says Carla.

Kerrie and Spence run a bed and breakfast and after just three years of meeting, they bought a property, later featured in Grand Designs Australia magazine, which is more of an achievement than many other couples in their first three years of a relationship.

Spence has made the big call to be the builder on this site which is interesting given he’s not a registered builder. They’re planning for a coffered ceiling which seems a big commitment on 48 hours, but then again, I think a big commitment is spending $30 on Uber Eats.

Elsewhere, Norm grapples with size issues (his plaster and other building materials), Jess grapples with parking issues, Carla and Bianca pull together a championship team and Spence has a crisis of confidence as the time constraints bear down on him.

Sara and Hayden, if they hadn’t already, are showing real signs of being this year’s Ronnie and Georgia as Sara bellows at Hayden, asking him to explain which room he meant the sandpaper was kept in. What a treat. And the other couples are already enjoying it.

Jess struggles with directions, admitting she’s “hormonal” just seconds after Kerrie told us a little bit of wee came out when she thought she’d lost her credit card. There is already a lot of oversharing and it’s only night one. Can we even cope with three more months of TMI?

Carla loves flatpacking, and has told Bianca as much, but she quickly regrets doing so as the expectations pile up. Bianca refuses to help in a wise gesture for the future of their relationship.

As the teams pull their first one-nighter ahead of the first room reveal, they slightly do around the bend at a time when many others in St Kilda are firing up Tinder (and other apps). Pray for our Block contestants. Rather than spending the night in a St Kilda penthouse, they’re just competing to build one – for someone else to live in.

There is no justice on The Block until auction day. But we’ve only just started.