While last year’s season of was criticised by fans for “focusing on drama rather than renovations”, it was arguably the most entertaining season of the Channel Nine reality show to date. From Leah and Kristy’s on-again-off-again relationship to #Gnomegate when Leslie sold her gnome to Steph, viewers were constantly on the edge of their seats watching the personality clashes unfold. This season, viewers can expect to take a slightly different approach from last year.
A production insider tells that the popular series is pivoting from outright cattiness amongst the cast to tension within the couples themselves. This year’s drama was foreshadowed in Monday night’s premiere episode, with a majority of the five teams featured arguing in a teaser for the season. The Blue Team’s Paige was shown telling her fiancé Jesse through tears that he “never listens” to her, while The Red Team’s Courtney called her husband Grant an “angry little gremlin”, The Purple Team’s Mimi complained that her husband Kristian was acting “childish”, and The Green Team’s Kylie kicked her partner Brad out of the car.
“There is more conflict between the teams than ever before this year and audiences are going to love guessing which couple is headed to the 'divorce court' by the time we see them at auction,” the insider shares. “Every couple will be seen in some type of conflict throughout the season. The criteria for this year’s cast was pretty much ‘couples that love to bicker’.
Some couples’ love language is so unfiltered that you will wonder how they got together in the first place.” The insider adds that the way most of the season 20 cast communicate with one another is “pretty horrific”, and will “create an earthquake of conversation amongst married couples that will make them reflect on their own communication skills”. “This group of contestants are not coincidentally fighting on camera by mistake, casting would have picked up on that very early into the casting process,” our source confirms.
“It is very specific and extremely well executed, making each contestant compelling and exciting for viewers who want more than just building houses. Audiences will say they want more building but the creators know the wider audiences want to see people behaving badly, which you will see in spades.” This year’s season of is tipped to feature one of the most dramatic storylines in the history of the show when one team leaves the competition partway through filming.
revealed in April that the Blue Team’s Jesse and Paige decided to pull the pin six weeks into shooting the reality show as they buckled under the stress of the high-pressure environment. A production insider told us that “everyone was left gobsmacked when the Western Australian team fled Phillip Island”, and Channel Nine scrambled to find a replacement team. “Producers felt blindsided by their decision to quit.
It certainly wasn't on their bingo card when they cast the season,” the insider added. “This was supposed to be the wholesome, back-to-basics season of which viewers had been crying out for.”.
