No villains on The Block
Do Reality TV shows cast villains? Not on The Block, says producer Julian Cress.
- Published by David Knox
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It’s a question that has often been asked: Do Reality TV shows cast villains?
Yesterday, co-creator of The Block Julian Cress (pictured, right) told ABC 774’s Jon Faine, his show did not.
“We can but the difference with our programme I think is that we don’t eliminate people,” he explained.
“In most shows at the end of every week someone gets to go home.
“We do that right at the beginning of the series in the first couple of nights. But once you get on The Block you stay on The Block right until the end.
“So that means when we are casting the show, we can’t really cast people who are villains. We can’t cast people we don’t like because they’re just not going to make it. The audience won’t stick with that.
“Of course the audience chooses people … who are the villains. But usually we have 4 nice couples and they choose the one that they like the least.”
Asked about the ability to portray people in a good or bad light, he replied, “Yes absolutely.”
It comes at a time when The Block has been criticised about selective editing by one of the cast members.
Cress acknowledged the show films 3,000 hours of television of which 55 hours are put to air.
He also said while the show was created by himself and David Barbour many years ago it was done while they were employees of Nine -meaning Nine owns the format. However David Gyngell had been “generous” in sharing royalties with them.
Lastly, when questioned about the actual construction work, Cress said: “Our contestants hire real builders to come in and build for them. They are Project Managers rather than actual builders.
“So all of the work that’s done on The Block is done by registered builders with the assistance of the contestants.”
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6 Responses
But, they do have favourites. For me, the villain is the terrible top 40 music that permeates every second of this show.
Uh I guess they don’t remember the three from Sky High that were mean to the twins & matt & kim.
But it i refreshing to not see a villian as such on this show. There usually is one on every show.
New Judges would be good I think. Or maybe just the normal 3 and a guest each week?
There has been a few articles on the block lately not just here but other sites, I’m guessing they are doing some damage control after Steve’s FB post.
Talking about FB posts almost every single post on The Blocks FB page has been how either the show is rigged, they need new judges or the editing sucks.
The Block producer reckons that the difference with the Block is that there are no eliminations or villains! The big difference with the Block is actually that it mostly rates 500K less than MKR so maybe it’s time to add some villains and some eliminations!
Uh, Keith much?