Well Margie was working up a sweat and this time it was not through exercise. She thought she had everything covered if she was nominated by the white team the young pups, but when it was revealed the white team would be the only one voting she knew she could be vulnerable. Lucky for her, Selena was peeving everyone off, and also even though they dragged it out for the whole episode the girl from the Northern Territory ended up quitting.

Tiffiny basically told her that Camp Biggest Loser was a prison, and said Selena could not go until she was told to go. WTF? She can quit anytime she wants. However they wanted Selena to make it to the elimination room. However for Selena I suspect that will be the end of her weight loss regime because if you can’t be motivated in the Loser house where can you be motivated? She did lose 31.6 kgs which is a lot, hopefully she can keep that off until the finale.

Simon was struggling this week, even though he is getting a bit of romantic action in the house with Lisa. He said if he had known it was going to be this tough he would not have come on the show. Commando showed him some footage of  his sons and why he came in.

Also Tiffiny had a heart to heart with Michelle as she said she was struggling as well. Michelle put it down to having to prop up Selena, however it must have been about Hamish being eliminated. She can do so much better then him.

I suppose they had to try and put some drama in an episode where the person to be eliminated was known in the first five minutes.

The other thing was unfair was the tug of war, there was no way the young team was going win against a team with three males on it. Even ninja Tiffiny helping them out could not save them. They could have at least given them Commando.

Anyway it was weigh in time and there were some good figures lost.

Old dogs weigh in results:

• Alex lost six kilos and now weighs 123.3kgs;
• Lydia lost  lost 5.1kgs and now weighs 106.6kgs;
• Graham lost 6.1 kgs and now weighs 166.9 kgs;
• Lisa lost 1.7 kgs and now weighs 83.1 kgs;
• Simon lost 6.4 kgs and now weighs 128.9 kgs

Their total weight loss percentage was 3.99%.

The young pups team weigh in results were:

• Selena lost 3.8 kgs and now weighs 131.9 kgs
• Margie lost 5kg and now weighs 121.8 kgs
• Kasey lost 2.3 kgs and now weighs 104.2 kgs
• Michelle lost 600gms and currently weighs 85.8 kgs

The pups were comprehensively beaten and Selena was “voted” out.

Meaghan Trattles who was on The Biggest Loser on 2009 with her mother Julie lost 36 kgs on the show, however just three years later she is 106.6 kgs nearly the weight she was when she went on the reality TV program.

She told New Idea that she kept the weight off for two years after the show but after her parents split up and had a messy divorce the weight came piling back on.

She said she fell into her old unhealthy habits – drinking every night, ordering take away and ditching exercise.

She also said that she felt helpless and worse than when she appeared on the show.

In the interview she said:

‘[With The Biggest Loser] you’re completely cut off from the outside world and you don’t know how to deal with life as well. I couldn’t put the balance together outside the house,’ she says.

Meaghan tried dieting to shift the weight, but when she failed to lose the unrealistic numbers she did on the show, she gave up.

Personally I think it is a bit harsh blaming the shows weight loss techniques for her putting on over 30 kilos considering she had managed to keep it off for two years.

Anyway she is now going to participate in another Biggest Loser contestants program to help her shift the weight. Adro Sarnelli who won Season One holds six-week retreats called The New Me, which concentrates on the reason why people gain weight, not just how to lose it. She tells the magazine she aims to lose 30 kgs by her 30th birthday in April. I am presuming that is April 2013.

Photo from OK Magazine.

You know it’s going to be a dramatic episode when the programme guide promises “one of the contestants discovers the Trainer’s Bunker and gets to see some of the CCTV footage of what’s been going on in the kitchen”. Right? Right? “Sometimes I feel like saying Lord, I just don’t care…”

The Walk

Simon’s choices this week are food, power and THE SECRET. Simon is stunned – this Secret thing is new! At all previous Walks it’s been the Mystery. Help me out here… those two things are essentially the same in this context, aren’t they? Anyway, he’s going to choose secret and will not so much discover the Trainers’ Bunker as be led straight to it, right? At least, somebody will.  The card reads: “Choose one contestant to learn The Secret.”

We cut to team discussion and Lydia doesn’t want Simon to have the information. So was there a clause that said that The Secret had to be kept? This would be handy for the viewer to know right about now…  Alex and Graham are confident Simon can handle the information. Lydia admits to wanting it for an advantage in the game, and tries to psych Simon out by hinting that it might make a win in the game seem less honourable. She and Simon fight it out the tried and tested way – via rock/paper/scissors – and Lydia wins.

Lydia meets with Hayley and acknowledges that Simon told her about power, responsibility and other stuff that we as viewers did not see. Shock! It’s the Bunker! Didn’t see that coming, did we? Lydia’s Bunker privileges will be revoked, along with consequences SO MASSIVE that Hayley can’t even articulate them, if she tells anyone about it. When she returns to her fellow-contestants it becomes clear that none of the others have a firm grasp on what the word “secret” actually means.

Challenge

The trainers arrive and they are not wearing trackies today. Lydia says that she feels underdressed, which is weird, as Michelle is wearing a red tank top and ripped jeans. There will be a surprise cook-off. At least, it’s a surprise for the contestants – we saw it advertised yesterday. Kasey is disheartened as she doesn’t cook. The Old Dogs will face off against the Young Pups over a tasty three course meal of 1000 calories or fewer, prepared in 60 minutes.

Lydia is head chef for the Old Dogs and her team gets behind her ideas. She immediately segues into TV Chef mode, describing everything – everything – as “beautiful”. Michelle takes the lead for the Young Pups. Both teams feel that they have come in well under the 1000 calorie mark.

The judges like their meal from the Old Dogs, raving about the dessert in particular. Commando lets Michelle eat the oysters from the Young Pups and seems to check with her that it’s alright before he tucks in. Unsurprisingly, Commando likes muscles. Sorry, MUSSELS. Despite this, the Old Dogs win.

Temptation

Contestants are asked to dress up and arrive at a food-free temptation. To even teams up, an Old Dog is asked to sit out and Lydia takes this option. The remaining contestants have to enter a sort of speed-dating competition where they need to demonstrate their confidence and charm to four strangers in 90 second interactions. The ring-ins then vote for their favourite.  The team with the most votes gets a night out at the Bathers Pavilion and the individual with the highest score gets immunity. Alex interviews that he suspects Michelle will win, Kasey nominates Alex and Lisa stands by her man. Awww.

Michelle seems to do well for the Young Pups, and Graham is the only Old Dog who really seems uncomfortable. The Young Pups take out the win with 13 votes to the Old Dogs’ 11, which surprised me. The winner of immunity will be revealed… tomorrow. Along with a “surprise” Michelle-Hamish reunion.

Fallout from Selena’s vote kicks the episode off with Hamish saying his goodbyes to Michelle. Shannan and Tiffiny are shocked to find out that Selena voted for Hamish. As Shannan leaves, he interviews “I’ve had enough, it’s game over, I’m out of here” as though he had a choice. Dude, you had no team left! Anyway, that’s been a tortuous opening segment – my recorder is at the 18 minute mark before we get into Hayley’s “welcome to a new week”.

Hayley has a couple of cute labradors with her as she welcomes the contestants – an “old dog” and a “young pup”. Teams are divided according to age:

• Alex, Lisa, Simon, Graham, Lydia
• Selena, Michelle, Kasey, Margie

Given that the teams are unevenly divided, surely it would have been fairer to put Lydia on the young pups team – they need somebody to offset the drag that is Selena. Michelle is excited to have Margie on board. Hayley advises “just like these dogs, you’re going to have to stay hardworking…” to the footage of the older lab lolling in the grass.

Commando and Michelle will train the old dogs and Simon anticipates a world of pain. Michelle thinks the added maturity will help them defeat the youngsters, who are surely additionally handicapped by having Selena on the group. Tiffiny assigns Margie to Selena as she recognises Margie’s work ethic. While they’re off running stairs, Tiffiny debriefs with Michelle and Kasey regarding Selena’s decision. The group comes back together and Selena, predictably, storms off once she’s had enough. Blah, blah, Selena-coddling ensues.

Contest – Brains, Endurance, Skill

Kasey takes on Lisa in the brains challenge for “the calorie is right”. Just like The Price is Right but ordering food by calorie-value. Given that the chosen team-member is allowed to confer with their team-mates, it’s hardly necessary to have chosen a representative at all. It’s difficult – nay, impossible – to make this challenge at all interesting, but what with ad breaks we are with it for what seems like ages. Eventually the Old Dogs win it.

For the endurance round, Michelle takes on Lydia. Who can do 100 sit-ups fastest? For some reason, the Old Dogs’ win in the previous round means they start off, which seems to be a disadvantage rather than a reward. Lydia gets through her 100 sit-ups in 2’42″. It’s impressive, but it’s not exactly riveting television. This contest was never going to three challenges – we should have been tipped off to that by all the unnecessary follow-up of Hamish’s elimination. Michelle completes the challenge in 4’05″ and breaks down in tears.

Simon takes the walk for the Old Dogs. Margie interviews that she’s never trusted Simon and hopes that it won’t be too negative for her. What will happen? Who knows.

Today is a day of decisions. After his win at the rock-breaking challenge, who will Graham choose to go trainer-less? And at weigh-in, will the Reds stick to their promise to choose Simon rendering all of Margie’s “or will I?” cackling as pointless misdirection.

We’ve had since Thursday to ponder this and so, without much* further ado it is revealed that Hamish will lose Shannan until weigh-in day. He takes to training solo with an “I’ll-show-them!” conviction but is he really trainer-less here? I mean, Shannan pops along and gives him the kind of pep talk that in some circles could be construed as training. Now there’s a man clearly fighting for his place in the competition.

Over at the White team, Tiffiny is training the girls into resilience. Two of them, anyway… Selena is nowhere to be seen. As they prepare to return to civilisation (as represented by Camp Biggest Loser) Tiffiny takes a last opportunity to try to wring some heartfelt declarations from Michelle over Hamish. She even busts out a tablet to show Michelle the footage of Hamish practicing his declaration under Shannan’s tutelage. This is really awful. When Michelle finally has a bit of a cry, I’m sure it’s partly in recognition of the way they are being manipulated.

Weigh-in

Shannan makes a last-ditch attempt to save his job by claiming that the Blacks and the Reds have an alliance. I really don’t know what his end-game is with this revelation. It’s not as though Hayley’s going to reveal a rule that says “no deal-making” and overturn any weigh-in results, right?  So he just comes across looking petulant.

Black
Simon was covered by his Temptation immunity, which was just as well as his weekly losses were, well, weak. Alex dropped a little and Graham’s 4+ kilos made him their biggest loser, but with an overall low percentage. Disappointing results, but once again they have set themselves unobtainable targets and are now being flayed for not reaching them.

Red
The Red team’s losses were enough to put them in the lead.

White
Selena kicked off the White team’s weigh-in with a loss of only a couple of kilos, at which the other two started to look a bit nervous. Fortunately the Gym of Life really paid off for the Kasey and Michelle with their losses taking them to the top of the charts.

Blue
Hamish needed to lose 3.4 kilos to stay above the line, and weighed in at 3kg under his previous weight, putting him up for elimination.

Elimination

Despite the Blacks having a rule that the lowest percentage-loss will go up, Graham has a better idea. He knows that if the teams vote on loyalty lines it will be 3-3 and that the person eliminated will be the one with the lowest percentage. Therefore if Alex goes up against Hamish, Hamish will stay, but if Graham goes up, Hamish will leave. Simon declares it a “risk” but they go through with the plan.

As predicted, the first votes go Red for Hamish, White for Graham. Selena takes her turn to vote and she decides to stick it to her team-mates in voting for Hamish, taking him to three votes and making him the Biggest Loser loser of the day. Any bonding the whites did in exile – and I doubt there was much – has surely been undone. Does Selena need to ensure that she’s on the outer with her team so that she can collect examples of being bullied for her motivation? I can’t see a reasonable explanation for her behaviour, given that Hamish was gone either way.

Tune in next time for “old versus young”! And Selena can now work alongside Margie and declare her encouragement to be bullying!

Oh, and bye-bye Shannan.  Now you can go and monitor Luke’s progress.

*well, five minutes or so of pointless recapping

Hope you all managed to get some sleep following the cliff-hanger ending of the previous Biggest Loser ep. I know I struggled. The tension around that standing-still challenge! The drama when Hamish pitched into the water! The horse-trading between Margie and Simon! We need wait no longer… or, at least, not too much longer, what with unnecessary “previously”s and “coming up”s… to find out who won.

Simon is the one to lose his balance when they shift to one foot, but he’s confident Margie will respect their deal. Seriously, she only has a choice between the blacks and Hamish, right?

Power

Margie has to make a decision between Food, Training and Mystery. She is determined to make Hamish suffer. She chooses Mystery. “Select 1 person who shall not have their ‘weigh-in weight’ included in their teams total weight percentage for this week.” (sic) Hayley advises her to choose wisely, which seems redundant. Oh, and Hamish can’t be chosen, she adds. I think that should have been made clear from the start. He now seems to have a secondary immunity by virtue of being alone. The Reds don’t need to decide until weigh-in.

Back at the house, Hamish thinks he’s vulnerable. Little does he know… Margie returns and reports back and Hamish can’t help but look smug. Grrrrr. I wonder if Margie’s considered whether she can choose a Red, if one of them looks to have floundered this week? Hayley didn’t mention that, did she?

Scheming

Shannan heads to the bunker because I suspect he is really enjoying the voyeuristic nature of eavesdropping. Perhaps he will quit this Loser game and join ASIO – they always seem to be recruiting… He wants to see if he can confirm his suspicion that the Reds and the Blacks are allied and Margie certainly provides him with all the evidence he needs for that. He probably doesn’t have to suffer through the montage of Hamish taking Temptation, though. That has been added for our edification. Anyway, Margie has a plan: to stop Hamish taking Temptation, she will give Simon the exemption from the weigh-in. Margie interviews, evilly, that she could change her mind after Simon goes on a calorie binge. Will she?

Training

Shannan heads off to confront Hamish, who admits to not training in the mornings. Shannan responds to his emotional outburst by calling him a pussy. This is not a strategy I’d recommend when dealing with a shaky psyche, but I’m no über-trainer. After riding a kilometre in a minute fourteen on the exercise bike, Shannon declares him unstoppable. Well… okay. As long as his confidence is evidence-based.

Tiffiny visits the Whites to introduce them to the “gym of life”! Woo-hoo! I hope no wildlife was harmed. There could be some residual trauma from all the screaming. Maybe a Bondi Vet crossover?

Commando heads into the Black training session with a montage of their weigh-in failures bouncing around in his mind. Such is his mad power, he’s able to project that onto our screens. It’s a Graham-intensive session.

Temptation

A trail of Ugg Boots, arrows, surfboards, cricket bats and other “Australialiana” lead our contestants to Temptation. No flies on Hamish, he thinks there might be a theme developing. There is!  A semi-circle of barbies awaits our contestants.  Some have food under the lid, one has a Microsoft package, and one has immunity. If immunity is not taken it stays with Hamish, who seems to be perfecting that smug look. Simon is the only one to play. Hamish interviews that he didn’t play because he thinks something might be going on between Red and Black *cough*Shannan*dobber*cough*.

Simon’s first barbie is a 566 calorie burger. What else will he need to eat? Aaargh – another sleepless night awaits!

I knew I was in for disappointment with this episode. The website promised that a team would be banished to a “baron campsite” and, whilst I hoped that this meant a costume drama crossover (or, at the very least, an appearance by The Dictator), something in the back of my mind warned that the homophone bug had struck.

My recording missed the first part of the ep so I just had to rely on my powers of observation to figure out the result of the eviction. Bye, Bek. Fortunately I tuned in just in time for the middle of the night wake-up as the trainers “shake things up a bit”. Tiffiny hasn’t seen “the hunger” in this year’s contestants, so maybe they’ve snuck in more than some illicit booze. I love that Margie thought that she might have been dreaming about Michelle, given that she’s a “pretty lady”. Shannan reveals his literal side – the competition needs a “wake-up call”.

There is a lot of screaming as Shannan decides the contestants should have mastered push-ups from their toes by now. He then picks on Kasey as the group practices their planking technique. This part really annoys me – Kasey is one of the few who is actually trying to do this properly and a couple of times he calls her out for dropping the pose before she actually does. Meanwhile, the others are all over the shop with their form, unless they were supposed to be attempting downward facing dog.

Commando does some screaming at Graham, which motivates him to do some push-ups but not to open his eyes. Lydia receives acclaim for her power and they all seem to think they’ve done a good night’s work. The appearance of Hayley on the beach raises some eyebrows and they are told they need to race back to the camp. By the time they are running, it’s light, so this has been an epic.

Margie does a pretty amazing job at motivating her team in the race. Hamish shuffles along consistently in true Cliffy Young style but is not able to defeat the Reds. The Black team have Selina in their sights but it’s a bit tough on Alex with his leg in a brace. Still, he digs deep and gets past Selina who fails to respond to Tiffiny’s encouragement.

So, now I guess the Reds get to meet the Baron! Um, no… they are to choose a team to leave Camp Biggest Loser “immediately”. “For… good?” asks Lydia, in a mix of shock and hope. Nah. Just until the next weigh-in. “They won’t be training, eating or sleeping (at all? Seriously?) here,” continues Hayley, confirming that their new environment will be the bush! The Reds decide the White team won’t cope without showers, and banishing them has the added bonus of splitting up Hamish and Michelle (so they are adhering to the relationship script here).

Whites head off to play with leeches and pitch shelters. They sleep on eskys and tarps, wrapped in mosquito nets.

Contest: Reds, Blacks and Blues play Last Man Standing. This is so Survivor. Teams choose a pole-stander and the last one standing will “take the walk to power”. Hamish looks around, then nominates himself. Margie takes it for the Reds and Simon for the Blacks. Rivetting television, this. Margie starts chatting to Hamish about Michelle and we get a montage of Hamish/Michelle clips as filler. Well, it has been an hour and a half. The left side of the platform is removed at this point, and at two hours the right side goes. Hamish’s feet hurt and the only thing that stops him from calling it quits right there is an ad break.

Margie trots out the “world of pain” cliche about Hamish a number of times, going on to describe all the body parts she thinks he’s feeling it in. After three and a half hours and some deal-making between Margie and Simon, Hayley decides that the two out there could stay all day. It’s on to one foot and… out of time for the episode. Tune in next time to find out who won the gripping standing-still contest!

Excess Baggage may have failed to capitalise on the relentless in-cricket promos, but it does seem to have taken one victory.  The Sydney Morning Herald reports that audiences are down for The Biggest Loser and places the blame on Nine’s (now Go’s) rival weight-loss show.

”Much of the damage on Ten was Nine’s failed program strike of Excess Baggage. But it completely derailed Biggest Loser, [thus] robbing Ten of a peak evening springboard,” Mr Allen said.

Excess Baggage was relegated to Nine’s digital channel Go! after just two weeks on air, but even after it had been shifted to a lesser channel the audiences failed to come back to the Biggest Loser. ”Viewers just didn’t come back [to Biggest Loser]. Perhaps it highlighted to viewers that it [the genre] is just not vital to their viewing,” he said.

Is this a likely explanation? Or is this “singles”/men vs women season just not engaging?  Ten must be looking forward to the launch of Masterchef to win back some eyes in the evening time-slot.

After the teaser in the papers at the beginning of The Biggest Loser series viewers finally got to see who was expelled from the house for drinking alcohol.

Luke was told he had to leave has he got drunk in the house, something that is not allowed, but also more disturbingly it was his behaviour change that may have been the thing that got him punted.

He became aggressive, swearing and arguing and did he also slap someone on the butt?

He was put into lockdown and when Shannan came and talked to him he offered to leave the house. Did the producers let him go with some dignity by making it seem he offered to go?

Luke admitted he had alcohol issues and it was something he had to deal with this outside the house. However all of these contestants would have some kind of addiction or mental health issues due to food being their “drug”.

Obviously not condoning his aggressive behaviour but shouldn’t they try and address this inside the house?

It was weigh in time as well and everyone lost big numbers, even Hamish who had been eating himself to immunity. Now he has lost his last team mate he will struggle.

The red girls continued to kick butt, and were safe from immunity. And it was the white  team and black team who had to face elimination.

Bek was the surprise nomination from the white team as she thought it was agreed that Selena was the one all her team mates were voting for, and Graham was up for the black team as he had the lowest weight loss percentage.

However viewers will have to wait until tomorrow night to see who goes or in fact if anyone goes.

For the full recap and fabulous analysis of the episode see Injera’s Blog Post on it.

The advertising today promised drama. The worst thing Shannon has seen in the history of the show, in fact. “Nobody can behave like this and think they can get away with it!”. What could it be? Hmmmm, well, there was that story weeks back about the booze…  You might think you’d get away with a sneaky drink, but the Hallway Cam sees all, you guys.  And the bunker in which Shannon reviews the tapes is very impressive – nothing is going to get past his super slo-mo.

He is shocked by Luke’s behaviour – slurring his words and stumbling. “He appeared to be drunk.” I’ve never noticed this before, but Shannon’s delivery is very similar to Ramsay’s (minus the swearing, that is): clipped sentences, urgent tone. The white team and Hamish interview that Luke owes them an apology and wonder whether he’ll be kicked out. Shannon’s purposeful stride toward Luke’s lock-down door (oh, and the narration that told us “SOMEBODY WILL BE EXPELLED!”) suggests that he will. He confesses to drinking a “full bottle of alcohol” which answers Shannon’s “how much of a problem is alcohol to you?” question, in that clearly the bottle wasn’t just a stubby.

Luke says his farewells and promises that he will continue to work on his weight-loss and see them at the finale at his goal weight. Shannon will be with him every step of the way on the outside which… how? He didn’t say “literally”, though, so I guess there’s some wriggle room.

Back to the competition and it’s last chance training. The white team has to break it to Tiffiny that they have a 4kg disadvantage from their challenge loss. Kasey throws Selina under the bus for her lackadaisical digging efforts and Selina responds by accusing the others of bullying her. Tiffiny’s solution? Work it out in the dojang. I think that’s her solution to everything – she has faith in the healing power of suppressing your true feelings and smashing stuff. Short-term, sure, she acknowledges that. “The girls will have all the time in the world for real therapy once this is over” is probably her thinking here.

At the black team, Commando is getting a bit sick of Graham’s whingeing. Selina should spend a day training with Commando if she thinks her team’s communication style is “bullying”.

Red team tries to fake Michelle out over the challenge result but they don’t do a very good job of it. They are disappointed that she doesn’t reward them with an easy session.

Weigh in

Blue Team

• Hamish: 127 – lost 5.8kg -4.37%

Red Team

• Margie: 129.7 – lost 6.6kg
• Lisa: 86.7 – lost 4.4kg
• Lydia: 115.7 – lost 6.6kg
• Team loss 5.03%

White Team – they need to lose 27.5kg

• Selina: 138.5 – lost 6.9kg
• Kasey: 111.4kg – lost 4.5kg
• Michelle: 91.3kg – lost 2.5kg
• Bek: 107.1kg – lost 3.9kg (This means that they wouldn’t have been safe even without the penalty)
• Team loss 2.96%

Black Team – they need to lose 23.6kg to beat the Reds

• Simon: 136.5kg – lost 7.4kg
• Alex: 131.6kg – lost 7.6kg
• Graham: 177.9kg – lost 6.8kg
• Team loss is 4.66%

There are some big numbers dropping, but it goes to show how unrealistic it is for contestants to set goals like 8 and 9 kgs. Instead of being pleased with their results, they are lamenting their failures to meet their target.

Black and White face elimination. Graham puts his hand up for the black team (“It’s the honourable thing”). Bek, Michelle and Kasey seem to have an agreement to oust Selina.  Selina votes for Bek as she thinks she can continue on the outside. Bek returns the favour as she doesn’t think Selina is working to her full potential and it seems that the alliance is holding. We don’t see the other votes right away, but it is Bek who walks in the door with Graham, much to the surprise of the waiting Reds and Hamish. She says she’s been blindsided and we flashback to see Kasey and Michelle voting for her after saying that their alliance was solid.

In relationship news, Hamish and Michelle and Lisa were heavily quizzed by Hayley on their feelings for their new partners and confirm that things are going well for their respective relationships. How much does Hayley have to push the relationship questioning, though? And why didn’t she ask Simon about Lisa? Nauseating. I know this is “Singles” and it must have been a delight for the producers when contestants paired up, but just let it happen. Please.