The Block Sky High – Sun 6:30pm, Mon-Thu 7pm, Ch9
http://homes.ninemsn.com.au/theblock/
Time to check in with The Block: Sky High, or as I like to call it; The Block: Jenga Edition (Or, if you’re pressed for time, Blenga).

Last night, the teams were given the challenge of renovating a hotel room in a place that I am almost one hundred percent certain is haunted. So, be careful, guys. Ghosts don’t like it when you go swinging hammers around in their ghost-pads.

Rebecca and George are in the penthouse apartment, worried about some exposed pipes. Alisa and Lysandra – who are twins, or possibly one person standing next to a mirror – are in the next floor down, worried about whether I will spell their names correctly.

On the third floor, in the middle of this Block Sandwich (Blandwich? That doesn’t sound good) are Madi and Jarrod, who are in trouble, as Madi is feeling sick after working hard yesterday. Have we investigated whether or not this could be the work of… g-g-g-GHOSTS?!

On the next level down are Trixie and Johnno, our most experienced renovators (this is the nice way of saying “the old people”). On the bottom level are Matt and Kim, newly-engaged Western Australians. They already blew all of their money, not understanding how dollars work, because in Western Australia they use quirkiness as currency.

Johnno is having trouble on his level, because one of their tradesman poked open a water pipe with a drill. He’s just standing under it, catching the water in a bucket, and if Matt and Kim are really desperate for cash, now would be a really good time to grab his wallet.

Meanwhile, Alisa and Lysandra are having issues with a tiler, which is a really good argument in favour of just covering the floor in an unbroken sheet of Lego.

Later, Trixie and Johnno finally find the valve and turn off the water that’s pouring out of the broken pipe. Johnno – who, miraculously, still has his wallet – seems relieved.

He hangs around to keep working, while Trixie goes out to shop. Which means that, at this point, each team has one person at the building and one person out shopping. Coincidentally (?), each team (except for Alisa and Lysandra, who are clones) has the guy at the site and the girl shopping for lighting fixtures and whatnot. This would seem a little old-fashioned and sexist of The Block, if we hadn’t already seen the promos for the new season of Masterchef.

At Dare gallery, Bec is worried that nobody will deliver her furniture, but then somebody agrees to deliver her furniture (that’s literally all that happens, yet the show spends, like, forty-five minutes on it). While, back at the site, Madi is feeling worse, and eventually decides to go to the hospital. This leaves Jarrod to keep working by himself, without even a woman to go and pick out cushions for him.

Madi has been diagnosed with dehydration, and nobody points out that it may well be because Trixie and Johnno’s busted pipe drained ALL (probably) of the water out of the building.

Kim heads to a thrift shop, and the producers score this scene with the song Thrift Shop, because they had literally no other choice.  And now that song is going to be stuck in my head for at least two days. She picks out some bedside tables, which Matt doesn’t realise have to go next to the bed. What do they even DO over there in WA?!

Later, Alisa and Lysandra discover that their tiler has just walked off the job. Their plasterer offers to finish it up, because he’s a cool dude or possibly because he’s on TV. Or maybe he wants to sleep with one of them. Or, you know, maybe all of the above.

The next morning, Madi is back in action and the teams are finishing up their room and I’m gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket  (damn it! That song!).

Soon, the teams only have ten minutes left. With the magic of TV editing, this means that they can only complete another hour or two worth of work.

Then the whistle sounds, and the teams have to stop. Who will win this challenge and get their choice of which floor they get for the rest of the competition?! I don’t know! Somebody else will recap that episode.

Anyway, I’m just glad that we got through the whole episode without even one confirmed poltergeist incident. I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief on that one.