What the Block just happened?

They were meant to be “$2 million apartments”. They were meant to make a small fortune for the contestants who would receive the difference between sale price and reserve.

But in the end, three couples will feel they made less from three months of agony than they would have earned if they had sold their sponsor cars. They will also feel that they gave Channel Nine a whole lot more than they got back.

The much-hyped renovation ratings juggernaut is fond of a name-based pun, and in appropriate fashion, The Block Glasshouse auction, in its last half-hour, descended into a complete Block up.

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Much like Election Day for politicians, on auction day all the bluster and hyperbole from agents amounts to nothing as the results speak, and in some cases scream, for themselves.

On Sunday night it quickly became clear that what these results were screaming from the top of a three-story building was that the experts who set the reserves, as well as the series’ judges – Shaynna Blaze, Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer – had no idea what they were talking about.

Darren and Deanne Jolly.

Perhaps if the producers had spent a little less time on the dramatic five security guards running through maintenance tunnels and smashing down walls reserve reveal, and a little more on calculating the actual reserves, they might have saved their judges some embarrassment as well as an awful lot of heartache.

Despite the variation in size, vantage and design, three of the units were assigned reserves within 100k of each other including the biggest (Chris and Jenna, $1.5m) and smallest (Darren and Dee, $1.4m), while Karstan and Max were seemingly punished for their “secret” room as they copped a reserve of $1.7m.

While questions must be asked over the ill-conceived reserve prices, the units that didn’t sell well were also the ones most beloved of the Block’s design gurus.

In Friday’s Block Unlocked episode, the trio were divided over whether Max and Karstan or Michael and Carlene would win when pressed to predict the champ.

Maxine Stokes and Karstan Smith.

All three were vociferous in their praise of Darren and Dee’s seamless design. After their work on the sixth apartment, all three couples were also awarded the biggest chunks off their reserve. Yet all three failed to earn anything like the profits that had been anticipated. Instead they were destroyed at auction.

By contrast the consistently harangued Chris and Jenna (as Scott Cam put it “in the history of The Block no other couple has come dead last so often”) walked away with a cool $310,000 – though only after the dramatic highlight of the night as their apartment went to a third call with the bid balanced right on their reserve.

The Coffs Harbour brothers, often chastised by the judges for their cheap furniture choices, took the crown – and the $100,000 bonus for coming first – in a far less dramatic auction that netted them $335,000.

Chris and Jenna Susetio.

In reality is seems purchasers didn’t care about perfect plant placement or plentiful pillow scattering, they just went for size and architecture.

Three months of design later, the big prices went to the largest and second-largest apartments, which you might have thought would have been reflected in the reserves.

With regular advice from real estate agents, the champions enlisted the best auctioneer and made one crucial assumption: that people buying apartments valued over the $2 million mark would already own furniture.

“It’s the architecture that we put money into and that’s where our effort and our budget went,” Shannon Voss said in the lead-up to the big day. “Anyone who buys this is going to have very expensive furniture already purchased.”

Perhaps they should have a word with the show’s “experts” who on this evidence should probably be left out on the curb with the unwanted furniture.

The third auction, for Karstan and Max’s apartment, marked the moment the bottom fell out of The Block market as their north vantage and bookmakers’ favourite status earned them $40,000. It also marked the start of the race to the end of the finale as Nine’s production team broadcast the last three out of five auctions in a fraction over 30 minutes.

By the time of Darren and Dee’s auction, the music was literally funereal, the bids were reduced to $5,000 increments and once their paltry $10,000 profit was revealed the clearly emotional couple walked out without a word. The producers didn’t know how to build drama without dancing on graves, so they gave us a montage.

Michael and Carlene Duffy.

There is a fine line between the sort of human anguish that makes for reality television triumph (and fantastic ratings fodder) and a form of televisual torture that can put audiences off. That line hasn’t been crossed this series, rather it seems that in the vastly reduced build time for The Block Glasshouse, no one even installed it. This was a car crash that bordered on unwatchable.

“It’s like cash in our pockets,” said Darren Jolly when discussing the incentive on offer over the last fortnight: money taken off their reserve. He was almost entirely correct. He just failed to add “as long as our apartment sells for more than that.”

It didn’t. In fact, had the couple not reduced their reserve by $30,000 through their efforts on a second apartment, theirs would have been passed-in.

Michael and Carlene’s should have been, but instead the auction was paused and one bidder calculated exactly what he needed to do. The result was another $10,000 profit. This was a disaster and the victims were the ones who had done all the work. These were people who had spent months away from young children in the hope of changing their lives.

The potential for 12 weeks’ backbreaking and soul-destroying work being undertaken for zero gain was always real. In 2011, Polly and Waz were the only couple to take anything home as three out of four houses failed to sell.

Yet only this year in The Block: Fans vs Faves, Brad & Dale took home a cool half-million despite finishing last. This time last year Johnno and Trixie were rewarded with $205,000 after coming fifth in The Block: Sky High.

Since that one controversial series, the reserves have been low enough to ensure everyone walked home a lot richer.

Until now. As the show limped to its conclusion winners Simon and Shannon were in genuine tears of empathy for their comrades. The rest were speechless.

Still, there is only one guaranteed winner with The Block, and that is Nine, who in a year where singing talent quests have faded in the ratings have reaped great rewards from staging two series of the renovation series which is still a consistent ratings powerhouse.

As for Darren and Dee, Michael and Carlene and Karstan and Max, given the hours they’ve committed to the show, they arguably each earned something under the minimum wage.

What a Blocking waste of time that was.

On the plus side, Darren and Dee are strongly rumoured to be part of the next Block series which Scott Cam half-heartedly plugged at series’ end and Dee has established herself as a potential design consultant.

Karstan and Max got a free wedding and Michael and Carlene have the satisfaction of knowing they scored the most points, and both couples have earned huge fan-bases.

Michael also got in the last word and it was a good joke considering: “But seriously, I am looking forward to Gotham.”

Unfortunately there was no super-hero to save the innocent on this occasion.

The Block Glasshouse results in order of auction:

TEAM                         APT     RESERVE     ADJ. RES.      PRICE        PROFIT

Chris & Jenna             2          1.5m             1.5m            $1.81m     $310,000

Simon & Shannon      4          1.575m        1.565m        $1.9m        $435,000*

Karstan & Max           3          1.7m             1.67m          $1.71m     $40,000

Darren & Dee             5          1.4m             1.37m          $1.38m     $10,000

Michael & Carlene     1          1.4m             1.38m          $1.39m     $10,000

* Includes $100,000 prize for first place.