'Rigged': Fans furious over The Block stars' 'major misstep'

The favourites for The Block 2020 top prize have seen their good fortune turn bad this week, after a major misstep on the program over the weekend was slammed by judges and fans alike.

Front runners Jimmy and Tam may have been the judge’s darlings so far, but their delivery on a combined living and dining space on Sunday evening was a decided flop, after they decided to forgo one half of the challenge, the dining room, altogether.

Working with a more constricted space than their counterparts, the Brisbane couple decided to ditch the dining altogether, swapping a table and chairs for an extra-luxurious living space.

For the family-sized house the contestants are working on, the judges felt that it was simply not practical to skip out on communal dining space.

“I’ve seen more living space in small apartments,” judge Neale Whitaker pointed out upon inspection. “This to me feels incredibly compromised for a main living area … this is not adequate for a house of this size and this value. It’s really not.”

“It’s not another living zone that they need, it’s a formal dining area,” fellow judge Darren Palmer argued, later adding: “In a family home when you’ve got four or five bedrooms, and an entertainer’s kitchen, I think it is a massive, massive misstep.”

“What were they thinking?” Shaynna Blaze wondered.

It seems the judges didn’t come down as harshly in their point assessment however with the pair still rewarded 7.5 points out of a possible ten by Shaynna.

Darren and Neale both gave them a seven respectively.

Fans rage over ‘rigged’ final scores

The numbers on the board that had some fans seeing red, arguing their failure to fulfil one half of the brief should have been more penalised.

“It’s getting ridiculous - they’ve literally only done half of what was asked and still get high-ish points?” one fan wrote on Twitter. “How rigged can it get?!”

“They are the favourites,” another agreed. “It’s ridiculous. Deserved a score of 4 or 5 at most.”

“About time Jimmy and Tam are called out for their terrible choices and poor quality attempts,” another wrote.

“Is this The Block or the Jimmy & Tam show??” another wondered.

The criticism comes as this year’s season of the hit renovation show is dogged by ongoing accusations of cheating and underhand behaviours.

Earlier this month, contestants Luke and Jasmine, who have already been accused of copying someone else’s design once this season, were slammed for choosing a near-identical piece of furniture to someone else’s.

Daniel and Jade were left frustrated after their curved Christian Cole-made fluted timber island bench didn’t appear to be as unique as they thought when two days later Luke and Jasmine a very similar curved fluted wooden island bench.

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