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Intro

There is a quick re-cap of the concept of the show - a fictional reality has been concocted where everyone is in on the joke except for 27-year-old Hastings farm worker Sam Chambers. Nine actors, each adopting a readily identifiable stereotype, are there to push Sam to the limit in all sorts of extreme scenarios.

We meet each of the actors, and the characters they play, which you can read about here.

Getting started

Behind the scenes on the morning of the first day, the director is prepping the actors, reminding them not to overplay it from the start.

As he approaches the house in a limo, Sam expresses his nervousness at appearing on television. Sam is the first to arrives at the palatial beach front house where the "contestants" will be living and hovers by the pool.

Sarah Thomson as Tiffany the Ritch Bitch arrives next - Sam is impressed by her hotness and style.

Then Stephen Hall as Mule the SAS soldier arrives, along with Charlie McDermott as Ben the Best Mate. Both are impressed by Sam's genuineness.

Next to arrive is Victoria Blackman as Mary the Virgin, and Jason Fitch as Mick the Prick, followed by Awanui Simich-Pene as Rima the Schemer, who admits to being extremely nervous about meeting Sam.

Jeremy Birchall as Billy the Gay Guy is the next to enter and Kirsty Cooke as Betty the New Age Flake follows closely.

Mark Ferguson, the smug host, next cruises into the property on a horse(!).

He introduces himself and makes grandiose statements about where the reality show will take them. He also announces that in a few days, they will vote to eliminate the first contestant, and says that whoever is left at the end of the game will win $50,000. But along the way their will be challenges for luxury items and immunity from elimination.

Entering the house

The contestants are split into three groups of three, and these groups will be rooming together. Sam is placed with Mule and Betty. As they go in last, they get last pick of the rooms, and the only one left only has one double bed in it!

"Where are you two gonna sleep?" asks Mule.

With the housemates eating together at the table for the first time, Kirsty suggests a "breaking-the-ice" exercise involving everyone stating their pet hates. In an interview, Sam admits he didn't think this was a good idea.

Mick goes first - he doesn't like dogs, and says he thinks all dogs should be put down. Sam really loves dogs. Mick knows this. He relishes Sam's sheepish reaction.

Billy says he doesn't like the sea or big swimming pools. This concerns Sam.

The first challenge

The housemates gather around the pool in bathrobes for the first challenge. The voiceover states that it is rigged so Sam will lose.

The prize is sole use of the house's master bedroom, complete with en suite.

Mark explains that earlier that day they took an item of underwear from each person's belongings and replaced it with someone else's. Each housemate must parade in someone else's undies, and the others must try and guess whose they are. The person who gets the least correct must wear the winner's undies for a whole day! Sam is very nervous.

Sam sports some extremely small black women's briefs, and Billy goes commando. But after parading naked, Billy goes and stands right on the edge of the pool which Sam notices contradicts Billy's earlier statement about being afraid of deep swimming pools. Has Jeremy spoilt the whole thing in the first episode?!

Behind the scenes, we see Executive Producer Julie Christie discussing with the other contestants whether or not Sam could actually hack losing the challenge - they decide that he shouldn't lose.

Mark announces Billy as the winner of the challenge, and Ben as the loser. Sam is stoked he didn't lose.

Later in the living room, each housemate presents the luxury item they brought into the house - there are photos, journals, night-vision goggles and other stuff. Sam brought in a backgammon board that travelled through Africa with him.

Bed time

Before bed, Mark lays out some rules - no alcohol in the rooms, you may not leave the rooms, and you must sleep on a bed.

This last rule creates problems for Sam, Mule and Betty, as they only have one double bed between the three of them.

To circumvent this problem, Mule gets a mattress from across the hall and puts it on the floor to sleep on, while Sam and Betty share the double bed.

Day two

The next day, while Sam is confined to his room being interviewed, the actors go over the day's scripts - later that day there is a wet t-shirt comp that Sam must win.

In an interview, Sam expresses astonishment at Mary's willingness to wander around the house only in her underwear. Victoria, the actress playing Mary, also confesses to being uncomfortable doing it.

While eating, Billy accuses Mick of breaking house rules by coming into his room the previous night.

Mick denies it, but Billy retorts "Don't f**k with me!"

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna f**k you" is Mick's reply.

While some housemates chime in, Sam does not say anything during the argument. Some of the other housemates take note of this during interviews, observing Sam probably doesn't like confrontation. Sam says in his interview that it wasn't his argument, so why would he get involved?

But a little later, Mick reveals to Sam that he did perve on everyone last night with his goggles, and says that Mary wore less than her undies in bed.

"I don't wanna know," says Sam, slinking away.

The second challenge

The housemates gather around the pool in their robes. Again. This challenge is called the "Wet T-Shirt Celebrity Bomb Challenge".

The contestants must do a bomb in the pool and splash a floating model's chest with water to reveal an under t-shirt featuring the first name of a celebrity. The winner is the person who is able to reveal the first name and guess the second name in the shortest amount of time.

Sam jumps in first, reveals the name Colin on the model's chest.

"Colin Meads!" is this true blue country boy's guess. Nice one Sam, you're a legend.

"Uh, correct" says host Mark.

The rest of the contestants struggle to do pathetic bombs and get the names wrong so Sam can win.

The supposedly water-phobic Billy is going last - and he's all freaking out and stuff. Sam offers some encouraging words, and helps him out of the water. But Sam offers in his interview that he thinks Billy got over his phobia too quickly, and thinks he is playing up the drama for TV. But we know better don't we.

Sam is the winner, and the mystery prize is that he exchanges rooms with Billy. The producers needed Sam to win so he would go into the master bedroom where he would be isolated from the actors.

This need is heightened by an earlier incident where Sam asked Mule if he has his PADI (dive certificate) and Mule didn't know what he was talking about. The cover was almost blown.

"These people seem extreme," says Sam in an interview. "Extreme personalities. I feel like I'm a lot quieter than they are".

No kidding!

Busted

While eating dinner, Mark busts in and informs the group that someone has broken the rules - it's Mule for leaving his room to get a mattress the previous night. His punishment is having to sleep on a tiny fold out bed.

Betty leaps to his defence, citing Mule's bad back, but Mule stops her and attacks Mark's judgement on this matter angrily. This is all making Sam very uncomfortable.

Ben observes in a confessional that he thinks Mule's actions at this time were unrealistic. Mule talks to the camera about an incident earlier that day where he referred to something that had actually happened during rehearsal. Again, Mule almost blows his cover.

Sam observes than many weird things are happening, and Executive Producer Julie Christie admits that if she'd known the standard of Sam's observational skills, she probably wouldn't have hired him for this project.

 

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