“This is the start of the journey…” One of the contestants as a countdown displays on screen with a montage of shots of the training to come…

First proper shot is of the new contestants being revealed as a roller door comes up. The contestants then file into what looks to be an aircraft hangar. Why’re they trying to make them look smaller right at the start of the series!

There’s an array of TVs set up with pictures of previous contestants and they stand around in the center. Then a mysterious shadow comes strutting towards them. And the shadow is Hayley Lewis! Cue rapturous applause from everyone. Woo!

Apparently it’s not really an aircraft hangar, it’s actually where the previous Finales have all been staged. It’s looking pretty empty at the moment though.

One of the women comments that seeing the replays of previous contestants brings it home to her, that it’s really happening, etc.

Hayley tells the new crop that the previous contestants have lost a combined total of 3,000 kilograms. Yikes!
And in 4 months time, Hayley says, that will be them.

Hayley starts tearing up a bit as she tells them they’ll find parts of themselves they don’t even know exist yet.
They’re called feet, Hayley.
She says that was the most important piece of advice she got during her swimming career. When it came down to it you’ve got to dig down deep and it’s going to be a positive journey for all of them!

Wait, Hayley’s journeying too? But she’s not fat!

“I know you’re hurtin’…” Yup, Noll-y is back for another year, too!
Then the various couples come up on screen and oh boy, there’s some goliaths this year!

Wayne and Geoff are the first couple introduced. Coach and player. 20 years ago they were fit men, now they get puffed crossing a field.
They get sent off… with a cake, from their “friends”. Hmmmm. Weightloss, you’re doing it wrong!

Wayne’s start weight: 161.5kg
Geoff’s start weight: 161.6kg

Fairly even start and obviously not among the heaviest of men!

Allan and Romi are a husband and wife team. They need to lose weight so they can have a baby. Uh-oh.
Romi’s staring into a mirror looking at her immense belly and says she wants to look into a mirror and see a belly with life inside it.
She has polycystic ovary syndrome, which is common among overweight women, and makes it difficult or impossible to conceive a baby.

Allan’s start weight: 155.8kg
Romi’s start weight: 99.3kg

Really? Romi’s not even breaking 100kg at the start? Sure, she’s small, but geez.

Jenni and Phoebe are next. Aunt and niece. Though Phoebe says Jenni is more like a mother to her than an Aunt.

Phoebe’s start weight: 116kg
Jenni’s start weight: 130.6kg

Phoebe’s the current “worst makeup”. Just ahead of Jenni. Phoebe has lime green sparkly eyeshadow, Jenni has faint purple eyeshadow.

Joe and Rick are 20 year old twins!
Wait, twins is only exciting if they’re not fat. And are women.
They’re each their own worst enemies. If one eats a lot then the other tries to eat more. One of them has put on 60-70kg in two years. Yikes!
They think they’ll be really competitive, a strong team who won’t just lay down.

Rick’s start weight: 172.6kg
Joe’s start weight: 179.9kg

Wowsers!

Jarna the Principal and Lisa the education assistant are next. Their relationship is a boss/employee one but they both need to lose weight.

Lisa’s start weight: 121.9kg
Jarna’s start weight: 118.8kg

Not too bad, though Lisa bursts into tears.

Elise and Teneale are next. Twin sisters. TWINS.
Oh, right, we went through this.
Both are quite pretty in the face but in the requisite underpants shot… Wow, they’re quite large!
Though the scales don’t really reflect it…

Elise’s start weight: 104.6
Teneale’s start weight: 97.4kg

Not too bad at all, they must be quite short.

David and Phil are two big funloving Dads in their forties who’re missing out on their children’s youth.
Phil thinks the hardest bit will be coming home to his wife and not having lost the weight. His wife is quite the catch. More so than David’s wife at any rate!
They’re both quite upset about having to leave their families but hopeful…

Phil’s start weight: 146.9kg
David’s start weight: 165.6kg

Caitlin and Daina. Are sisters. Not lesbians. I am disappointed.
Daina’s worried about Caitlin as she keeps getting bigger and bigger and hoo boy, the underpants shot shows she’s huge…

Daina’s start weight: 105.2kg
Caitlin’s start weight: 179.4kg

Caitlin is now the heaviest female they’ve ever had. Ouch.

Chris and Shannon are best mates. Chris has recently been diagnosed with the diabetes.
And it’s not surprising when you see his body with no clothes. He’s carrying a hell of a lot of weight around his gut. His legs look quite well proportioned by comparison.
Shannon’s significantly larger. He says he’s at his biggest ever. His stomach hangs out and over his belt line by a really large amount.
He says to his… wife? Girlfriend? That this is all he’s got, it’s got to work.

Chris’ start weight: 128.9kg
Shannon’s start weight: 214.3kg

Shannon’s the heaviest contestant in the competition this year. By a fair margin, too. Joe of the twins group is second with Caitlin ever so slightly behind him.

Your body works better with Burgen. Hi Michelle!

Michelle is also there for the first shot back from the break. No sign of Shannan, however.
Hayley says they’re in a race for their lives. And this year they’ll be literally running the race of their life. In 3 months time they’ll return to the track they’re currently assembled at. For a 42 kilometre full marathon.

Wow. I knew it was coming but it’s still… ambitious. As Hayley says right after I finish that thought.

And then Hayley says for the eliminated contestants winning the marathon is their one and only chance of getting back into the competition. So much for no twists!
But as Jarna points out, that’s a big carrot for people who get eliminated to keep up with their training on the outside.

Hayley says they’re going to get a taste of what’s ahead – they’re going to do the last 4 kilometres of the marathon. “Believe in yourselves and do not quit. Quitting is no longer an option for any of you.”
They’re told to go get changed and she’ll meet them at the starting line.
Shannon is concerned he’ll die. He struggles to walk 200m ordinarily, so he doesn’t think he’ll be able to do 4km.

Michelle says you can smell the fear from 200m! They’re people who’ve done no exercise for many years.
Shannan tells us it’s not only a physical test, it’s going to test their commitment, desire, determination and guts!

Even Shannan looks nervous before the race.
And then someone optimistically fires a starting pistol.

Chris is trying to drag Shannon along and Shannon says sorry to him. Chris says don’t apologise because he doesn’t give a shit about his apologies!

Caitlin’s feeling “disgusting” before 2km are even up. She starts dry heaving while Daina rubs her back. Caitlin wants to get there but her body’s just caving in. Daina’s being very encouraging though and Caitlin says it’s a big help having her there.

Meanwhile Shannan’s helping Shannon continue walking along with Chris. Shannan says Shannon is struggling a lot, his mind is starting to desert him. He’s let his body go so much and his mind is gone as well.
Finally Chris and Shannan can’t hold Shannon up any longer and he falls down.
Shannan continues trying to encourage him and they try and help him back to his feet. Shannon says he’s trying but he can’t push up any harder. Shannan tells him to slow down and start believing in himself!

Phil, David, Joe and Rick are right up the front of the field towards the end of the race. The Dads give the youngsters a bit of a hurry up as they go past. The youngsters rally and get back past the Dads in the final 100m.

Joe and Rick’s finish time: 37mins. For 4km, given their size, that ain’t half bad!
Phil and David come in at 38mins.
Phoebe and Jenni come in at 41mins.
Allan and Romi at 42mins
Jarna and Lisa 44mins.
Elise and Teneale 45mins.
Caitlin and Daina manage to make it in 7th place with a time of 1 hour and 11mins. Daina seemed to be doing it fairly easy but you could tell Caitlin had given it everything she had.
Wayne and Geoff come in 8th with a time of 1 hour 16mins. Geoff says everyone at the finish line calling his name made him want to lift even more.

Shannon, meanwhile, is down and out beside the path they were struggling along. Shannan’s concerned he won’t even make the 500m mark.
That’s quite scary. How can he possibly keep up with the regular training if he can’t even do that?!

After an ad break Shannan repeats what he said before the ad break – the task at hand had overwhelmed him. Shannan offers him an out – get to 1km, and you’re done. He tells us that’s an impressive feat for Shannon to achieve anyway.
They finally manage to get Shannon up onto his feet and he bursts into tears. And nearly falls back down. Shannan asks him if he realises what he’s done. And Shannon says he’s changing his life!
Chris says he would’ve been shattered if Shannon had given up.
They finally get the 1km sign in sight and Shannan makes Shannon walk the final 10m without support. It’s a huge struggle but he shuffles his feet and makes it!

Shannan remarks that he finally had something to be proud about.
Shannon thanks Shannan for not letting him give up and Shannan says that he’ll never give up on him.
“So how’s your journey going to be from here on in?” “Hard. But I’m going to do it.”

Shannon gets a ride on the cart through the rest of the 4km but he and Chris walk the final 200m or so. Chris is bouncing along beside Shannon keeping him pumped up.
Final time? 1 hour 54mins. Not great, especially since they cheated! Lots of applause from the other contestants though.

Looks like they’re back at the new Camp Biggest Loser, not the White House. As a fan of the new house over the old, I am pleased!
Hayley welcomes them all to their new home for the next 3 months.
Cue montage of last year’s training. And Hayley talking about them being pushed to limits they didn’t know they had, etc.

One last thing to tell them before they go in.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! The Nothing/Double bracelets are back. For the love of god, cram that shit back into whatever hole it was pulled from, please!

Jarna says it’s like a really cool school camp!

Everyone wanders around checking out the amenities and the previous year’s winners and losses and so on.

Then everyone is checking out their bedrooms, decorating and so on.

Then Allan and Romi enter their room and hey presto, the husband/wife team has the bracelets. Ugh.
Same rules as before – double bracelet at the end, you win double the money. Nothing bracelet, you win nothing.

The Nothing bracelet is going to… Shannon. Who then struggles up out of the couch. They chose him because of all of the people there he most needed to lose the weight and the Nothing bracelet may provide him some protection.

As for the Double bracelet… Allan’s going to keep it. Not so much for the money but because he couldn’t put the target on someone else. They don’t want to wear it but they couldn’t live with themselves. Shannon says to us that it was a stupid idea because why put a target on yourself.
Hey look, a fatty with a selfish outlook on life. What a twist!

Michelle and Shannan have already started putting them through their paces, though we don’t see much of that for some reason, just black and white montages.
And now it’s time for the first competitive weigh-in already. What? Okay.

Hayley informs them all that the two couples who fall below the Yellow Line will be up for elimination. So soon!

First up is Shannon and Chris.

Chris’s current weight: 120.5kg
Loss: 8.4kg

Shannon’s current weight: 200.5kg
Loss: 13.8kg

Total: 22.2kg – 6.47%

Fist bump! Shannon’s got a sparkle back in his eye, Hayley says.

Next up Allan and Romi.

Allan’s current weight: 147.7kg
Loss: 8.1kg

Romi’s current weight: 94kg
Loss: 5.3kg

Total: 13.4kg – 5.25%

“Oh. My. Gawd.” Romi’s very excited about her loss. She says it’s awesome to be her right now!

Jenni and Phoebe’s turn.

Phoebe’s current weight: 108.9kg
Loss: 7.1kg

Jenni’s current weight: 122.4kg
Loss: 8.2kg

Total: 15.3kg – 6.2%

They’re now in second place and Chris and Shannon are now safe!

Jarna and Lisa’s turn.

Lisa’s current weight: 113.2kg
Loss: 8.7kg

Jarna’s current weight: 110.3kg
Loss: 8.5kg

Total: 17.2kg – 7.15%

Wow! They’re even more stoked once the percentage is revealed. They’re now at the top of the leaderboard and safe!
Hayley asks Lisa what Tegan and Chelsea (her daughters) would be thinking right now. She says they wouldn’t be thinking, they’d be crying. Hayley looks like she might cry. Maybe. That robot training must be coming in handy!

Joe and Rick’s turn.

Rick’s current weight: 157.8kg
Loss: 14.8kg

Joe’s current weight: 167.6kg
Loss: 12.3kg

Total: 27.1kg – 7.69%

Even more wow! They’re now in first place.

Teneale and Elise’s turn.

Elise’s current weight: 97.6kg
Loss: 7kg

Teneale’s current weight: 88.4kg
Loss: 9kg

Total: 16kg – 7.92%

Whoa! Extremely impressive for an all-girl team to not only put up good numbers but put up better numbers than an all-boy youngster team!

Wayne and Geoff are up now.

Wayne’s current weight: 147.1kg
Loss: 14.4kg

Geoff’s current weight: 147.6kg
Loss: 14kg

Total: 28.4kg – 8.79%

Wayne pumps his fist at just edging out Geoff!
And they’ve also knocked off the twin girls by a handy margin.

David and Phil are up next. They need to have lost a total of 19.4kg between them to stay above the Yellow Line.

Phil’s current weight: 135.1kg
Loss: 11.8kg

David’s current weight: 149kg
Loss: 16.6kg

Total: 28.4kg – 9.09%

Crikey!
Allan and Romi have now been pushed below the Yellow Line and will be facing elimination!

Caitlin and Daina are last of all. 17.7kg is what they’ll need to stay above the Yellow Line…

Caitlin’s current weight: 164.2kg
Loss: 15.2kg

Daina’s current weight: 96.5kg
Loss: 8.7kg

Total: 23.9kg – 8.4%

That’s an amazing first week loss for both girls. Caitlin’s just set another new record – most weight in kilos lost in a single week by a female!

David and Phil topped the charts. David has set TWO records – 16.6kg is the most weight any contestant has lost in one week. Also the best weightloss percentage in one week. David admired Wal, who previously held the record, so he was quite happy to have beaten him.

Two couples below the Yellow Line – Jenni and Phoebe, Romi and Allan.
Ouch, Romi and Allan have got to be regretting keeping the Gold bracelet now!

Lots of nice words from everyone saying everyone tried their best.

Tomorrow night, ELIMINATION. Who will be first to go?
Also a gruelling challenge. Looks like they have to dig up a dinghy and then set sail in it?
They also face their deepest fears. And in the weigh-in… Hey, that’s Phoebe flopping over. Well, I guess we know who’s going tomorrow night!