Joanna Hunkin meets the team behind the successful reality show
KEY POINTS:
Standing on the dusty bank of Mason Rd in Hawera, a chain link fence surrounds two houses in the distance.
They're not much to look at from the narrow country road. Just two grey boxes, side by side.
As you head up the gravel driveway, alongside a barren paddock, a padlocked gate prevents any further access.
You can catch a glimpse of the lawn, a deck and a fence, but that's about all. It's hardly the stuff of fantasy.
But for two families, it is exactly that. The houses are this year's do-ups on Mitre 10 Ultimate Dream Home (TV2, Mondays 7.30pm) and behind the locked gates, sit their perfect residences.
For three months now, both houses have sat completed. The tables are laid, beds made up and the towels hang ready for the first shower. But no one has been allowed to set foot inside.
The yellow team _ Quintien and Misty Calder _ have steered clear of the address, not wanting to taunt themselves with a dream that may not come true.
Next door, the blue team _ Nikki Burnside and David Croy _ have made regular visits, staring longingly from the fenceline at the house they want so badly.
With a four-month wait between building completion in December and the live final on April 7, the drawn-out process seems sadistic. But producer David Baldock is adamant it's a small price to pay. After all, one of the teams is going to get a free home and this year's houses are the most valuable to date.
Set on bigger sections, with prizes up for grabs each week, this year's series was rebranded the Mitre 10 Ultimate Dream Home.
Despite the somewhat ominous name, Baldock is confident this will not be the last season of the series and suspects we will see a 10th anniversary special next year.
The ratings certainly reflect a renewed interest in the series, with more than 605,000 viewers watching the debut episode this year, compared to just 470,000 in 2007.
After nine years on air, the programme has seen various changes, including growing from a half-hour episode to a full hour. It has also gone from screening in October and November, when the houses were still being built, to its current position, screening from February through to April.
Aside from the prolonged wait, the scheduling change created another spin-off _ the teams no longer see themselves on telly while they are still filming.
"In the old time-slot, you would hit episode seven and be on-air. The dynamics within the team would change because they'd start to see the outcome," Baldock explains.
These days, everything is in the proverbial can before the teams realise quite what is happening, as Nikki recently discovered. "All of last week I sat there cringing," she says, recalling the hall and laundry episode. "The whole episode I looked like an idiot.
"It's hard. You're vulnerable. You've been up all night and you've got a camera in your face. You've got to try and act normal but if the camera wasn't there you'd just throw a complete paddy."
Nikki might be feeling a little red-faced but she can rest assured, she has not been the series' worst-behaved competitor.
After nine years of hosting the series, Jane Kiely has witnessed all sorts of histrionics.
"We've had some pretty crazy people," she laughs. "I've got to be very careful because if there's going to be conflict or drama, I don't want to interfere with the natural course of the show.
"If I start putting fires out and it's not captured on camera, then I'm not doing my job right."
While this year's biggest dramas have been between Nikki and interior designer Shona Carr, it wasn't all smooth sailing for Misty and Quintien, whose dream home had to accommodate their six children, all aged under 12.
"Our biggest battle to start with was convincing them of little things that we really wanted in there," recalls Quintien.
"We've got six kids, we know what we need."
In particular, the experts had a hard time understanding Misty's burning desire for a scullery which is created on the next show.
Quintien's dream didn't fare quite so well _ the keen basketballer was desperate for a full-size court but he eventually had to concede it just wouldn't be possible.
Back across the fence, Nikki and David also learned to adjust their expectations.
"We came to terms with the fact the architects didn't have a lot of time to come up with what they needed for council requirements and that. A lot of things we first considered just had to be dropped," says David.
But the final outcome is just perfect, says an excited Nikki, who is clearly besotted with the house.
Which only reminds you how cruel this show is. For the house is not hers and may never be. Last year, the losing team was outbid at auction and they had to stand by as another buyer laid claim to their dream home.
Eventually, they were able to purchase the house with some help from TVNZ and the sponsors, but there is no guarantee that would happen again.
As Baldock says, there is no second place prize.
"The team that wins, wins the house and contents. They win the lot. The second house goes to market ... There are no givens."
LOWDOWN
What: Mitre 10 Ultimate Dream Home
When: Mondays, 7.30pm, TV2
Who: New Plymouth couple Nikki Burnside and David Croy take on parents of six, Hawera locals Quintien and Misty Calder.
