outback house is the house of dreams

It’s fair to say that a lot of things annoy me, you know, just in general life. But today my brain has thrown up something in particular and I need to let it out. Bearing in mind that Channel Ten has only in the past week axed the truly heinous Big Brother after ten seasons, how is it possible that there has never been a second series of the truly brilliant Outback House?

It’s been three years already. PICK UP YOUR GAME ABC.

Now that was a cracker of a show. To explain the premise, well, there’s not much to explain. If you can’t figure it out then I’m surprised you can work the internets. A whole lot of people get sent to a house – in the outback, funnily enough – and have to live like it’s 1861. But since it’s the ABC, none of the reality TV contestants are exotic dancers or have personality disorders. (Wait, maybe one does, but he leaves, so whatevs). That’s kind of a first for a reality show.

Because it’s an ABC show, there are also no prizes. Aunty doesn’t belive in competition. But what it does have in common with every other reality show is the sheer unadulterated joy of laughing at your fellow human beings. Part schadenfreude, part cameraderie.

Laughing at their ridiculous circa 1861 costumes. Laughing when they have to get up at 5am to cook breakfast. Laughing when looking after sheep is Just Too Much for one boy and he has to be sent to grow vegies. THE SHEEP! THEY SCARE ME! And perhaps most amazingly of all, laughing when the adorable boys on the show are actually intentionally genuinely funny. Because if there is one truth we can all acknowledge about Australian men, it’s that if you put them in a group, they will make you laugh. Boys will be boys, so to speak. One truth that is lesser known is that this humour will only be heightened when they are busy trying to figure out how to put on long johns and build a sheepdip.

And in the grand tradition of other ABC stalwart shows like Australian Story, Outback House will make you cry like a bitch. My family has successfully banned me from watching Australian Story because I inevitably become too emotional, but even they loved this show too much to cut me off. IT’S WORTH THE PAIN. I would try and explain how utterly heartbreaking it is to watch shepherd Bernie’s adopted baby lamb Ali struggling to hold on to life without a mother, but then I’d cry again and I have non-waterproof mascara on. Ok it seems just mentioning it is enough because I’m teary now. After three years the cut still runs deep. Intern Brownie, bring me a hankie?

But I think most unexpected of all was finding out that Outback House is also code for Hot Man Factory.

Not that the boys were mountain trolls when they were selected for the show (and re: that, thanks ABC production staff!) but riddle me this. The Paul Newman of the whole enterprise, also known as Peter: hotter before, or after?

Before:

After?

I REST MY CASE. Had women known that the 19th Century outback was so conducive to hot bitches, perhaps Australia’s inland country would have been populated more densely and speedily. In much the same way that pretty much every man alive is hot wearing chaps and competing in the PBR, it seems every man is hot in 1861 costume.

In fact, I would like to suggest that the NSW government begin financing a state-sanctioned Outback House rehabilitation centre for Ksubi warriors and other assorted metrosexual inner-city dwellers. Their families can then stage interventions for their troubled sons and send them to the outback to regrow all their missing body hair, get a little dirty and have their lady sunglasses crushed in a special vintage machine. It’s just Scientific Fact that all men are hotter when they’re sent to the outback. It is also Scientific Fact that it makes women uglier, but that’s ok because I don’t plan to live in authentic 1861-era conditions and problems that don’t affect me are by definition not problems. Bring on the new season I say, so I can stalk the participants. Yessssss.