As usual guest judges and our hosts Manu Feildel and Pete Evans will, as Manu pronounces it "bland tyste" (that's blind taste) the dishes. For entrée Jac and Shaz are making sautéed chicken livers with crispy prosciutto, caramelised onions and port. What, no nice Chianti then? For main it's tea-smoked duck with fennel puree and cranberry sauce and for dessert, lime and coconut sorbet with pineapple and meringue.

Eva and Debra are sudden death round veterans so the question now is can Jac and Shaz handle the heat or will they be kicked out of the kitchen?

"Timing Jac. I think that's going to be our nemesis," says Shaz taking no prisoners. "Those girls should have a handle on this Jac. They've got no excuses."

Eva is confident. "I've got a feeling our food is gonna come out on top." Is it ever wise to be so confident before you've even cooked a morsel? Their entrée is crumbed fish cakes with mango chutney; pork vindaloo with spiced eggplant and raita for the main and mango pudding with coconut sago and white chocolate mousse for dessert.

Each team's desserts have hit some hurdles. Jac is experiencing the first of many curd-tastrophies of the night with her lemon curd for their dessert coming a cropper; Debra's white chocolate mousse is looking lumpy.

"To me, it looked grainy. It looks like rice pudding," says a shocked Steve from the sidelines. Really Steve? You must have the X-ray vision of Superman!

Eva and Debra are stressing out over their entree. "Our ingredients are flying left, right and centre," says Eva. "It's chaos and we're panicking big time." But Shaz's bread she's cooked for her and Jac's liver entree is looking "A-MAZING" and also "looking ridiculous." Nope looks pretty much like bread to us. It's at this point you realise some earplugs would come in handy for the very Aussie, very high staccato at the end of almost everything that comes out of Jac and Shaz's mouths. As time's up, Eva surveys the food-scrap laden bench before her in dismay. "I've never worked so messy in all my life. That's so disgraceful," she says. But surely that's all part of the fun of cooking?

The judges love Jac and Shaz's entrée. It has Manu "smiling inside." Colin Fassnidge tries Eva and Debra's chutney and winces having poo-pooed their choice of "fish balls" for a semi final entree. But it turns out it's a wince of spicy pleasure. "I'm awake now!" he declares. Manu says the tuna is unexpectedly "moist and moo-rish". Colin says they have a "buttle" on their hands such is the high quality of cuisine so far.

Now to the mains and Eva and Debra must problem solve the fact that they didn't get their pork vindaloo main on to stew during the entrée. To fasten things up, they use the mother of all cooking competition metaphors the pressure cooker and they cut the pork in to smaller pieces so it will cook faster. Debra takes the lid off the pressure cooker and lets fly an expletive. "Eva we need to reduce this ASAP," she says to the drums of doom. "The pork is floating on water and this is supposed to be a dry curry." They're praying for a miracle says Eva.

Shaz sets out smoking up the duck with a mixture of tea, brown sugar, star anise, cinnamon and orange. For Shaz it's all about the smoke.

"I've gotta get this duck smoked Jac. It's gotta be smoked perfectly. Too much smoke, overpowering, not enough smoke they'll say 'Well where was the smoke?" she says. And the fat rendering of the duck. "There's nothing like a beautiful bit of skin on your breast," she says with no irony intended. But curd is the only thing on Jac's mind as she attempts a second batch. Will this be The Curse of the Curd?

Now it's over to Manu with some shockingly pertinent information.  "One team goes to the grand final and one team goes home. It doesn't get more simpler than that." No Manu, no it doesn't. And he's liking the look of Jac and Shaz's duck. "Well it's looking velly nice from here. The crispy skin is nice and breewn." But Steve thinks Eva and Debra are so stressed they're looking like rabbits in headlights. Cut to footage of the girls looking like rabbits in headlights.

"Why do we do this to ourselves? Honestly! Reduce baby!" Debra says desperately as the pork continues to drown in liquid.

Now for another pertinent information bite from Jac as she plates up.

"Shaz it's the semi-finals. We want to have everything on 'em and looking spectacular."

And another from Eva.

"I can't believe it's coming down to the wire," she says. Doesn't it always? Digital clock says, "Yes" as it plummets like a bomb diffuser's worst nightmare.

"This dish has so much potential to be amazing and it's not even close," dismays Eva. "Of all the main courses that we've ever cooked I can't believe this is the one that we stuff up, the one with the curry."

The judges taste Jac and Shaz's duck first and Manu looks at the cranberry sauce on his knife and sighs in displeasure like there's a fly on it. "I don't find it appetizing whatsoever," he says. There's debate about the appropriateness of the broccolini to the dish but the judges praise the cooking of the duck. Eva and Debra's slushy vindaloo meanwhile gets props for the nicely cooked pork but it's a all bit bland and off kilter. It didn't blow Manu's head off, as he would have expected from a vindaloo. That's money on the cleaning budget saved then. All in all, the judges aren't fussed about the mains, marred says Manu by "little iccups."

So it all comes down to the desserts. "How hard could it be?" shrugs Eva, a risky omen if ever there was one? Jac and Shaz's lime and coconut sorbet is going to be very "Queensland" with a "sand crumb" and grilled pineapple dipped in Grand Marnier and brown sugar to caramelise. But there's also a bit of disturbing Northern Territory backpacker-slasher in there too as Shaz circumcises the very red, very aptly named finger limes for garnish and uses a rolling pin to squeeze out the pulp. It looks like a sickening prop from a horror movie but actually says Shaz, it's "citric caviar."

As Steve's super-vision predicted, Eva and Debra's white chocolate mousse isn't worthy nor is their burnt coconut tuile so they dump both hoping their mango pudding will be sweet enough.

"Let's just hope that Jac and Shaz are actually having trouble in the kitchen just as much as we are," says Debra.

Jac certainly is, her second batch of curd has come out all gooey. Shaz decides to put it in a warm oven in the hope it will soften. "It's the bin or the oven. I'm going for the oven," she says.

After plenty of OMG's and bleeped expletives time is up and neither team is happy with their efforts for dessert. The judges love Jac and Shaz's sorbet except for the lemon curd and Eva and Debra's mango sago goes down pretty well.

"I can't deal with this just give us the scores," Shaz says of all the tension in a post-record. Next thing Manu is giving them the scores. Eva and Debra receive 44 out of 60, Jac and Shaz 49.

"Who would have thought? Us little pocket rockets in the semi finals," says Debra taking a positive spin on defeat. They've been the little battlers so appropriately Katy Perry's 'Roar' plays over their farewell reel. The stage is now set for the grand final cook-off between country cousins Jac and Shaz and pommy pals Will and Steve.