Alex Casey 
I need to know a lot of things in this life. What is for dinner? What is the deal with tides really? What is the point of anything? To complicate matters further, Rachel Hunter is here to pose another equally stress-inducing question – “how do we be healthy and stay looking young?” Ah shit, I … Read more
One of my fondest memories from primary school is sitting cross-legged at my friend Elizabeth’s house, shrieking our way through the then-terrifying Nightmare VHS board game. As both an avid horror movie fan, and a fan of being yelled at by rotting middle-aged actors dipped in fluorescent paint, this was my absolute favourite activity. I’ve since bought … Read more
Days of Our Lives is one of the longest running soap operas in TV history, following love triangles, relentless pregnancies and the odd demon. Alex Casey watched it for a week and tried to make sense of the soft focus world. MONDAY As always, the week opens with an exhaustive supercut to get us nice an … Read more
Alex Casey chats to Max and Vince on the bFM breakfast show about the upcoming TV highlights for the week, including Fear the Walking Dead, Rick and Morty and Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty:
Woah, busy alert! I see you, shuffling papers and scrolling through your calendar with a furrowed brow. Life is crazy, life is hectic. TV? Forget about it! What a nightmare! Lucky for you, we have had a scan of the week ahead and have got your five essential television appointments booked. Sit back, relax and let the … Read more
Alex Casey brings you the Bachelor in Paradise moment of the week. First up, an innocent phone call becomes critter communication at the hand of the maniacal Bachelor editors. Bachelor in Paradise is the messy mecca of reality television, throwing ex-Bachelor contestants together on a tropical island and waiting for the sparks to fly as they … Read more
Alex Casey watches Eat, Drink, Love, a reality series following some of the feistiest women trying to climb to the top of the fickle LA food ladder. What’s it about? The reality series follows five kickass women working at the very top of the food industry in LA. From critics to home chefs, bakers to … Read more
UPDATE: Since publishing, some of the bachelorettes have got in touch. Turns out the “cucumber number” was far from a one-off. If you have read this already, scroll to the bottom for the update, including some very gross audio. It’s radio survey time in our fair nation, so chaos reigns on your dial. The evidence … Read more
Woah, busy alert! I see you, shuffling papers and scrolling through your calendar with a furrowed brow. Life is crazy, life is hectic. TV? Forget about it! What a nightmare! Lucky for you, we have had a scan of the week ahead and have got your five essential television appointments booked. Sit back, relax and let the … Read more
Alex Casey is very good at watching cooking shows and very bad at cooking in real life. She took up the My Food Bag challenge to become a Masterchef in her own home. Despite spending close to 40,000 hours watching My Kitchen Rules NZ last year, I somehow remain the worst cook in the entire world. … Read more
James Shaw is not just the co-leader of The Green Party, but the star of ‘Yes Minister’ in tonight’s episode of 7 Days. Here’s a quick Q&A with the panel, including a new dreadlocks policy. Jeremy Corbett: You defeated Kevin Hague for the co-leadership of the Greens. Is that the first time you’ve beaten off another man? … Read more
Alex Casey has a sprawling chat with Dani Robinson of The Bachelor NZ about mansion friendships, ruthless edits, and finding love in a hopeless place. I went over to Dani Robinson’s house the other week, to get her take on the brilliant behind-the-scenes TV drama UnREAL. As the runner-up of The Bachelor NZ, I thought … Read more
Alex Casey sits down with Boganologist Dave Snell and his mate Fro, stars of TV2’s docuseries Bogans, to find out what’s actually going on beneath the leather jackets and car exhaust fumes. I was embarrassed to be sipping a peppermint tea next to two of New Zealand’s premiere bogans. “Let me know if you want … Read more
Alex Casey hits the televisual beach with a week of Home and Away, and discovers an unsteady sandcastle of drama featuring drugs, bums and cake christenings. I haven’t watched Home and Away since my intermediate days, sitting cross legged in front of the television, filling the endless void between bell time and dinner time whilst eating … Read more
Alex Casey watches the Gloriavale: Life and Death special on TV2, a documentary from the gated Christian community where the bonnets are bleached, the women have 12 kids and the male elders know all. Last night we were welcomed back into the utopian arms of Gloriavale: Life and Death, far away from the sexual and physical … Read more
Alex Casey watches UnREAL – a drama set behind-the-scenes of a Bachelor-esque reality show – with The Bachelor NZ runner-up Dani Robinson, who dishes the dirt on how real reality TV really is. Set behind-the-scenes of a Bachelor-style dating show, the fictional world of UnREAL hints at the dark methods used to construct reality TV. Co-created by Marti Noxon and … Read more
Alex Casey introduces the strong line-up for TVNZ’s Bachelor in Paradise, and argues why you should watch this deplorable, fantastic experiment in trash television. With the latest rollercoaster season of The Bachelorette wrapping up, and the finale of the exquisite behind-the-reality-curtain drama UnREAL – there’s a void of jaw-dropping reality television that needs to urgently be … Read more
Your daily rolling recap of Come Dine With Me NZ, serving up piping hot takes on New Zealand’s greatest social experiment. Welcome to Come Dine With Me Daily, The Spinoff’s hub for all things Come Dine With Me NZ.We’ll be updating this post throughout the week as the show plays out, providing you with a denser dining experience … Read more
Voting for the Lightbox People’s Choice Awards is now open, so who should you vote for? Alex Casey argues the case for Community’s Troy Barnes. Our good friends and sponsors at Lightbox are currently running their first People’s Choice Awards, where you can vote for the sexiest, funniest, most heroic and most evil television characters. … Read more
In our new feature A Week Of It, a Spinoff writer watches a show every day for a week and reports back with their findings. This week, Alex Casey watches a week of The 4.30 Show to find out what the cool teens of New Zealand are up to. Despite the amount of people telling … Read more
Alex Casey chats to Max and Vince on bFM BreakfastAlex Casey chats to Max and Vince on the bFM breakfast show about the upcoming TV highlights for the week, and her terrible Garfield-style Monday morning:
Bringing together the TV moments on the week, including several local shows peering into regional NZ, cat whisperers coming to town and the return of a beloved quiz show. 1) Bogans Do Television Burnouts TV2’s brand new docuseries Bogans premiered last night, promising boobs, beers and burnouts. Featuring Dr David Snell, who has a PhD … Read more
Alex Casey sits down with cat behaviourist Jackson Galaxy, star of My Cat From Hell, to get all your important cat questions answered. Jackson Galaxy is the cat whisperer of modern times. Part Dr Doolittle, part Star Burns from Community, he graced our cat-laden shores this week despite Gareth Morgan’s plea to bar his entry. … Read more
Your daily rolling recap of Come Dine With Me NZ, serving up piping hot takes on New Zealand’s greatest social experiment. Welcome to Come Dine With Me Daily, The Spinoff’s hub for all things Come Dine With Me NZ.We’ll be updating this post throughout the week as the show plays out, providing you with a denser dining experience … Read more
In our new feature A Week Of It, a Spinoff writer watches a show every day for a week and reports back with their findings. This week, Alex Casey watches a week of Seven Sharp – and finds a meta twist at the end of the viral video tunnel. I normally like to spend 7pm … Read more
Your daily rolling recap of Come Dine With Me NZ, serving up piping hot takes on New Zealand’s greatest social experiment. Welcome to Come Dine With Me Daily, The Spinoff’s hub for all things Come Dine With Me NZ.We’ll be updating this post throughout the week as the show plays out, providing you with a denser dining experience … Read more
I don’t want to overstate anything here but, after watching the first episode, it feels like Caitlyn Jenner’s new docuseries I Am Cait could be the most resonant and groundbreaking piece of television to come around in a long time. It follows the journey of Caitlyn Jenner, formerly gold medal-winning decathlete Bruce Jenner, as she … Read more
It’s that time of year. Everyone within a two metre radius of your work desk is sniffling, blowing their nose subtly into their sleeve on the bus and coughing loudly through the film at the cinema. You are being faced with giant, human-sized germs at every turn. So it’s no wonder you have been, are … Read more
I have spent a very large chunk of 2015 floating on the choppy whitecaps of the MediaWorks reality TV sea. I’ve recapped and podcasted every week of The Bachelor NZ, Dancing With the Stars NZ and hesitantly lowered myself briefly into X Factor NZ waters. And for what? I’ve often wondered. It’s fun, it’s what … Read more