Duncan Greive 
Duncan Greive breaks down the performances from last night’s X Factor NZ and power ranks the participants Natalia Kills: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m just going to state the obvious and say we’ve got a doppelganger in our midst. As an artist who respects creative integrity and intellectual property I am disgusted by how much you … Read more
The Herald asked us to contribute entries to a forthcoming list of the worst reality TV shows in New Zealand history. Here’s an extended cut of Duncan Greive’s entry – a love letter to a televisual cesspit known as The Player. // In April of 2004 filming commenced on Sky’s first ever reality TV show. … Read more
The debut of Duncan Greive’s weekly X Factor power rankings, which will drop Monday mornings and serve as a guide to where the show’s momentum lies. Season two of X Factor New Zealand started recording months ago, and already feels like it’s been going for years. The show has already run for 14 hours, versus the 18 … Read more
With the shocking departure of Jazzy “Jazzy” Acton from our screens last night, beaming Archie Hill represents the last of the 14-year-olds standing on stick thin, vinyl-trousered legs at this year’s X Factor. He absolutely ripped Ed Sheeran a new one at the auditions, before walking on stage and into our hearts with ‘Blank Space’ … Read more
Duncan Greive visits the set of Best Bits, One’s panel show discussing the week’s worst television, to see how the sausage gets made. // On a glass coffee table in the Best Bits green room there is a bowl with two chocolate chip biscuits in it alongside a purse-sized packet of Carefree panty liners. “I see they’ve … Read more
Checking in With… is a regular column which features a Spinoff writer watching one or more episodes of a current show and attempting to decode its appeal. This week: Kina’s K9s. // Episodes Consumed: One – the series debut on Maori TV last Friday. What’s it about? It’s a show about “the world of dogs … Read more
Tonight Drake plays Vector Arena in Auckland. Half his life ago he played Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation. Duncan Greive watched his first appearance on the show to see where it all began. // Imagine if Frankie Adams quit Shortland Street and became Lorde. That’s basically what happened for Canada when Aubrey Graham left the Degrassi universe after … Read more
My Life in TV is a new weekly feature, wherein we interview a member of the television industry and ask them how they got here, and what they’ve learned along the way. First up: Graeme Hill-Humphreys. // Graeme Hill-Humphreys is one of the more elusive characters these islands have manufactured. Some know him as the … Read more
The venerable Halberg Awards are the last vestige of the amateur sporting era, but that’s precisely their anti-modern appeal. This year’s mixed olde worlde charm with cutting edge pop songs. Here’s Duncan Greive’s extremely high quality photo essay covering the night’s highlights. // Valerie Hearts Benny After a half hour of red carpet, Benny Tipene … Read more
Duncan Greive watched Our First Home‘s opening week, and came away convinced that the three families at its core – considerate and good-hearted as they are – just shouldn’t be on TV. // We’re only through week one of Our First Home, but already the pain of renovation is palpable in the audience. The nauseating horror of having hacked … Read more
Checking in With… is a regular column which features a Spinoff writer watching one or more episodes of a current show and attempting to decode its appeal. This week: Togetherness, Melanie Lynskey’s new vehicle, helmed by the Duplass brothers. // Episodes Consumed: Season one, Episodes 1-3 What’s it about? The show centres around Brett and … Read more
Current affairs TV returned from its summer holiday last Monday, when One’s Seven Sharp and TV3’s Campbell Live came back to our TVs. We watched both shows and analysed their comebacks across 10 key areas. Here’s Duncan Greive’s take on Seven Sharp. What’s New? Toni is more pregnant, so there’s a new human growing before our eyes. … Read more
Part of what made Breaking Bad work was a thread of plausibility amongst the violence. We spoke with a fan and former drug squad cop to test the show’s realism. // For 13 years, starting in 1993, Dale Kirk roved the Waikato, catching crooks. He started as a beat cop, then joined serious crime unit the CIB in 1999, just … Read more
An introduction to our forthcoming methfest ‘Bad Week’: a weeklong party dedicated to Breaking Bad, ahead of the launch of its spinoff Better Call Saul. On February 9th, New Zealand time, Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul makes its debut. The show will screen exclusively on Lightbox in New Zealand, and we’ve decided to devote a whole week to … Read more
Competitive reality shows have tightly controlled formulas for a reason, and Mike Puru fits the format. But Duncan Greive had been hoping we’d have someone stranger watching The Bachelor unfold. This morning Mike Puru was announced as our inaugural host of The Bachelor, an appointment that was greeted with an overwhelming shrug by New Zealand. Because it … Read more
G’day Spinoff reader! It’s your old mate the mad editor. This post is to announce that we’ll be taking three weeks off to plot, scheme and maybe relax a little over the summer break. It’s pretty damn slack seeing as we’ve only been operating for a little over three months – but they’ve been pretty … Read more
Duncan Greive looks back over a momentous year for the local television industry and catalogues its highs and lows via the timeless medium of a Births, Deaths and Marriages column. 2013 ended with New Zealand’s television in some kind of catatonic state. MediaWorks was limping out of receivership (again), TVNZ had just drowned another of its … Read more
Duncan Greive looks back at the bizarrely entertaining shambles that was Jesse Peach’s live cross from APRA Silver Scrolls on the Paul Henry Show. // In late October songwriting organisation APRA held their annual Silver Scrolls ceremony at the TSB Arena in Wellington. The Silver Scrolls are like VNZMAs for grown-ups. They recognise craft and … Read more
The Christmas cliffhanger is Shortland Street’s most glorious moment, when the show’s silliness and ambition are deafeningly amplified. Ahead of tonight’s finale, Duncan Greive spoke with key storyliner Harry McNaughton about the cliffhanging process. // Gerald Tippett was one of my favourite characters during an extremely strong Shortland Street era. A fastidious receptionist and executive … Read more
Want to know why we’re dedicating a week to a mostly-maligned soap? Duncan Greive makes the case for Shortland Street as New Zealand’s most underrated piece of pop culture. // A few years ago, while working on a story for Metro magazine*, I had lunch with Shortland Street’s publicists in Ponsonby on a sunny day in autumn. They were great … Read more
This coming Monday The Spinoff launches ‘Street Week’, dedicated to honouring New Zealand’s greatest ever TV show, Shortland Street. We’ve been scheming on this for a couple of months, and pulled together the most ambitious set of heroic nonsense in the site’s short life. The motivation was a sense that many New Zealanders, particularly those who generally consider … Read more
We are living through some kind of gold-plated age for stunt television. Last month we saw Nik Wallenda tightrope walk between two buildings. Soon we’ll witness a man being swallowed by a snake (we’re team snake). This morning New Zealand, that plucky nation at the bottom of the world, had a crack at its own dramatic … Read more
Last week TV3 premiered the first X-Factor 2015 promo to feature its full lineup of judges. The concept is basically ‘the end of the judges’ commute to work, and then them walking a bit’. Here is the clip. Here are a few takeaways from this piece of promotional footage. 1. Willy Moon is a big Willy Moon Fan and … Read more
The Spinoff editor Duncan Greive went along to TVNZ’s new season launch and left with ringing ears, an LED lanyard and dreams of a reality juggernaut. // Six million people are stalked every year in the United States. 3.5m New Zealanders view TVNZ weekly. 18,000 paid their condolences to non-existent person Sarah Potts. Kleenex quadrupled … Read more
On the night before Halloween, Duncan Greive went to the launch of MediaWorks’ new season. To some it would have been a vision of pure terror. But not to him. // “A living nightmare,” said Damo. His interviewer, radio DJ Mike Puru, nervously pressed him to expand. “It’s like a bad dream, but when you wake up … Read more
Luke Ward started life on The OC credited only as a guest star, an All American tough guy jerk dating Marissa Cooper, the troubled rich girl neighbour of the central Cohen family. He had two core functions to perform on the show, both of which required garden variety jerkiness performed to an extremely high level. Firstly … Read more
Beset by endless schedule-induced delays, Late Night Big Breakfast ended up timing its arrival brilliantly. During the greatest period of media flux in decades, and against the backdrop of the strangest election campaign any of us will ever know. The show’s crazed, no-attention-span sensibility seems like it could only possibly have been properly digested right now. At … Read more
With all due respect to everything New Zealanders have achieved in art and commerce, no serious person disputes Shortland Street’s position as this country’s best ‘thing’. It’s older than Lorde, weirder than the Wizard of Christchurch and more ripped than Ma’a Nonu. It exists in this strange microclimate where there is only one bar and two cafés, where … Read more
What exactly is The Spinoff? Editor Duncan Greive explains. // Like most people, I can map my life out through TV. Inspector Gadget and Danger Mouse as a gawky, pale kid growing up in London. A few years later The Bill and Grange Hill made the surrounding streets seem different, more sinister. My mother wouldn’t let us connect … Read more