Get in touch with your emotional side by reliving some of our most heartwarming commercials on TV. It’s been an emotional year, and it’s about time we had a good cry over it. Not a quiet whimper or a sneaky sob, but the kind of cathartic purging that only comes from watching a television ad … Read more
Director Bruno du Bois talks about Zealandia, a short film depicting a futuristic New Zealand in the midst of a global pandemic which was written long before Covid-19. New Zealand’s biggest annual short film festival Show Me Shorts kicks off on October 2, bringing over 75 films from around the world to 30 cinemas throughout … Read more
Tara Ward chats to Farmer Harry, one of the Australian bachelors looking for love on reality series The Farmer Wants a Wife. All Farmer Harry wants is a woman as reliable as his John Deere tractor, and Farmer Wants a Wife might be the answer to his farmy prayers. A chaotic mix of The Bachelor … Read more
Grand Designs NZ is back with a new season that promises more incredible homes, optimistic owners, and the easy charm of presenter Chris Moller. Grand Designs NZ kicked off its sixth season with a reminder that most of us will never have six million dollars to transform a heritage building into our house of dreams, … Read more
Grab your Factor 50 and put all your eggs into someone else’s basket, because a new season of Love Island USA just landed on Neon. Love Island is the ultimate reality show about strangers finding love on the telly, and this season comes with a shocking twist: they’re not on an island. It’s news more … Read more
It might be the most bonkers reality show of all, but The Farmer Wants a Wife is back for 2020. Tara Ward recaps the first episode. “It all begins with hope,” host Natalie Gruzlewski tells us in the opening moments of The Farmer Wants a Wife, and friends, I did not expect this show to … Read more
Looking for a family friendly drama to enjoy this lockdown? TVNZ’s new teen series Mystic might be the perfect choice. Out in the television galaxy, somewhere between the giddy orbit of Paw Patrol and Riverdale, lies a dark void where young adults wait patiently for their next favourite series. While there are plenty of TV … Read more
It’s the television reunion you didn’t know you needed, and a reminder of one of the best New Zealand shows you might never have seen. Friday night’s episode of Shortland Street saw lovesick doctors Boyd and Zara celebrate their wedding, and it was a nice time. The bride and groom were thrilled and Chris Warner … Read more
Glow Up NZ is the latest reality franchise to hit New Zealand screens, and Tara Ward discovers a show with plenty of heart. “An online makeup revolution is sweeping the world,” host Megan Papas tells us in the opening moments of Glow Up NZ, TVNZ On Demand’s new reality competition about the wonders of makeup artistry. … Read more
A new season of reality series Selling Sunset just landed on Netflix. Tara Ward finds that if you set your expectations low, you won’t be disappointed. If you threw Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Million Dollar Listing and The Hills into a reality TV juicer, you’d pour out a long, tall glass of Selling Sunset. … Read more
It’s Amazon Prime Video’s new show about the most extreme adventure race in the world, and host Bear Grylls wants us to enjoy it from the comfort of our couch. I tried to kill Bear Grylls in You Vs Wild, really I did. I made him swim with crocodiles, I forced him to eat termites … Read more
A new New Zealand-made drama about life in lockdown was dropped from Prime’s schedule, just days before it was due to start. What’s going on? Peter Salmon reckons the perfect time to watch a New Zealand drama about a second-wave Covid lockdown is during a second-wave Covid lockdown. Prime disagrees, having removed new short drama … Read more
Looking for a wonderfully trashy movie to watch? TVNZ OnDemand now have some of Lifetime’s best dramas for your viewing pleasure. In a world of serious and credible television, the arrival of Lifetime to TVNZ OnDemand is joyous news. Lifetime is an American cable channel that churns out emotional drama after emotional drama, and it’s the best … Read more
Finished watching Floor is Lava and looking for your next dose of bonkers TV? Cannonball is the show for you. The world is going to Hades in a handcart, and for one hour each week, I need the distraction of blue skies, warm sunshine and beautiful people volunteering to make fools of themselves on television. … Read more
Tara Ward takes a trip back in time with this classic 1980s New Zealand tourism video. Be warned, it contains bare buttocks. Covid-19 has made us tourists in our own country, so there’s no better time to wrap your optic nerves around the classic tourism film Come On to New Zealand. It was a 34-minute … Read more
Last night Seven Sharp revealed to New Zealand children that the Tooth Fairy is not who they thought it was. Tara Ward relives this shocking moment. Something wild happened on Seven Sharp last night, and I don’t mean Jeremy Wells saying “light bladder leakage” after the first ad break. Wells was joined by Toni Street … Read more
Think The Repair Shop is just a boring television show for the oldies? Think again. The Repair Shop is the nicest show on television, and yes, I am talking about that programme on Friday nights where old people take their old junk to an old shed to be fixed. Your nana probably loves The Repair … Read more
New Zealanders can’t get enough of The Chase, so why can’t we have our own version? And what would a homegrown version of the quiz show look like anyway? If The Chase were a pandemic, we’d all have herd immunity by now. The British TV quiz show has never been more popular with New Zealand … Read more
Claire from McLeod’s Daughters died in 2003 and Tara Ward is still not over it. The unexpected death of Claire McLeod is the most tragic event you’ll see on television. It was a miserable day when that white Brumby bolted across the road and made Claire drive off a cliff, leaving viewers a traumatised wreck. … Read more
With Shortland Street’s 7,000th episode screening tonight, Tara Ward salutes the soap for keeping calm and carrying on through level three lockdown. It’s been one heck of a week on Shortland Street. Leanne lost her winning $8 million Lotto ticket, Louis slipped over in a pile of vomit, and Desi tried to convince Dawn that … Read more
Netflix’s adaptation of The Baby-Sitters Club makes long-time fan Tara Ward fall in love with the series all over again. When I was 12 years old, my class had to write a letter to a famous person. Some of my classmates wrote to an All Black, Tom Cruise or Hulk Hogan. I wrote a four-page … Read more
Two Australian shows, three nights of television. Which reality veteran wins? New seasons of reality favourites Masterchef Australia and Big Brother Australia have hit New Zealand screens, posing a quandary for reality fans. Both shows are screening live-to-air at the same time, Sunday to Tuesday (Masterchef also screens on Wednesday), creating a dramatic head-to-head reality … Read more
A new season of Big Brother Australia starts tonight, but where did it all begin? Tara Ward travels back to 2001 to relive the best moments from the show’s inaugural episode. Hold on to your three-quarter cargo pants and get ready to dial up your modem, because there’s a lot of unexpected chicken content during … Read more
With a new season of Big Brother Australia underway, Tara Ward looks back at the show’s history through a single object: the diary room chair. Chairs. Where would we be without them? Our posture would be better, we’d probably be fitter, and I wouldn’t have split my jeans that one time in the Centre City … Read more
You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your drama. Tara Ward rounds up the five best family dramas on TVNZ OnDemand. However weird your own family might be, there’s a strange comfort in knowing there’s always one on TV that’s much, much worse. Whether it’s a grieving wife discovering her husband has three … Read more
Streaming services Neon and Lightbox will merge next month. So what does this mean for your favourite shows? Tara Ward finds out. What’s happening to Neon and Lightbox? In December 2019, Sky announced the purchase of Lightbox, the entertainment subscription service formerly owned by Spark. Sky’s plan was to merge Lightbox with its own streaming … Read more
With Rhys Darby returning to our small screens with a travel series documenting his wild travels around Japan, Tara Ward rounds up some more TVNZ shows that will take you from your armchair to locales far and wide. Rhys Darby is world famous for bringing walk socks to New York on Flight of the Conchords … Read more
Noel Edmonds is a British TV legend with a 50 year career in broadcasting. So why did he move to Matakana and launch a radio station? Like an over-excited Mr Blobby, Tara Ward gave him a call to find out. When Noel Edmonds answers the phone from his home north of Auckland, he’s multitasking like … Read more
Tara Ward checks out Beat the Chasers, the new quiz show starring all five brainiacs from The Chase. If you think the greatest show on television is The Chase, then you are correct. You are also wrong and must leave the stage immediately, because there’s a new gameshow hitting New Zealand screens that will be … Read more