Alex Casey talks to the 2015 Billy T Winner Hamish Parkinson about being raised by TV, playing the New World guy, and what he’ll do with the coveted yellow towel. Hamish became a national star a while back, when these New World ads played before every pre-roll on the internet, and the image of a … Read more
To help us cope with the horrors of a post-Mad Men world, Rose Matafeo compiled this loving video tribute to explain how key characters’ lives played out beyond the ’60s. Warning: contains mild and often very misleading spoilers. I started watching Mad Men when I was 15 years old. As a teen I’d have to … Read more
In a rare Spinoff competition, we want you to take Lightbox into the real world on your mobile devices. Show us the most fitting location to watch your favourite show, and you could win a fancy Samsung Galaxy S6. Lightbox has rolled out a plethora of new devices on which you can watch your favourite … Read more
After the final of X Factor NZ, Joseph Harper creates an interactive game that promises to be more challenging, fun and have higher production values than the competition itself. It’s been a long season of losing judges, murderers and clear winners as X Factor NZ slowly disintegrated week to week. But finally – here’s something … Read more
For this Music Monday, Robyn Gallagher samples the various global tunes on offer in this year’s Eurovision competition. The Eurovision Song Competition is massive. It’s like a cross between an Olympic Games opening ceremony, the Super Bowl halftime show and an American Idol final – all in aid of determining the best new song Europe … Read more
For My Life in TV this week, Alex Casey talks to Madeleine Sami about creating and starring in Super City, starting out on Shortland Street and how she’s still taking an extended gap year. Madeleine Sami is everywhere if you look hard enough. Just after this interview I popped to a film screening and there … Read more
For this Throwback Thursday, Calum Henderson watches Gary McCormick’s Heartland special on the tiger-footed town of Wainuiomata. Two big national events from the winter of 1994: in Dunedin, someone with the last name Bain shot his whole family, and in Wainuiomata, Gary McCormick shot an interview with a woman called Chloe for the TV show … Read more
After weeks of power ranking from behind a computer, Alex Casey sits down with The Bachelor NZ‘s Art and Matilda. Together they sit a fool-proof relationship quiz, and talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. It was what dreams are made of: Art and Matilda, together in a room. Bachelor banners. A small … Read more
Greg Bruce interviews his Mum about her penchant for Seven Sharp‘s Mike Hosking over John Campbell. Mum came over last week to babysit my daughter and on arrival told me some story about something Mike Hosking had been talking about and, because this is a fairly common occurrence, I thought, ‘Why is my fundamentally decent … Read more
Tara Ward recaps episode 13 of Outlander, including 18th century skinny jeans, creepy puppets and Colin Farrell’s grubby doppelganger. ‘The Search’ begins with a marionette show. Puppet Claire sits at Craigh Na Dun, chilling in her 1940s white frock, when there’s a sudden explosion of light and flames. That escalated quickly. Is this a metaphor for … Read more
Fragmentary Thoughts is a comic strip by José Barbosa, in which he’ll tackle a different television show or phenomenon each month. In this instalment, he illustrates his favourite moments from Mad Men. The end is coming for Matthew Weiner’s examination of the slow, gurgling death of the American dream. One more episode of Mad Men remains. The … Read more
Alex Casey talks to Hilary Barry about juggling Paul Henry and 3 News, watching X Factor and playing second banana. When I arrived at TV3 to meet Hilary Barry, I was deeply excited to find out that the interview would take place on the Paul Henry set. “It’s about the only quiet place left in the … Read more
‘Reissue’ is an occasional column which will bring back a print feature from the vaults. Today: Duncan Greive looks at the origins of Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery’s cult podcast hit Worst Idea of All Time ahead of a live record for the Comedy Festival. Photography by Reagen Butler. Originally published in April’s 1972 magazine, sponsored by … Read more
Alex Casey delivers her (possibly) final power rankings for The Bachelor NZ. With a winner decided, it’s time to rank the greatest moments of the final week in paradise. We made it guys, finally tottering along the sandy shores of love to the finalé. And what a finale episode it was – like the producers … Read more
Alex Casey watches the first returning episode of Days of Our Lives, and notes a few things you need to ease you back into the extraordinary soap. One of the longest running scripted television shows in the entire world, Days of Our Lives has washed back up onto our shores courtesy of Lightbox this week. Five … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the first two seasons of sci-fi series Orphan Black, and hopes for just as many fast-paced, character-driven clone thrills from the lead roles in the third season. When Orphan Black debuted on BBC America in 2013, it seemed to come out of nowhere. A bolt of fresh, femme-powered lightning into a television market … Read more
Joseph Harper uses his Playstation 2 version of The Sims to decide the final outcome of The Bachelor NZ. Speculation is rife going into the final week of The Bachelor NZ. All three remaining bachelorettes seem to have a crack at the title of Art Green’s girlfriend. Alysha has the nice accent. Matilda has a nice … Read more
Joseph Harper splits a Rekorderlig with three members of The Hunter’s Club and finds out why their show stylistically slaughters the rest of their outdoor TV competitors. You notice pretty quickly that The Hunter’s Club doesn’t look like our more familiar hunting and fishing shows. Where shows like Outdoors with Geoff often feel procedural – … Read more
This is the debut of ‘Reissue’, an occasional column which will bring back a classic feature from the vaults to pleasure a nation anew. First up: Rose Hoare’s discovery of the dimly-lit daytime pleasures of Days of Our Lives, which returns to New Zealand screens after a two years absence via Lightbox today. Originally published in … Read more
Last week I was in Ohakune for the X Factor NZ live show, hungover from a 40th the night before, and therefore in the perfect intellectual state to consume 1.5 hours of TV singing show. Around 5pm I turned on the rental bach’s hitherto unused television – an LG old enough that it was two … Read more
Duncan Greive watches Rose Matafeo grow up really fast at the Basement. Last year, Rose Matafeo ordered pizza. This year she staged her funeral. The gulf between the enormity of those events aptly illustrates the swelling of her ambitions as a comic in the past 12 months. Everything about this year’s show was so much … Read more
What to do with Krishnan Guru-Murthy and his TV interview with Robert Downey Jnr? What to think, what to learn? What, above all, to make of that lamp? It’s more than a lamp. It’s like the corner of Ponsonby Rd and Jervois Rd: it’s three lamps. A lot of sand died for those lamps, whole … Read more
After gorging himself on a strict diet of food television and cooking reality shows, Finlay Macdonald examines the skills required to be the perfect public eater. The announcement last week that “celebrity chef” Al Brown would be one of the judges on TV3’s forthcoming “reboot” of the familiar Masterchef format was big news for gob-watchers … Read more
Calum Henderson takes a television roadie in a car full of poshos through the bleak bartering wilderness of Antiques Roadtrip. What’s it about? After Flog It! proved far from the genuine article, I did what any antiques peddler would do after an auction failure and scrambled to recoup my losses. I MySkyed several episodes of … Read more
With his predictions going hugely awry for the last few weeks, Duncan Greive decided to take some time out from the noble task of power ranking. Spending the long weekend in Ohakune, he meditated next to the giant carrot – hoping to gain the strength to be able to see anything promising in the dark … Read more
The weary few remaining Spinoff knights meet at the television roundtable to discuss week 11 on X Factor NZ Talia Smith on Milky Bar Broad I have finally decided who Steve Broad/Bored is and I am bloody happy because this mystery has been plaguing me for weeks. He is the grown up version of the … Read more
My Life in TV is a weekly feature interview with a member of the television industry. This week, Alex Casey talked to Anika Moa about tutoring on Maori TV’s Songs From the Inside, Ed Sheeran’s looks and why she likes to impersonate famous New Zealanders. Anika Moa is obviously chiefly known as an accomplished musician, but she … Read more
Claire Adamson shares her arduous journey to watch a few precious episodes of the part Barbie, part human after-school series This is Serial Stuff, and celebrates the smart technicolour antics of the iconic kiwi kids show. I want you to cast your mind back to a time before you were cool – catching the bus home, eating all … Read more
It’s an interesting feature of this amazing future amusement park we currently inhabit that we talk about the “TV binge” where once we referred to the “TV marathon”. Slowly TV is becoming human foie gras as complete seasons of TV shows are now made to be inhaled in one sitting. It’s been great for people … Read more