The Spinoff knights meet at the television roundtable to discuss from the much-improved second week of X Factor NZ. // Jack Riddell on Darren Smyth This is Darren Smyth, 36 from Point England. He’s one of many who you won’t see on X Factor this year. He was accepted into the audition round, cameras followed him back … Read more
TVNZ have created a reality-warping online game to promote TV2’s new investigative drama How to Get Away With Murder. Alex Casey learns just how difficult the titular task really is. // It all started a few weeks ago when I got sent a mysterious looking package from Nancy Maher Attorney-at-Law that shook me to the very core. One … Read more
Monitor is a new bi-weekly column from Aaron Yap. Each edition will see him critically examine a new show or trend in current television. First up is Better Call Saul. // Much has been made about modern mainstream cinema’s over-reliance on mining existing properties for content. More than ever, the studios are operating in a safety bubble, with … 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
Please enjoy this excellent episode of Shorty Street Scandal, wherein James Mustapic recaps the past week of Ferndale hijinks. This week? Chris and Rachel reconnect, Clementine flirts with Santa and Murray has a small heart attack: Chris and Rachel, our very own Ross and Rachel, got back together this week. Harry was very upset to find a lipstick at … 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
With the competition reaching boiling point this Saturday night, Alex Casey provides some ways you can make a meal out of MasterChef Australia season finale. // I have had an on-and-off relationship with MasterChef Australia throughout what feels like its three-year season. Taking extended holidays over summer to the family bach, I found it had a … Read more
This morning came an extremely casual announcement that a handsome chap named Art Green might be New Zealand’s first ever Bachelor. Alex Casey analyses his online presence to find out if the size ten shoe fits. // // When Picasso said “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life,” it’s probably because he … Read more
TV3 have just announced their casting call for MasterChef NZ, so Alex Casey talked to her brother about his shockingly successful drunken application many moons ago. // In a press release today, TV3 announced that casting is now open for MasterChef NZ 2015. They are looking for the “unsung heroes of the kitchen – Kiwis who … Read more
Aaron Yap argues that family crime drama Brotherhood deserves to steal some of the family-crime-drama limelight away from its older television siblings. // One consequence of the monumental successes of The Sopranos and The Wire is that a perfectly decent show like Showtime’s Brotherhood remains undeservedly underseen, unable to escape from their far-reaching shadows. This crime drama, … Read more
Alex Casey recaps the third episode of Lightbox’s much anticipated Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul. // The episode opens with the sort of flashback we have come to know and love in Breaking Bad. A good wig has got to be the single most effective time travel device in all of television. Charles goes to visit a much younger, … Read more
The Spinoff knights meet at television roundtable to reveal their hopes, dreams and insights from the first week of The X Factor NZ. // Joseph Harper on TrendPrince Holy shit Trend Prince dot com is a real thing. There are no jokes anymore. Just real things that are kind of fucking terrifying. Trend Prince doing a rap is … Read more
Yesterday I nearly dropped dead during an X Factor NZ ad break. The first real promo for The Bachelor NZ is here. No more abstracted black and white abs, no more sail boats, no more National Bank horses galloping down sandy dunes. We have finally have real women, real candles, and real big watches: Things We Know About … Read more
Outrageous Fortune’s James Griffin is one of the few New Zealanders who’ve known he was scripting a series’ final episode. José Barbosa talks with him about the different ways, many of them terrible, TV shows have bowed out. The writer Alan Moore (most widely know as the guy who, along with artist David Lloyd, gave Anonymous the idea … Read more
Alex Casey thought she should probably write something about The X Factor NZ, so with Twitter’s help, she did. / Last night, like 305,000 other people up and down the country, I sat down and enjoyed The X Factor NZ premiere. And it was… fine. I always forget that the first audition stages just sort … Read more
This Music Monday, Alex Casey rediscovers the music video for ‘This is Outrageous’, the ridiculous debut single from Jez of the British comedy Peep Show. // The first ever episode of Peep Show still stands as an example of pure heart-attack-inducing hilarity. Part of it’s tremendous success, for me anyway, is the way it perfectly introduces our … Read more
Please enjoy this excellent episode of Shorty Street Scandal, wherein James Mustapic recaps the past week of Ferndale hijinks. This week? The characters laugh at the disabled and the elderly, watermelon solves the world’s problems and we witness NZ TV’s greatest background moment thus far: First of all, may we all pause to take in our new surroundings. … Read more
The Spinoff knights meet at television roundtable to reveal their hopes, dreams and insights before the new season of The X Factor NZ. // Nic Sampson on the Sponsored Car: Let’s face it, the entire X Factor competition is just a way to get around not paying actors to be in various commercials. Why cough up for an … Read more
Alex Casey sat down with her good mate, insanely knowledgable TV freak Sophie, to play the Law & Order SVU drinking game. This is their story (dun dun). // Full disclosure – I’m a little hungover. Last night I invited my friend Sophie over to play the Law & Order: SVU drinking game, in the interests … Read more
The Spinoff is aroused to announce our first ever podcast. ‘After the Factor’ features in depth X Factor NZ analysis from Joseph Moore and Nic Sampson. // X Factor NZ hasn’t started yet, but we’re talking about it anyway. In episode zero of their weekly recaps, Joseph and Nic look at back on last season fondly, and preview the new … 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
At the end of last year all the episodes of the ’60s Batman TV show were packaged together on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time. Alongside the original 120 episodes, there’s also three hours of special features. How special they are is a matter of opinion. José Barbosa offers his. It’s either comforting or dispiriting … 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, Alex Casey dives into the absolute kiss-fest better known as The Bachelor USA. // Episodes Consumed: Five, slammed through faster than a row of whiskey shots at The Bachelor … Read more
Fragmentary Thoughts is a new comic strip by José Barbosa, in which he’ll tackle a different television show or phenomenon each month. The first is a response to the debut episode of Better Call Saul. Warning: contains a spoiler. // Straight out of the starting blocks Better Call Saul‘s first episode didn’t quite knock it out of the … Read more
After years of TV being a wasteland for wastedness, a pair of woozy comedies have helped bring weed back in from the cold, says Henry Oliver. // Like all things, drugs are subject to fashion. As one comes in, another goes out. In the 90s and early 00s, weed was most definitely IN: The Chronic, … 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
Put it On My TV is a new occasional feature which will explore an overseas show that deserves to be shown or made in the land of the long white cloud. This week Tara Ward campaigns for Gogglebox, a British reality show where normal armchair folk talk telly. // While enjoying a recent journey from these fair … Read more
Please enjoy this excellent episode of Shorty Street Scandal, wherein James Mustapic recaps the past week of Ferndale hijinks. This week? Dropped babies, Kardashian-style sex tape antics and Dallas falling in love with a little green lady called Maryjane. Nicole may be out of her coma, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t hellbent on getting her baby into … Read more