Friday Night Lights examined the side effects of a small town’s obsession with high school sports. Don Rowe reflects on the show’s realism through comparison to his own rugby career at Hamilton Boys High. “Do you think God loves football?” “I think everyone loves football.” – Jason Street and a young fan, Friday Night Lights For an … Read more
Bringing you the highlights of this week’s TV Guide, New Zealand’s top selling magazine and this website’s papery spiritual grandmother. // Just yesterday, frustrated with the sideways scrolling function of the TVNZ guide hurtling me into a thousand tomorrows, I took a walk to the dairy and purchased a crisp copy of the TV Guide. … Read more
This week has truly heralded 2015 as the big big year for online content. Alex Casey breaks down the past week of web TV news. // The Return of Wet Hot American Summer This week Netflix announced an 8-episode follow up to the 2001 film Wet Hot American Summer. Creators David Wain and Michael Showalter … Read more
Alex Casey has never watched a second of Breaking Bad, nor read anything about it. Going in completely blind, she has committed to watching the whole series over summer in the lead up to spin off series Better Call Saul‘s arrival to Lightbox in February. Contains spoilers, obviously. Day Seven, Thursday 25 December (yes, it’s … Read more
Alex Casey revels in the highs and lows of Daniel Corbett, the endearing One News weatherman and replacement for Jim Hickey in our hearts. // I have always been told to listen to my parents, so when my Dad urgently let me know that the new TV One weatherman looked like “Dynamo in 30 years” I … Read more
With the return of Shortland Street last night, Alex Casey breaks down some of the new summer looks in Ferndale for 2015. // The first episode of Shortland Street for the new year aired last night, and boy did it provide summery excellence. The episode was fizzing with holiday vibes: Garrett ate half a sandwich (probably … Read more
United by history and language, but very much divided by humour, Elle Hunt says America and Britain reveal their national character through the dispositions of their sitcoms. // It’s the last vestige of a once-great empire: the belief, persistent in the face of the fish-slipping sketch and Mrs. Brown’s Boys, The Benny Hill Show, or … Read more
David Farrier tearfully recalls the Six Feet Under finale, and makes the case for Sia’s ‘Breathe Me’ as the most perfectly deployed piece of music to ever close out a show. At some point while TV3’s Nightline was still on air (still the best job I’ve ever had), our producer Angus Gillies got ahold of all five seasons of … Read more
Alex Casey has never watched a second of Breaking Bad, nor read anything about it. Going in completely blind, she has committed to watching the whole series over summer in the lead up to spin off series Better Call Saul‘s arrival to Lightbox in February. Contains spoilers, obviously. Day Three: Thursday 18 December, 7am Watched: … Read more
Elle Hunt discusses the undeniable significance of binge-watching television in today’s dating culture, while pondering her own romantic entanglements with both humans and TV shows. // I have seen the first half of the first season of Lost*. I doubt I’ll ever watch the rest. Not because of any considered opposition to poorly thought-out or increasingly pointless … Read more
Alex Casey has never watched a second of Breaking Bad, nor read anything about it. Going in completely blind, she has committed to watching the whole series over summer in the lead up to spin off series Better Call Saul‘s arrival to Lightbox in February. Contains spoilers, obviously.// Day One: Tuesday, 11.30pm Watched: Episodes 1-3 … Read more
Charlotte Red went Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari’s solo stand-up show in New York, and reports back on his rare brand of happy dorky-ness. // For a long time, I struggled to find male comedians I liked. Too many turn to boring fallback jokes filled with lazy misogyny like ‘my ex-girlfriend is CRAZY!’ or worse ‘you … Read more
An industrial-sized three-night pub quiz full of fans of a cult TV show that’s not even that good any more. Sounds like hell, right? But as Joe Nunweek finds, The Simpsons is still the exception to the rule. // Adults-only. That was my first impression of The Simpsons before I’d seen so much as a … Read more
SURVIVOR SAN JUAN DEL SUR BLOOD VS WATER 2 POWER RANKINGS Another season of the best show in the world is in the can and it’s bloody great news that we have an absolute stunner of a winner to add to the pantheon of Sole Survivors. Natalie played one hell of a game that felt … Read more
In the second instalment of our animation-centric column Cool Cartoons, Mark Martin looks at the key cartoon bands of recent times and introduces his own, The Emilys. Cartoon bands seem to be a love/hate thing. Some love their theatrical leanings, off beat humor and chameleon-like ability to switch between musical genres. Other people reckon it’s all … Read more
Alex Casey argues why The Office Christmas special is the gift that keeps on giving this holiday season. // Check the TV guide this time of year and you’ll see the likes of Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas and something terrible called Gangsta Granny. So often Christmas specials turn out to be the TV equivalent of a Kmart Christmas … Read more
Tara Ward explains how you can party like it’s 1919 this festive season, with help from the folks at Downton Abbey. // Ah, Christmas, the silly season. This time of year is filled with the joyous sounds of tills ringing, children screaming, and trolleys clashing over the last pint of Lewis Road Creamery Chocolate Milk. If … 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
We polled our esteemed writers and painstakingly tallied the votes. Now the results are in: here are what we judge to be 2014’s ten finest New Zealand shows. 1. The Late Night Big Breakfast Undoubtedly the best TV made in New Zealand this year, The Late Night Big Breakfast is an insane furniture store-based breakfast-style show. The … Read more
We polled the Spinoff writing team and hauled out the ol’ abacus to tally the results. The results are in: these are the ten best international shows of 2014. Broad City This surrealist journey following two twenty-somethings stumbling through life in New York City is like Girls dipped in optimism, Dorito-dust and pure hilarity. Despite … Read more
Alex Casey personally responds to some of the weirder Google searches that have led internet-dwellers to The Spinoff this year. // We have been watching you, readers. We have been watching what you are Googling, and why you are Googling it, and when you are Googling it. First of all, here are the top shows/people that … Read more
The Crowd Goes Wild’s James McOnie looks back on 2014 in televised sport, recounting the year’s biggest stories – most of which were broken by him using MySky and Twitter. At the start of the year it was all about Benji. Where would he play? Would he be good? What’s the point of having health insurance … 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
With a little help from Twitter, we assembled the best, worst and weirdest TV moments to grace New Zealand screens this year. Please enjoy the confusion, outrage and hilarity that has been NZ TV in 2014. // Puffed Up Little Shit Pam Corkery thought she was simply throwing it down to Brook Sabin outside the Internet Mana Party … Read more
Alex Casey lists the finest vine moments The Spinoff was able to capture this year (we’ve only been around since September, so excuse the recency bias). // I spent a day in the The Spinoff’s Vine archives with a monocle and an ear trumpet reviewing our wealth of six second masterpieces. These are my favourite ones, apologies … Read more
Unlike her Catch Up Club colleague Joseph Moore, Alex Casey has never seen a single second of Breaking Bad. With its spin-off Better Call Saul arriving on Lightbox in February, she’s going to watch the whole thing and bring season-by-season reports on the way.// Alex: I’m screaming my butt off basically. I can’t believe I waited this long … 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
Back in the kindergarten days of The Spinoff, Alex Casey recapped the entire series of My Kitchen Rules New Zealand. In this week of 2014 highlights, she sees her journey through with a bizarre IRL visit to The Corporate Dads’ Charity Dinner Party. /// I met the “Corporate Dads” Josh and Aaron at the TVNZ 2015 launch. They … Read more
Alex Casey and Duncan Greive went on separate field trips to The X Factor auditions at Sky City and compared their findings, trying to imagine how the show would play out in 2015. // Alex: Well, the first thing I saw was a lot of leather panelling worn by the judges. Duncan: They all have a vibe … Read more