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
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
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
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
David Farrier explains how our stuff.co.nz smash hit Real Talk series came about. If you’ve missed the magic, the complete videos are embedded at the end of this post. If you google “Ben Mitchell”, the first result you get is one of my favourite interviews of 2013: The headline is beautiful in its simplicity: “Me … 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
Throughout ‘Street Week’, our tribute to the wonder that is Shortland Street, we’ve been running ‘Real Talk’, a series of very strange interviews with Ferndalers Ben Mitchell and Cam Jones, conducted by David Farrier. All eight are now out, and the MSM has finally picked up on the biggest story since Dirty Politics, so we’ve compiled the lot into … Read more
‘Real Talk’ is a series of interviews conducted exclusively for The Spinoff’s ‘Street Week’ by David Farrier with Shortland Street‘s Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. The eighth and final episode features outtakes from the interview – the best strong strange opinions that didn’t make the cut in other clips. Mitchell on Shortland Street: “It fulfils a lot of my … Read more
As Shorty launches its own fanfic site for summer, Joseph Moore writes a FanFiction imagining Chris Warner’s sad, inevitable death in a classic season finale about five or so years into the future. // The Death of Chris Warner “Prepare to die Warner!” the gang member who was kind of good at acting yelled, a … 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
‘Real Talk’ is a series of interviews conducted exclusively for The Spinoff’s ‘Street Week’ by David Farrier with Shortland Street‘s Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. The seventh episode has our guys weighing in on ‘Conspiracy Theories’. “There are some things that I wouldn’t call a conspiracy,” says Mitchell. “They’re factual. Supported by archaeological evidence.” “Such as?” asks … Read more
‘Real Talk’ is a series of interviews conducted exclusively for The Spinoff’s ‘Street Week’ by David Farrier with Shortland Street‘s Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. Episode six has Jones (an environmentalist) and Mitchell (a Holden-lovin’ petrolhead) squaring off over ‘Cyclists’. Jones and Mitchell are Shortland Street’s biggest stars and hunkiest hunks. Mitchell plays TK Samuels, the sculpted head of … Read more
‘Real Talk’ is a series of interviews conducted exclusively for The Spinoff’s ‘Street Week’ by David Farrier with Shortland Street‘s Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. This fifth instalment features the dashing lads of the ED weighing in on what they look for in a woman. Jones and Mitchell are Shortland Street’s biggest stars and hunkiest hunks. … Read more
‘Real Talk’ is a series of interviews conducted by David Farrier featuring Shortland Street‘s Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. They’ll give a hot take on a series of important contemporary issues. This afternoon’s lesson is on ‘The Internet’. Jones and Mitchell are Shortland Street’s biggest stars and hunkiest hunks. Mitchell plays TK Samuels, the sculpted head of the Emergency Department, … Read more
Richard Cowley had just started med school when TK Samuels arrived in Ferndale. Their uncanny resemblance has haunted him ever since. Simon Day sat down with him for a chat about his time as the real life TK. // The theatre of Ferndale has been known to imitate life. But for a young orthopaedic registrar … Read more
‘Real Talk’ is a series of interviews conducted by David Farrier featuring Shortland Street‘s Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. They’ll give the babe actor demographic’s hot take on a series of important contemporary issues. This morning: ‘the objectification of men’. Jones and Mitchell are Shortland Street’s biggest stars and hunkiest hunks. Mitchell plays TK Samuels, the sculpted head … Read more
In part two (here is part one) of David Farrier’s ‘Real Talk’ interview series with Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell, Shortland Street‘s bench-pressing health warriors weigh in on the internet’s ‘culture of outrage’. Jones and Mitchell are Shortland Street’s biggest stars and hunkiest hunks. Mitchell plays TK Samuels, the sculpted head of the Emergency Department, while Jones is ripped ambo … Read more
Welcome to the centrepiece of Street Week: ‘Real Talk’, an eight part interview by David Farrier featuring Cam Jones and Ben Mitchell. The pair are Shortland Street’s biggest stars and hunkiest hunks. Mitchell plays TK Samuels, the sculpted head of the Emergency Department, while Jones is ripped ambo Dallas Adams. The Herald has published two dynamite interviews with Mitchell, while Jones has … 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
José Barbosa wraps up Sci Fi Week by examining New Zealand’s TV science fiction, which peaked in the ’80s and has rarely been seen since. He wants to know why. // As we know Television is traditionally considered the production budget equivalent of a ratty two dollar shop that sells mobile phone covers and velvet … Read more
One of the most important TV shows right now – Orphan Black – might turn out to be a hollow disappointment, but it still makes for essential viewing. David Larsen explains why. Here is one of my favourite pop culture images from the last ten years. It has nothing and everything to do with Orphan … Read more
José Barbosa shines a harsh space torch on sci-fi’s dirty little secret: it mostly looks terrible. Then tells us why we shouldn’t care. // If we can start by being honest, I think it’s important to acknowledge that really, no one should like science fiction TV shows. Much like KFC, the basic idea appeals, but … Read more
After twelve weeks, two melted pairs of pants and too many bespoke furnishings to count, Tara Ward shares her top ten lessons learned from watching The Block NZ 2014. // I’m amongst friends, so let me share with the group: I am a Blockaholic. This morning I thought I saw The Wolf coming out of the … Read more
Like advertising’s cockroach, informercials have emerged stronger following the internet’s onslaught. José Barbosa suffered through a night of them to bring you this harrowing report. // It can be argued that, in terms of human dignity, waking up at 1:30 in the morning with the intent to watch infomercials is a plunge into the lowest … Read more
Abby Lee Miller trained the dancer in Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ clip, but reveals deep depravity in reality show Dance Moms. Eleanor Robertson wrestles with a complex monster. // Think about the worst person you’ve ever met. Not someone who inexplicably annoys you, or somebody you hate for a petty historical reason. I mean the worst person. The kind of person you … 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
For TV Autopsies The Spinoff ventures deep into the TV universe to check in with New Zealand’s fallen stars, away from the spotlight’s glare. In this debut instalment Alex Casey went to Manurewa to meet four-octave powerhouse and Harry Warner hater, Wayne Anderson. // Wayne Anderson, the greatest singer in Manurewa, first bellowed his way onto our screens in the 2005 series … Read more