Tingly Fingers for Better Call Saul Better Call Saul, one of the more hotly-anticipated shows for next year, has managed to maintain an almost unheard of level of mystery. The Breaking Bad spinoff show has restrained its PR to mere small town billboards, classified ads and the odd trailer, leading to fever pitch levels of intrigue … Read more
Goodbye Sweet Dawg After 13 seasons, 400 cheesecutter hats and just as many peace signs – judge Randy Jackson is moving on from American Idol. He leaves Ryan Seacrest as the only remaining original cast member, to join Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul in some sort of Coca-Cola Mecca. The judges for the upcoming season … Read more
MediaWorks and TVNZ have both launched their television schedules for next year, and there is one undeniable trend for 2015: local. Local productions, local stories and local singles in your area looking for love. The parallels between programming are impossible to ignore, so why not encourage some healthy competition? // The Block NZ vs Our First Home With The … Read more
Will it be Fourth Time Lucky for the Girls of Girls? HBO has confirmed that the fourth season of Lena Dunham’s Girls will premiere on January 11 in the States. Who knows what that means for us at this stage but, for now, please enjoy this set visit teaser. I always thought Shoshanna was born in … Read more
It’s due to hit our screens in early 2015, but already the search is under way to discover the next Benny Tipene or… whoever it was that won the first series of X Factor. Robyn Gallagher updates us with happenings land of the X. // Pre-auditions The pre-audition tour has just ended, which no doubt involved … Read more
“If you think you can fall, you’re more likely to.” – Nik Wallenda, inspirational speaker and King of the Wire Here at The Spinoff, we love a good live event – and Nik Wallenda is fast-becoming the modern day king of the live event. Last year, the world was gripped as he crossed the Grand … Read more
Trying to read everything on the internet can be a bit like trying to high-five a ghost, you will never manage and you will look like an idiot doing it. Never fear, we have taken the liberty of assembling an entire crypt full of spooky TV reading for you over this frightening weekend. Fill your skull … Read more
Forecast? Sadness Today, the NZ Herald announced that our all-time favourite weather man/father of the nation Jim Hickey will be retiring to pursue his memorabilia café dreams. It looks at this stage like he will be replaced by Dan Corbett, who has recently joined the One News weather team. We put together some of his … Read more
As any scarf-laden teen will tell you – hickeys are notoriously hard to get rid of. But we don’t want to part with this one. Today, the Herald announced that our eternal weather shaman Jim Hickey is sadly retiring (again). Doing his time in front of that mesmerizing TVNZ green screen since 1988, Hickey is … Read more
Ah, nothing like a touching interview with someone who is head over heels in love. Last week on the British ITV morning show This Morning, hosts Amanda Holden and Phillip Schofield talked to 63 year old smokeshow Edward Smith, who has taken 700 lovers since the age of 14. Did I say lovers? I meant cars. … Read more
It’s the weekend. You can’t deny it, it’s definitely about to happen. Lucky you’ve got that giant television spreadsheet nailed onto your wall to get you through the next 48 hours. Oh, you don’t? Well never fear. It’s scheduled to rain a lot over the weekend, so let us guide you through the two days … Read more
The Most Important Paul of the Day On Monday, MediaWorks announced that Paul Henry will be hosting New Zealand’s first cross-platform breakfast show in 2015. That’s right, Paul Henry will be all over your morning cereal, your drive to work, your radio, your TV, your ears, your eyes, your entire world. MediaWorks are hoping to integrate … Read more
Today, the NZ Herald published a gem of an interview with Shortland Street actor Ben Mitchell, wherein he restated his bizarre, unpleasant views about contemporary gender roles. I say restated because this is not the first time he has strongly voiced his proudly misogynist opinions. Shortland St occupies a unique place in this country’s self-image, due to both its age … Read more
Having already mercilessly extinguished one interesting and important broadcast outlet, Paul “Death Star” Henry has moved on to his next whimsical planetary demolition with the announcement of his new cross-platform extravaganza. I guess it makes sense to move Paul Henry back to breakfast slot, given his core viewership probably tends toward an early bedtime. There … Read more
Yesterday, MediaWorks announced that Paul Henry will be hosting New Zealand’s first cross-platform live breakfast show in 2015. If having him on your TV, your radio and your computer is not going to be enough, there will also be an elite range of limited-edition products released to make sure you really get the most Paul Henry out of every … Read more
With the news that Paul Henry will be taking over TV3’s breakfast television and radio, Joseph Moore imagines the final episode in the fake-book laden late-night lair of The Paul Henry Show (please note this work is entirely fictitious although, has anyone actually seen Jesse Peach recently?) // “2 minutes, Mr. Henry!” a voice from a … Read more
It’s Friday again. I can’t believe this keeps happening. Lucky there’s all this television to distract us from the fleeting passage of time that is life huh? Sorry, what a downer. What a terrible way to start a post. Talking of mortality and fear, might I suggest this weekend’s binge-watch to be the original season of American … Read more
Rounding up the week in TV news so you can make cool small talk with peers, postmen and partygoers over the weekend.// The Show About Renewal Gets It’s Own Renewal This week the good people at Lightbox brought the much-anticipated Amazon original series Transparent to our fair shores, and we can’t sing it’s praises high enough. … Read more
Shortland St. Two words which make TVNZ’s ad sales warriors 50% stronger while TV3’s equivalents suppress waves of nausea at the very mention. For 22 long years it has had a monopoly on the New Zealand soap scene, but news broke Wednesday that from 2015 it will finally have competition. TV3 have announced plans for a five-nights-a-weeker … Read more
New Lightbox acquisition Transparent, an Amazon Original from a key Six Feet Under writer, is already being touted as one of the year’s finest.// “Are you saying you’re gonna start dressing up like a lady all the time?” “No, my whole life I’ve been dressing up… like a man.” Transparent is the brand new comedy-drama from Jill Soloway, producer … Read more
The new look New Zealand-made Thunderbirds have been revealed at long last. Well, the back of them have anyway. It’s early days, but we can confidently say that a variety of male hairstyles and hair colours are go! The animated revival of the 1960s sci-fi show is set for a small screen release in September next year, the perfect … Read more
Can you even believe your life! It’s nearly the weekend again! And, like clockwork, there’s a whole bunch of telly out there waiting to be watched. It’s windy out there, so keep your wits about you and stay inside. For a binge-watch, why not check out Caprica on Lightbox. A prequel spin-off to Battlestar Galactica … Read more
Last night in the States, Lorde graced the good people of South Park with her infamous ethereal and mysterious presence in the episode “Gluten Free Ebola”. Except it wasn’t really Lorde. Giving a rare sneak preview of the hot new track “I am Lorde Ya Ya Ya (Call Me Lorde)”, it became pretty clear she was less Lorde and … Read more
Massive spook-fest American Horror Story: Freak Show begins next week. Today they unleashed the carnival-of-creeps opening credits to get everyone sufficiently amped/terrified for the season ahead. Here are the five top-billing Freak Show friends, in no particular order: 1) Tentacle John He’s just a regular guy chilling out on a crate except he has two tentacle things … Read more
Yesterday the Madden brothers of Good Charlotte fame took over the Breakfast weather report for some reason. It began with Weatherman Sam dressed in slightly cool punkish clothes (including many large rings) taking a selfie with the rocker twins, before stepping aside and giving them a Maori Place Name Challenge. The masterminds behind Lifestyles of … Read more
The last episode of Breaking Bad aired 365 days ago. For some, this was a vivid event that sunk it’s televisual talons deep into their pop culture history book. For others, it was just a plain hellish day to be on Twitter, a stark reminder of their own cataclysmic failure to ‘keep up with the play’. “I have never seen … Read more
Last night David Cunliffe appeared on Campbell Live to give his first interview since Labour lost the election and he stood down as leader. John Campbell leaned forward, “you’re hard up against it aren’t you?” Their beady eyes aligned. Cunliffe looked more exhausted than any comparable cat picture on the internet, explaining that he had been … Read more
This morning Stuff.co.nz launched the pilot episode of Road Trip, an interactive webseries docu-drama looking to tell New Zealander’s stories from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Or, in this case, Bluff to Cape Reinga. In the first episode we meet Sarah, a frenzied Canadian backpacker and Beni, a chilled out Tongan-Kiwi who is forced to drive her to … Read more
The weekend is nearly upon us once again, and Spring is leaking through the firmly closed curtains of TV rooms everywhere. The clocks go forward on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean that you can just abandon your television schedule to go and frolick in a meadow. There are still some important things to watch out there. … Read more