The new season of True Detective starts tonight, bringing with it a whole new story, cast and setting. Time may well be a flat circle, but feels like a bloody long time to me since the first season. I’ve decided to assemble a refresher package for those delving back into the musky True Detective world. … Read more
Please enjoy this excellent episode of Shorty Street Scandal, wherein James Mustapic recaps the past week of Ferndale hijinks. This week? Pixie goes down in a brownie blaze, Boyd and Harper talk dirty and James celebrates one year of Shorty Street Scandal: Rampant leg cancer aside, Pixie has been living a pretty cruisey life in Ferndale. She gets personal visits … Read more
Hayden Donnell looks into the oozing ruptured abdomen of Game of Thrones and tries to discover how to make it through this doomscape alive. Contains endless spoilers, obviously. Game of Thrones is trying to inflict as much emotional and physical harm on you as possible. It wants to teach you that good guys don’t always win, that honour … Read more
Lost amongst TV3’s big budget reality imports and current affairs cancellations has been one unexpected hit: YouTube-on-TV clip show Fail Army. Duncan Greive tries to figure out how this designed-to-fail show works. Of all the millions of new shows TV3 has launched this year, few had lower expectations than Fail Army. A clip show screening … Read more
Alex Casey and Duncan Greive look back across the week in television and pick their favourite moments. 1. Come Dine With Me NZ is Perfect Right Out of The Oven There is no better illustration of MediaWorks’ maniacal new direction than its absent-mindedly plopping Come Dine With Me in the slot formerly reserved for Campbell … 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 celebrates the best bonkers moments from week one of Come Dine With Me NZ. Among all the angst and genuine uncertainty that has come to characterise New Zealand’s TV industry, the local … Read more
Alex Casey introduces the young subjects in TV3’s new documentary series Reality Trip, including a 25 year-old with the views of a crazed senior citizen. TV3’s new series Reality Trip takes a group of young New Zealand consumers and whisks them around the world, confronting them with the reality of how their favourite products are … Read more
In a time before she donned a sparkly dress and mom-danced (as my flatmate put it) on free-to-air television, before she called one journalist a “puffed up little shit” and another Cameron Slater’s “glove puppet”, our dearly beloved Pam Corkery was once an MP. For three years, she occupied a seat in our hallowed halls … Read more
Alex Casey introduces the key witches in American Horror Story: Coven, and breaks down each of their unique powers in the spellbinding horror series. The third season in the skin-crawling anthology series American Horror Story follows modern day witches living together in New Orleans, Louisiana, all residing under one roof at Miss Robichaux’s Academy. There’s a more … Read more
A Spinoff special covering Lightbox’s exceptional new bleakly comic drama UnREAL and the mindblowing new season of The Bachelorette, playing on TVNZ On Demand. The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and Duncan Greive are joined by The Pantograph Punch‘s Kirsti Whalen – who has watched every single English-language Bachelor franchise – to discuss the way the search … Read more
What a sexy week. Actually no, sexy then devastating. Like dropping a delicious gateau into a pile of mud. Or, indeed, dropping a scandal queenie onto a dancefloor on national television. The elimination of Colin Mathura Jeffree has sent shockwaves through the nation, with the social movement #CornrowsforColin truly taking Twitter by force. Goodbye my … Read more
The first ever New Zealand Young Writers Festival was held in Dunedin last month. Alex Casey and Duncan Greive were asked to do a panel discussion about reality television, and it’s place in New Zealand culture. –––– Click here for more from the NZ Young Writers Festival, including an ‘Ask Me Anything’ with Guy Williams … Read more
Elyse Robêrt brings us the debut of our Shortland Street power rankings, covering the waxing and waning of Ferndale’s babe medic community. This week was full of classic Shorty behaviour from some of our favourite Tāmaki Makaurau residents. TK was grumpy about everything, Boyd was in Melbourne but still managed to be bossy, and that … Read more
Jane Yee invites The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and Duncan Greive to the D-Floor to discuss this week’s Dancing With the Stars action. It was an action-packed week, with the elimination of PM-in-waiting Colin Mathura-Jeffree, Teuila’s XXX-rated routine and Jay Jay’s vicious tumble. Also features a shock piece of actual bonafide analysis from Jane, which leaves … Read more
This afternoon, whilst catching up on last night’s Dancing With the Stars episode, I realised that I hadn’t yet voted for my favourite dancer and all-time person Pam Corkery. I still haven’t got my head around the logistics of the voting system, but I was embodied with nothing more than a pure desire to keep her … Read more
Last Monday David Farrier and Sam Hayes’ Newsworthy debuted. At the end of of their first week they invited The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and Duncan Greive along to review their first week on air, on air.
Alex Casey took a time machine taxi to the Westside set, and walked onto a pristine replica of 1970s New Zealand with all the novelty retro trimmings. There is nothing more surreal than sitting on the West family toilet. The bowl itself? Hard plastic and skin-crawlingly orange. Perching next to it is a crocheted toilet paper … Read more
Joseph Moore discovers The Bros NZ, an acoustic supergroup lurking in Grey Lynn that features Step Dave from Step Dave banging on a box. And so much more. The journey from mildly well-known Shortland Street star to legit-as-musician is a path that has been often travelled, yet seldom nailed. There have been valiant attempts. Paul … Read more
Our off-peak TV connoisseur Calum Henderson watches The Tipping Point, the human versus machine game show that strikes a crucial balance between moronic and enthralling. In moments of hopelessness and despair, it can be easy to think that TV’s best game shows belong to the past. Millionaire has been clocked. Every possible permutation of Deal … Read more
Alex Casey watches the return of Prime’s Celebrity Wife Swap, and recaps the dramatic first episode starring Coolio and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath. What’s it about? Celebrity Wife Swap USA invites two undeniable has-beens to put their poor wives forward for the most bizarrely, seemingly pointless task of all time. Hopping in a limo to … Read more
Our UK correspondent and talent show cynic Chris Hooper attended the spectacular Britain’s Got Talent live semi-final, and discovered a beating heart underneath the flaming bras. I’ve been invited to the semi-finals of ratings juggernaut Britain’s Got Talent and was intrigued to uncover the broad appeal. Because on the surface it looks pretty bonkers. I received Production … Read more
Alex Casey remembers her most traumatic childhood television experience – watching videotapes of body horror kids’ show Round the Twist at primary school. My primary school had a reliever teacher called Mr Anchor. He would cycle in from the next town on a rickety bike, absolutely laden with bags of trinkets and musical instruments. If your … Read more
Alex Casey tries to get the scoop on ex-Shortland Street actor Paul Reid’s plans to buy K Rd icon St Kevin’s Arcade, and imagines some of his proposals for the space. The most scandalous rumour in the soap-actor-gone-Rubicon-gone-real-estate-tycoon world this week is that ex-Shortland Street star Paul Reid is looking to purchase St Kevin’s Arcade on … Read more
With Outlander‘s Jamie and Claire setting sail off our screens, Tara Ward cues up some more fantastic shows that will help you cope with the dreaded ‘Droughtlander’. Outlander has bid us ‘au revoir’ and sailed off into the French sunset, leaving us with a giant Jamie Fraser-sized hole in our Sunday nights. Outlander was a television … Read more
Duncan Greive spends the day at TV3 before the debut of Newsworthy, a show staffed and fronted by young people who’ve finally got a turn at the wheel. In a dark room, David Farrier sits silently, watching himself intently. The on-screen David Farrier is draped across a wooden bench in a wooden room, the sweat pouring … Read more
Alex Casey previews the first episode of Come Dine With Me NZ, and serves up a sample platter of the type of talent you can look forward to meeting. Pull over Road Cops, Come Dine With Me begins on Monday June 15 at 7pm on TV3. The premise? Five New Zealanders take turns to host … Read more
Alex Casey’s second power rankings for Dancing With the Stars NZ, including Maz Quinn’s elimination, Siobhan Marshall’s dog and Shane Cameron’s microwave technique. If there has ever been anything to convince me of the validity of Mercury Retrograde, it’s Dancing With the Stars NZ. Basically, Mercury is seemingly zooming backwards through the zodiac for a few weeks, and … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the first three episodes of TV2’s Empire, and dissects how his new guilty pleasure successfully blends legitimate themes with soapy absurdities. If Fox’s Empire confirms one thing, it’s my suspicion that showrunner Lee Daniels should’ve done TV a long time ago. On the big screen, the producer/director has often been slapped with … Read more
Jane Yee, Alex Casey and Duncan Greive bring you all the moves from Dancing With the Stars’ second week, bringing you our live reaction to the shocking first elimination. We bid a stone-faced farewell to Maz, earnestly discuss whether Simon Barnett’s knee dislocation is real and moon over CMJ’s lustrous hair. iPhone users click here … Read more