Exclusive: New song from Benee

Benee’s new tune ‘Lownely’, a remix of the international hit ‘Supalonely’, is premiering right here, right now. She tells us about making music in unprecedented times. Local lass and global superstar Benee is a 20-year-old with 23 million monthly listeners. She’s gone from strength to strength since last year’s EPs Stella & Steve and Fire … Read more

Heartbreak Island star under fire over online ‘business accelerator’

Reality TV star Harry Jowsey has been taken to task on YouTube by a British teenager over a $600 online business accelerator scheme. He was the charming Aussie with the Ledger-esque smile who graced our screens last year in New Zealand reality show Heartbreak Island, and more recently made his international telly debut on Netflix’s … Read more

From recorders to records: Matt Mulholland is a serious musician

The Wellington-based musician’s new album is the culmination of 10 years of memories, YouTube, and jazz school. It’s been over a decade since ‘My Heart Will Go On – Recorder by Candlelight’ was uploaded to YouTube. It is a work of exceptional craftsmanship. The soft focus, the notes pitching in just the wrong places, and … Read more

How NZ music can thrive in the post-Covid world

With so many gigs and jobs cancelled over the past month, Covid-19 has devastated the New Zealand music ecosystem. But as Recorded Music NZ CEO Damian Vaughan writes, the right support can see the industry emerge even stronger. By the numbers, this should be a time of celebration for Aotearoa’s music industry. We just finalised … Read more

What’s new to Netflix NZ, Neon and every other streaming service in May

What are you going to be watching in May? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. Click here to read our listings from April. The biggies Dead to Me (season 2 on Netflix, binge from May 8) When … Read more

Review: Sally Rooney’s Normal People makes for thirsty telly

A grey day, tussocky field, a boy and a girl sit close, she resting her head on his shoulder. Both pale and beautiful.

Gentle, moving and a little bit sexy, the BBC and Hulu’s take on Sally Rooney’s book club staple Normal People not only survives adaptation, it thrives, writes Sam Brooks. If the Unity Books charts are anything to go by, everybody in New Zealand owns about two copies of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. The novel by … Read more

Challenge accepted: How to make lockdown fun with You Got This!

You Got This! pits bubble against bubble in family fun challenges with no risk of overlap. Tara Ward gives us a few of the challenges she’s done with her own family during lockdown.  Gather all ye wooden spoons and empty boxes and prepare to enjoy You Got This!, a new show that sees Kiwi families … Read more

Chelsea Jade explains her bizarre new music video

LA-based New Zealander Chelsea Jade’s latest single, ‘Superfan,’ is out now. She explains everything behind the stilts and the strangeness of her new video. Chelsea Jade calls herself DIY pop, and she really does do it all herself. After a couple of years touring North America with Muna and YourSmith, the songwriter, singer, director, and … Read more

Have You Been Paying Attention’s Hayley Sproull on the move from studio to lounge

How do you move your news-stuffed, comedian-packed game show to Zoom? Sam Brooks talked to Hayley Sproull, host of Have You Been Paying Attention?, to find out. Over the last five weeks we’ve all become a lot more comfortable seeing inside the homes of our colleagues, politicians and epidemiologists. And while television has always been … Read more

Outlander recap: Murder, misery and monsters of the deep

Everyone wants to kill Stephen Bonnet, but which one of the Frasers will actually get to do it? Tara Ward recaps season five, episode 10. Friends, I’m still recovering from Jamie Fraser dying and then being brought back to life by his wife’s magical boobs, so to have Outlander throw crisis after crisis at us … Read more

Review: New Zealand murder mystery One Lane Bridge is beautiful but blank

The writing of this new TVNZ series struggles to live up to the drama of its breathtaking location, writes Catherine McGregor. The first scene is astonishing. It begins with a drowned girl floating face down underwater, her hair a weightless auburn cloud around her face. And then the scene expands. In a single shot we … Read more

Review: Cate Blanchett is a sweet-talking anti-feminist nightmare in Mrs. America

The new Neon series about the fight to have gender equality enshrined in the US Constitution is a fun 70s romp with a bitter twist, writes Catherine McGregor. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, they say, and right now that’s especially true for television, which is filled to the gills with historical series attempting to say … Read more

Gone Sheila: The Secrets She Keeps is your new Australian thriller addiction

Need to scratch that Gone Girl itch from years past? The Secrets She Keeps is the new Australian thriller that asks how far you should go to get the perfect life. Pre-lockdown, influencers were king and there was no better way to feel stink about your own life than to step into theirs. This is … Read more

WATCH: Under Cover: Marlon Williams and Finn Andrews

Like the rest of New Zealand, musicians Marlon Williams and Finn Andrews (The Veils) are in lockdown. They caught up via video chat to perform covers of one another’s songs, talk about their punk dads, and reminisce about backstage karaoke. Before the lockdown, musicians Marlon Williams and Finn Andrews were set to embark on a series … Read more

Review: A slow and strange start for Rebuilding Paradise with Paul Henry

Rebuilding Paradise with Paul Henry marks the controversial presenter’s return to primetime to talk about New Zealand after Covid-19. Sam Brooks reviews. It has to be addressed: A significant amount of people don’t want to see Paul Henry back on our screens. He’s done a lot of bigoted shit, including but not limited to mocking … Read more

Robbie Nicol: How I learned to become a good citizen

Robbie Nicol, aka White Man Behind a Desk, has just launched The Citizen’s Handbook, a webseries dedicated to teaching New Zealanders how their country actually works. Here’s five things he learned while making it. It’s probably a failing of our education system that I left high school without knowing how New Zealand’s political system works. … Read more

Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle is the horniest social distancing you’ll ever watch

Imagine Love Island without… the touching? Netflix’s new reality show Too Hot to Handle hits a little bit close to our distanced homes, writes Sam Brooks. When it starts, Too Hot to Handle seems like another escapist log on the reality show pyre, upon which many an attractive, abominably-blessed human has been set alight. Waves … Read more

Ten dogs that need to be on Pooch Perfect right now

Pooch Perfect is the dog-grooming reality show you never knew you wanted. Here are the famous dogs who we think deserve a spot to be groomed by the best of the best. Tired of seeing dogs only on your daily walk or scrolling through your Instagram? Do you want to see some dogs looking their … Read more

Paul Henry is returning to TV, and is basically woke now

Worrying about inequality. Excited about electric planes. A huge Jacinda fan. Duncan Greive talks to a rebooted Paul Henry.  Rumours have circulated for more than a year that Paul Henry was mulling a return to TV. He left the medium in a huff after his comments were accurately reported in a still-astounding Canvas profile by … Read more

The Tiger King after-show reveals the scuzzy underbelly of the Netflix hit

Sam Brooks reviews The Tiger King and I, which does little to rectify the damage and distortion done by the monster Netflix hit. Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness arrived at exactly the right time. People were shutting their doors, washing their hands and turning on their screens, and what was waiting there for them? … Read more

Outlander recap: Jamie Fraser plays a mean game of hide and seek

Is Roger alive? Can Marsali predict the future? Will Fraser’s Ridge ever have enough candles? Tara Ward recaps season five, episode eight of Outlander.  If you were planning on escaping through the stones to 1771 for some light relief from this mad old world of ours, think again. Turn back, you shall not pass. It … Read more

Church & AP eat doughnuts and test out a new single in episode two of Final Mix

In the new series Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. The second episode is with young-gun hip-hop duo Church & AP. Their first big single, ‘Ready or Not’, dropped early last year. Almost immediately, Elijah Manū (Church) and … Read more

Review: Killing Eve’s third season loses sight of the women who made it great

Sam Brooks reviews the third season of Killing Eve, which trades a razor-sharp focus for a wide lens and pays the price. Spoilers for the first two seasons of Killing Eve follow. In the space of three years, Killing Eve has turned from unlikely success – a cult pulp series of novels adapted by a … Read more