With Mastermind returning to our screens this week for the first time in over 25 years, Calum Henderson visits the set to watch the brainiacs at work. A couple of days before I went to watch the new series of Mastermind being filmed, I emailed the show’s publicist asking if she could tell me the … Read more
Ben Stanley embarks on a True Detective pilgrimage, visiting the most famous Louisiana sites from the first season. Pensive but mystically lucid, Rust Cohle looks up from a half-empty Lone Star, and considers his answer. Two detectives stare him down in a cigarette smoke-filled New Orleans cop station room. They’ve been bailing up Rust – everyone’s … Read more
Following in the footsteps of Liz Lemon, Jerry Seinfeld and Louie CK, Catherine McGregor eats at the iconic food vendors of New York television comedy. “I’m going to go talk to some food about this” – Liz Lemon. The Seinfeld Diner Finding out that Seinfeld was shot in Los Angeles sits high in my personal pantheon … Read more
Back Benches frequently and entirely correctly refers to itself as “the world’s only pub politics show”. It’s both true and somewhat redundant: what other country on our splendid planet would be fool crazy enough to allow it to exist? The show features sitting MPs, who set up in a pub adjacent to Parliament for an … Read more
Josie Campbell spent a day at an English castle, immersing herself in the full Antiques Roadshow experience, including taking some of New Zealand’s finest china to be assessed. This whole Antiques Roadshow experience is thanks to a momentary flash of brilliance out of nowhere, when I wondered if Antiques Roadshow would be recording while I was … Read more
Katherine Kelly Lang, star of The Bold and The Beautiful for over 28 years, has brought her luxury kaftan line to New Zealand. With nothing else to do on a Monday, Alex Casey went along to the launch party. It was a Monday morning and, like any normal day, I was off to a kaftan … Read more
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
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
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
As the final season of Mad Men draws to a close, Henry Oliver reports back on the faithful sets, drawers of trinkets and tiny 1960s clothes at the Mad Men exhibit at New York’s Museum of Moving Image. Photo credit: Alexis Brooks. Everything’s an exhibition nowadays. This year in New York, a city seemingly full of … Read more
Alex Casey visited the Breakfast set this morning to enjoy an intimate concert with hairy guitar chaps Counting Crows. // This morning I woke up early, got in a big yellow taxi (small gold Uber) and made my way to TVNZ to watch Counting Crows play live on Breakfast. My Uber driver Plamen was keen … Read more
Duncan Greive visits the set of Best Bits, One’s panel show discussing the week’s worst television, to see how the sausage gets made. // On a glass coffee table in the Best Bits green room there is a bowl with two chocolate chip biscuits in it alongside a purse-sized packet of Carefree panty liners. “I see they’ve … 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
Alex Casey took a surreal trip out to the Shortland Street set, and found scoops around every corner.// When I arrived at South Pacific Pictures, I was greeted in the carpark by a giant tripod with a long brown wig balanced on the top – a sort of terrifying tribal challenge to all layman who … Read more
With The X Factor’s filmed auditions in full throttle, Alex Casey revisits her bizarre afternoon at the preliminary auditions many moons ago. // Chomping at the bit to see the next slew of wide-eyed The X Factor hopefuls, I decided to head to the preliminary auditions at AUT. These are the pre-screenings, the first of … Read more
Charlotte Red ventures to the altar of American satire that is The Daily Show, and finds herself in an unexpected confrontation with the great man himself. I’m sitting in the audience of The Daily Show thinking of all the things I should and shouldn’t do. In the hour-long queue to get into the small studio, the … Read more
Rebecca Wadey has an unnatural affection for homegrown reality TV, so the arrival of The Block on her doorstep was a big deal. The open homes? Double that again. // There was never any point at which I which I wouldn’t have gone to The Block open homes. I love a local reality TV show at … Read more
A chance encounter in LA lead David Shamy to the lair of Dr Phil, America’s premier unlicensed clinical psychologist. // You find two types of people on Venice Beach: the watchers and the watched. The watched are pirouetting on roller-skates, barely concealing their intimate parts. Or: they’re oiled up and pumping iron, barely concealing their … Read more
The thing about living in a free country is that you can rock around the corner and if you happen to stumble across The Block, so be it. The entire thing had been covered in shrink wrap which is for weather prevention but also, annoyingly, snoop prevention. It was worse than staring at your wrapped presents under … Read more
Matt Suddain visits the set of the epic new fantasy show Outlander. // Scotland is no stranger to glamour, as you know. My taxi driver tells me he once gave Charlie Sheen a lift from the airport. “He was nay bother really. Very friendly. Full of energy.” He gets so engrossed in his stories he misses … Read more