The Real Pod’s bumper reality TV quiz of the year

Think you know your Lings from your Zings and your Fleischls from your Brettschneiders? Take The Real Pod’s reality TV quiz and prove it, with special thanks to Nando’s.  Here at The Real Pod, The Spinoff’s own weekly popular culture and reality TV podcast, we live and breathe reality television and real life in New … Read more

The Real Pod: Celebrity Treasure Island ends and MAFSNZ kicks off

The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. Jane is away, so the mice will play. Call the coppers, its a chaos pod this week no with proper doc, no proper stings and no proper adults. It’s been a great week of reality television, with … Read more

The Bulletin: How electorates could change after census

Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: How electorate boundaries could change, plans to bring agriculture into the ETS stall, and another scandal hits state care abuse Royal Commission. Electorate boundary changes look set to make a few of Labour’s South Island strongholds a little less safe, reports Elena McPhee of the ODT. Both … Read more

Celebrity Treasure Island Power Rankings: And the winner is…

Alex Casey power ranks the final week of Celebrity Treasure Island and, folks, we have a winner.  What an absolute doozy of a finale. With $100,000 on the line for their charities, the final three men went hundies to find the buried treasure chest that brought them all there. Yo ho ho and a bottle … Read more

The Real Pod: Trouble in MAFSNZ paradise and the truth about Nessie

The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. With Duncan enjoying a MAFS-style beach holiday in Bali, Alex and Jane are left to cover another crazy week in reality television. Shannon Ryan has gone full beast-mode in Celebrity Treasure Island, Married At First Sight NZ … Read more

Celebrity Treasure Island rankings: Where dreams are castles in the sand

It was another wild week in our favourite island paradise, as our remaining celebrities continued their quest to win cash for charity. Tara Ward power ranks.  The bells of change have rung on Celebrity Treasure Island, and we’re now knee deep in an individual game of trickery, ping-pongery, and Tim-Tammery. The two teams merged into Team … Read more

The Real Pod: Celebrity Treasure Island has gone full Lord of the Flies

The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. Dress us up in shit-covered clothing and send us to Disneyland with Richie McCaw, The Real Pod is back for another stonker week of real life in this foolish corner of the globe. In real news, influencers … Read more

Celebrity Treasure Island Power Rankings: My kingdom for a couch

It’s week three of Celebrity Treasure Island, and what a forking great week it was. Tara Ward power ranks our favourite celebrity contestants as they compete to win that sweet charity cash.  Welcome back to another glorious week in Paradise, as our beloved CTI contestants dodged, ducked, dipped, dived and dodged their way through tense eliminations, … Read more

The Real Pod: Sam Wallace is reality TV’s consummate fool

The Real Pod team assemble to discuss the brilliant Celebrity Treasure Island, The Block’s descent and worrying signs for the upcoming season of Married at First Sight NZ. It’s the show we didn’t know we needed, good-natured family entertainment that doesn’t forget the absolute drama. Shane Cameron nearly tore Jodie Molloy apart just because she … Read more

Celebrity Treasure Island Power Rankings: To the victor go the toasties

It is the second week of Celebrity Treasure Island and the gloves are officially off. Alex Casey power ranks the celebrity contestants vying for that sweet charity cash.  Two weeks in and I am here to firmly agree with my Real Pod co-host in saying that Celebrity Treasure Island is bloody mindless brilliance. If you … Read more

Review: Celebrity Treasure Island reboot is a brilliant blast from TV’s ancient past

As a format it predates almost all reality TV, and that’s precisely why it works in 2019, writes Duncan Greive. There’s something deeply comforting about watching Celebrity Treasure Island. It is a very pure form of escapism, largely because it explicitly recalls a world without the internet, and before everything started going to hell. It … Read more

The Real Pod: In which Celebrity Treasure Island takes the biscuit

The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. Sound the alarm, because it’s time for another absolute chaos pod. We’re talking haunted dolls in Waipu, we’re talking giant hands taking over Wellington, we’re talking soft serve cones dipped in powdered Milo. If you can keep … Read more

The Real Pod: The walls come down as the wheels come off The Block NZ

The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. We’ve got a whole litre of taurine fizz cranking through the studio this week as The Real Pod Collective convenes to recap another hectic week in reality TV land. The Celebrity Treasure Island cast have been announced, … Read more

And the stars of Celebrity Treasure Island 2019 are…

Alex Casey breaks down the full line-up for Celebrity Treasure Island 2019, including two weather presenters and a mandatory Lana. Gather round peasants, Celebrity Treasure Island is coming back for the first time since 2007 and you should all be screaming bloody murder. This is the show with the killer coral! The weird txt speak! … Read more

A tribute to New Zealand’s finest: John ‘Cocksy’ Cocks

New Zealand’s first celebrity builder, John “Cocksy” Cocks, died yesterday. Tara Ward takes a look back on some of his finest television moments. There was only one celebrity builder who ruled our screens at the turn of the millennium. It was John “Cocksy” Cocks, and we knew him best as the unassuming expert builder in … Read more

Will Max Key wash up on Celebrity Treasure Island? I bloody hope so

The most anticipated reality TV event of the year, Celebrity Treasure Island may have just got its first castaway.  Hit the dab, 2019, you’ve done it again. I might still be moderately drunk from Hogmanay, but The Spinoff has been handed some extremely piping hot intel from a high level source that Max Key is … Read more

The absolutely 100% real contestants of Celebrity Treasure Island 2019

It has been announced that Celebrity Treasure Island, the iconic New Zealand reality show that almost killed Mountain Dewer Lana Coc-Kroft, will return next year. Sam Brooks peers into his dollar-store crystal ball to predict the contestants. It’s coming back. The show that introduced us to celebrities… again. The show that almost killed our most … Read more

Where are the stars of 2001’s Celebrity Treasure Island now?

Before there was Survivor, there was New Zealand’s own reality juggernaut Treasure Island. Calum Henderson revisits the first episode of 2001’s Celebrity Treasure Island and finds out what the contestants are doing with themselves now. There were nine whole seasons of Treasure Island and all anyone remembers is the time Lana Coc-Kroft nearly died from … Read more