It’s that time of year. Everyone within a two metre radius of your work desk is sniffling, blowing their nose subtly into their sleeve on the bus and coughing loudly through the film at the cinema. You are being faced with giant, human-sized germs at every turn. So it’s no wonder you have been, are … Read more
Aaron Yap celebrates the reckless abandon of Louis C.K.’s Louie, a surreal comedy-drama that consistently transcends the boundaries of both genre and reality. I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of genres operating beyond their foundations. How far can you stretch the boundaries of a genre before it becomes something else? Is a comedy a comedy if … Read more
Don Rowe celebrates the unexpected triumphs of Lady Hoggers, the redneck reality show that follows two women with a thirst for hog blood. At this moment, approximately six million wild hogs are trotting across the southern USA, leaving a $1.5 billion trail of carnage in their wake. Despite a $20 million Department of Agriculture effort and … Read more
This week, Alex Casey and Duncan Greive mine the extensive Lightbox catalogue to find the best shows of the ’90s and argue why they are just as relevant as the fancy new shows. Having television ondemand makes it easier to keep on top of the hot new shows, but also harder to watch everything, all … Read more
Bringing together the best television moments of the week, including Come Dine With Me‘s beautiful bromance, Campbell’s low-key cameo and Newsworthy‘s sauna dramas. 1. Campbell Goes Wild on The Crowd Goes Wild A marvellous event happened in a very low key way on Wednesday night – John Campbell returned to our screens at 7pm. Just on … Read more
The people in TV shows are all good and well, but won’t someone think of the animals? Alex Casey ranks her favourite pets scurrying around on Lightbox. It’s always the boring old humans that are remembered for their good work. Everyone’s clapping for Tony Soprano, nobody spares a thought for Adriana’s dog, violently killed onscreen … 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
Tara Ward recaps the final episode of Outlander season one, wherein the coos save the day and Jamie and Claire look towards rebuilding and smouldering. At last glance, Jamie Fraser was trapped in the living hell that was Wentworth Prison – with Black Jack Randall using his tongue to sign his name across Jamie’s back. Thankfully, … Read more
Announcing the triumphant winners of our Lightbox mobile devices competition, who bravely took TV into the great outdoors and made the world their lounge. Our May Lightbox competition asked you noble television fans to take TV outside of the house on your compatible mobile devices, and find the perfect setting your favourite Lightbox show. The … Read more
With Outlander on hiatus this week before the finale, Tara Ward recaps her top ten favourite moments from the series so far from perverse back-licking to the angriest of chins. This series of Outlander has been a cracking adventure, filled with battles, blood, bigamy and bow-chicka-wow-wow – and we’ve still one episode to go! Before … Read more
Alex Casey chats to Suzanne Rogers, better known as Maggie Horton from Days of Our Lives, about what it’s like to be on a soap opera for 42 years and counting. It’s a very weird thing to be sitting in your dressing gown in Auckland, waiting on the phone to talk to a soap star in LA … Read more
Alex and Duncan give in to the manic soft-focus charm of Days of Our Lives, and urge you to get involved in the sprawling sordid soap. Days of Our Lives is one of the world’s longest-running soap operas, laden with love triangles, random resurrections and drenched in alcohol. We sat down and tried to make … Read more
In a rare Spinoff competition, we want you to take Lightbox into the real world on your mobile devices. Show us the most fitting location to watch your favourite show, and you could win a fancy Samsung Galaxy S6. Lightbox has rolled out a plethora of new devices on which you can watch your favourite … Read more
Tara Ward recaps episode 13 of Outlander, including 18th century skinny jeans, creepy puppets and Colin Farrell’s grubby doppelganger. ‘The Search’ begins with a marionette show. Puppet Claire sits at Craigh Na Dun, chilling in her 1940s white frock, when there’s a sudden explosion of light and flames. That escalated quickly. Is this a metaphor for … Read more
Lightbox have rolled out their platform to a plethora of new compatible devices. Alex Casey, with the help of some canine friends, breaks them down for you. Like Johnny Depp in Transcendence, video-on-demand service Lightbox has escaped the boundaries of traditional technology to bring television almost anywhere. Here are a few of the places you can … Read more
Alex Casey watches the first returning episode of Days of Our Lives, and notes a few things you need to ease you back into the extraordinary soap. One of the longest running scripted television shows in the entire world, Days of Our Lives has washed back up onto our shores courtesy of Lightbox this week. Five … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the first two seasons of sci-fi series Orphan Black, and hopes for just as many fast-paced, character-driven clone thrills from the lead roles in the third season. When Orphan Black debuted on BBC America in 2013, it seemed to come out of nowhere. A bolt of fresh, femme-powered lightning into a television market … Read more
Tara Ward recaps episode 13 of Outlander, including the arrival of the Black Watch to Lallybroch, a birth more momentous than the Royals, and Jamie’s incredible sense of smell. We last left Jamie and Claire firmly ensconced in the familial bosom of Lallybroch. But wait, what’s this? A pair of grubby bearded men in the kitchen, … Read more
Tara Ward recaps episode 12 of Outlander, in which the Fonz comes to Lallybroch, Jamie goes commando and Claire shares some wisdom about meeting the parents. Lallybroch, Lallybroch, oh Lally-lally-lally-lallybroch. For eleven episodes we’ve heard Jamie wax lyrical about Lallybroch. That Scottish Shangri-La, the hallowed Highland haven of Clan Fraser. Whatever could go wrong as … Read more
In the final instalment of the series – here are the first four parts – James Milne knocks off the remaining episodes of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s cancelled borderline softcore porn series The Client List in its entirety. He reflects upon his televisual journey. On any normal day, stumbling upon The Client List, I might have watched up to thirty … Read more
It’s an interesting feature of this amazing future amusement park we currently inhabit that we talk about the “TV binge” where once we referred to the “TV marathon”. Slowly TV is becoming human foie gras as complete seasons of TV shows are now made to be inhaled in one sitting. It’s been great for people … Read more
Inside the Lightbox is a sponsored feature where we mine the extensive Lightbox catalogue for cool shows you might like to watch. This week – it’s superhero central. Superheroes are everywhere at the moment. The new Avengers movie has flown into cinemas, one of the X Men has come out as gay and here at home … Read more
Aaron Yap welcomes part two of Mad Men season seven, dissecting the first two episodes and predicting towards how the show will wrap its final season. As Mad Men heads towards the end of its extraordinarily consistent eight-year run, the first two episodes of its final season, ‘Severance’ and ‘New Business’, usher in a brand new … Read more
Tara Ward recaps episode 11 of Outlander, in which she introduces the show to her husband, Claire discovers the intricacies of the Scottish legal system, Geillis causes a scene and Jamie seeks The Future. If you missed last week’s recap, click here. We begin with a visit to that ever-popular Highland tourist attraction: the Thieves … Read more
Duncan Greive watches the first episode of Lightbox’s murderous new drama The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, starring Christina Ricci. What’s it about? Lizzie Borden was a real life human animal – a perfect internet-era celebrity who just happened to be born a century or so too soon. She grew up relatively wealthy in a small Massachusetts … Read more
With the X Factor NZ going from bad to worse, Alex Casey watches Sesame Street’s Singing With the Stars in an attempt to get back to the music. Sesame Street first began in 1969, and in its first season featured the cameo appearances of BB King, Don McLean and Carol Burnett. Over the next few … Read more
Appointment Viewing is a regular column which features a Spinoff writer watching one or more episodes of a current show and attempting to decode its appeal. Here Tara Ward gets to know the political complexities of sixteenth century Tudor England in Wolf Hall. What’s it all about? Wolf Hall covers Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the … Read more
In the fourth of a five-part series – here are the first three parts – James Milne signs up to watch Jennifer Love Hewitt’s cancelled borderline softcore porn series The Client List in its entirety. This week Riley gets singing, and James rediscovers JLH’s musical career. There were some genuinely compelling moments of drama in episodes six … Read more
In this segment, Alex Casey tries recreate some iconic small screen meals. In this edition, she tackles the eleventh Doctor’s favourite snack – fish fingers and custard. When looking for more freaky forays into small screen snackage, this Doctor Who delicacy was very high up my priority list. Easy to make, relatively cheap, and combining two … Read more