X-Files obsessive David Farrier chronicles the show’s strengths through three very different episodes of the sci-fi classic. // “I don’t know anybody in the world working in film, and that’s what we work in here even though it appears on television” – Chris Carter, circa 1996 One of the happiest days of my life happened six years … Read more
As reality TV pioneer Survivor opens a mind-boggling 14th year, superfan Joseph Harper details its increasingly meta evolution in previewing season 29. // “If quick, I survive. If not quick, I am lost. This is “death.” – Sun Tzu, Ancient Chinese military strategist. “You got to hustle if you want to make a dollar. Everybody … Read more
The triumphant Red Team from last night’s ep were able to kick back in a sensual velour booth as the others sweated it out in Kitchen HQ. Losers Sam and Dan were in a separate velour prison. The first challenge was “Match Made in Heaven”, aka choosing two complimentary elements and bunging a dish together in … Read more
Massive spook-fest American Horror Story: Freak Show begins next week. Today they unleashed the carnival-of-creeps opening credits to get everyone sufficiently amped/terrified for the season ahead. Here are the five top-billing Freak Show friends, in no particular order: 1) Tentacle John He’s just a regular guy chilling out on a crate except he has two tentacle things … Read more
Yesterday the Madden brothers of Good Charlotte fame took over the Breakfast weather report for some reason. It began with Weatherman Sam dressed in slightly cool punkish clothes (including many large rings) taking a selfie with the rocker twins, before stepping aside and giving them a Maori Place Name Challenge. The masterminds behind Lifestyles of … Read more
Seinfeld’s best episodes were the ones about nothing: the ones that embraced unremarkable social situations with absurdist nihilism, writes Henry Oliver. // From today’s vantagepoint, it can be hard to remember how different sitcoms were before Seinfeld. The most popular comedies of the era – Cheers, Full House, The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who’s the … Read more
With the instant restaurants over, the contestants were split into three teams and set their first challenge. They were sent to the Ronald McDonald House at Starship Hospital to cook a three-course meal for the families living there. A beautiful charitable challenge to start the competition, and a great way to reunite with all of our old favourites. … Read more
The last episode of Breaking Bad aired 365 days ago. For some, this was a vivid event that sunk it’s televisual talons deep into their pop culture history book. For others, it was just a plain hellish day to be on Twitter, a stark reminder of their own cataclysmic failure to ‘keep up with the play’. “I have never seen … Read more
Last night David Cunliffe appeared on Campbell Live to give his first interview since Labour lost the election and he stood down as leader. John Campbell leaned forward, “you’re hard up against it aren’t you?” Their beady eyes aligned. Cunliffe looked more exhausted than any comparable cat picture on the internet, explaining that he had been … Read more
Our resident The Block NZ analyst Tara sums up the week that was. This week the teams served up a piping hot round of Dinner Wars, with a sumptuous side dish of bathroom and laundry.// Tuesday – Episode 17 It’s bathroom & laundry week! But first, let us behold the weekly Bitter-Contestants-Judge-Each-Other’s-Rooms competition. Will the teams agree … Read more
The Grey’s Anatomy team learn how to save a life through the majesty of music. // I don’t if anyone knows this, but the Grey’s Anatomy world is still going strong. The last episode of Season 10 airs next week on TV2, creator Shonda Rimes is rocking a new TV show every five minutes, and (spoilers) Isaiah Washington … Read more
The final instant restaurant is with our Wainuiomata darlings, Dai and Dal. The Laoation best friends are a culinary force to be reckoned with or, as Josh put it, “they are the secret assassins.” He also thought that they were Thai so, grain of salt. Their instant restaurant called Mint featured many jars of mint. … Read more
This morning Stuff.co.nz launched the pilot episode of Road Trip, an interactive webseries docu-drama looking to tell New Zealander’s stories from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Or, in this case, Bluff to Cape Reinga. In the first episode we meet Sarah, a frenzied Canadian backpacker and Beni, a chilled out Tongan-Kiwi who is forced to drive her to … Read more
This week’s episode of Shorty Street Scandal is jam-packed with equally sexy and hilarious moments from Ferndale. Harry outdoes himself on the insult front by tell a small defenceless child that he has a lead role in Night of the Living Dorks. Garret and Kylie handcuff themselves to the bed in some sort of 50 Shades … 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 weekend is nearly upon us once again, and Spring is leaking through the firmly closed curtains of TV rooms everywhere. The clocks go forward on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean that you can just abandon your television schedule to go and frolick in a meadow. There are still some important things to watch out there. … Read more
A couple of days ago there were some controversial casting announcements for Season Two of True Detective. Uncharacteristically, the internet was unhappy and took to the keys with more gusto than Vince Vaughan frantically writing the entire script of The Internship two hours before it’s deadline. All the ranting and raving can be summarised in a few key points: … Read more
Before Buffy, before Veronica Mars, there was Xena. David Farrier looks back at the original bad babe. // When Lucy Lawless’ Xena first appeared in 1995, it was as a bad dude on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Except she wasn’t a bad dude, she was a bad babe. Which is sort of extraordinary, because there … Read more
Every Thursday we trawl the internet for golden nuggets of New Zealand nostalgia. This week we found rare footage of pop megastar Kimbra, giving it heaps on a children’s TV show. // What Now? ran a series of segments called “Do Your Thing” in the early 2000s, where a sassy kid host would investigate a particular … Read more
If you have been living deep within a gutter (black), an Outrageous Fortune prequel is on its way to our screens. Set in the 1970s, it will follow the hijinks of legendary safe-cracker and canny-career-crim Ted West, his wife Rita and their son Wolfgang. For the role of Wolfgang, TV3 and South Pacific Pictures have sounded an exciting wolf … 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
It’s time for everyone’s favourite foodies Steve and Maura to try and convince us that they aren’t a pair of city slicker yuppies. Any chance of them achieving this was immediately lost at the first sight of one of their fedora-wearing friends at the dinner table. They should have called their instant restaurant Yuppie-Kai-Yay and just embraced it. … Read more
Our resident The Block NZ analyst Tara sums up the week that was. This week her findings reveal a strange mesh of family rooms, Jay Jay Feeney in a harness and some crushed pineapple dreams.// Episode 13: Tuesday 16 September It’s Day 17 on The Block NZ…or is it? The contestants head off to meet … Read more
It was one of the craziest things ever to happen on New Zealand primetime TV: a hidden camera caught a cleaner sniffing underwear, spraying it with perfume, then masturbating into it while he watched porn on the household computer. Alex Casey finds out how it all came about. We can all remember the most iconic … Read more
The Corporate Dads are back, this time armed with Led Zeppelin t-shirts and an assured promise to “smash it out of the park” in their second instant restaurant. They begrudgingly rocked up to the supermarket in their Audi. Aaron maintained they didn’t deserve to be there, still blaming it all on stupid old Nana and … Read more
This episode we cruised back into foggy Orewa in the back seat of a beige VW Beetle for our second date with Beauty and the Beast. Tracey and Neill ensured us that they have been preparing since their last disastrous instant restaurant. Their rigorous preparation seemed to consist mostly of synchronised swinging at the park. … Read more
Drop what you’re doing, stop stabbing that rugby ball – Shorty Street Scandal is back for another episode. This week James takes us not only through the past week in Ferndale, but revisits a classic spooky Shortland Street Storyline. Ladies and gentlemen, rising from the grave for one night only, we proudly present – The … Read more
House of Cards has been the go-to fictional analogue for this election season. Toby Manhire, however, is voting for The Thick Of It. // On a street in Rochdale in the spring of 2010, Gordon Brown forgot to take off his microphone. The British prime minister had been talking to a local pensioner, Gillian Duffy, … Read more
Late Night Big Breakfast has produced some of the funniest and most bizarre New Zealand television this year. The quality should come as no surprise given the talented team behind it. Leigh Hart and Jeremy Wells have already established themselves as television funny men of note with their past efforts. For my money though, the … Read more