These are unprecedented times, and just when you think you’ve seen it all, Breakfast’s Matty McLean does the weather dressed as a dinosaur. TVNZ 1’s Breakfast kicked off level two with a bang yesterday morning. As we viewers at home began to gleefully escape our own personal lockdowns, Matty McLean locked himself into a plastic … Read more
Season five of Outlander closes harshly and brutally. Tara Ward recaps the finale. If you came to this Outlander recap looking for lighthearted hijinks about fluffy kittens and mouldy bread, then go back through the stones, do not pass go, and do not collect $200. There was little joy in this series finale, with our … Read more
Four seasons and… an interactive special? Sam Brooks reviews Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend, an interactive special and epilogue to the one-time critical darling. If you talk about Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt now, chances are that the response will be, “Oh I used to love that show!” What was once part of Netflix’s then-exclusive … Read more
Made by a single family sewing together bits of old shows, Leigh Hart’s Big Isolation Lockdown was the funniest and most oddly comforting television created in level four, writes Duncan Greive. It takes a special kind of ego to make what is functionally a career retrospective about yourself, with your family as extras and directors, … Read more
The new Netflix comedy features one of television’s most relatable depictions of teenage girlhood, writes Catherine McGregor. It sounds like the premise of a teen movie. A woman decades past her high school years is destined to revisit them, over and over again. Plot twist: The woman is me, and the high school experiences I … Read more
The appeal of Star Wars is universal, but the central themes have special resonance for indigenous people – which is why having a uniquely Māori spirit at the helm is so exciting. May the 4th was with us this week as Disney announced that New Zealand film-maker and Waihau Bay rebel leader Taika Waititi would … Read more
Morbid Netflix comedy Dead to Me takes the talents of its two lead actors and runs with them, says Sam Brooks in his review of the second season. Very minor spoilers for the first season of Dead to Me follow. More so than any other art form, television has moved leaps and bounds from the … Read more
Tired of watching human faces on your screen but still love a bit of action? Tara Ward has you sorted with nature docos to fill the heart and lift the soul. People are annoying, and that’s the truth. Look it up in the dictionary, write it in the sky, tattoo it across your heart. Have … Read more
A queer retelling of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Netflix’s The Half of It highlights the messy reality of love at a time when we might need it most. An ex-boyfriend used to tell me that the Ancient Greeks had eight different ways of saying “love”. Eight different expressions to pinpoint one’s affections, longing, and … Read more
It’s the penultimate episode of the season, so what better time to reveal what Jamie Fraser’s sperm looks like? Tara Ward recaps season five, episode 11 of Outlander. We’ve been surfing the Outlander wave for many moons now, but our beloved drama still knows how to surprise us like Jamie Fraser jumping out from behind … Read more
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
The cult 90s classic Sakura Wars is back after 15 years in hibernation, but has gaming left this dating sim granddaddy behind? Sam Brooks reviews. Sakura Wars, a series which debuted in the 90s, revolves around an army captain who is assigned to a secret unit in the Japanese military, comprised entirely of women who … Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
Ahead of the NZ debut of Eat Well For Less, literal first-time cook Sam Brooks gives a few of his own (barely tested) tips for how to eat well for less. We all spend too much on food. I know I do. Back in the golden age of “restaurants” and “eateries”, I would be found … Read more
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
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
Bree finds her purpose, Claire finds a new way to save lives, and Roger finds some maggots. Tara Ward recaps season five, episode nine of Outlander. We have lived, loved and laughed our way through five seasons of our beloved Outlander, but after this week, we can finally claim to have seen it all. My … Read more
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, 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
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
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
We all know we’re spending even more time than usual in front of the TV screen, but what free-to-air shows have New Zealanders turned to during these troubled times? With most New Zealanders stuck at home all day during the lockdown, it makes sense that we’ve turned to ye olde gogglebox in record numbers. The … Read more
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
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