Anne Perry: Interiors, currently streaming on TVNZ on Demand, looks into the famous New Zealander’s life after moving to Scotland. But how much can we learn when Perry herself seems incapable of true self-reflection? Anne Perry is a mystery writer based in Scotland. She’s written a lot of books, of which I have read exactly … Read more
The Passage comes with a best-selling novel pedigree – but will the show last long enough to make good on it? Sam Brooks reviews the new show which premiered on TVNZ last night. “I’m the girl from nowhere. The one no one will miss. I’m Amy Bellafonte. This is how the world ends.” Everything good and … Read more
It’s taken five episodes – but we’ve finally gotten to a choreography challenge. Sam Brooks power ranks the fifth episode of House of Drag. It feels strange that it’s taken until halfway through the season until we get to a choreography challenge — nay, any music challenge at all. As a performative artform, drag is more aligned … Read more
Before American Horror Story, before Glee, before Pose, Ryan Murphy was television’s biggest peddler of schlock. The biggest heap of it? Nip/Tuck, all available on TVNZ on Demand. Before the age of streaming television, you couldn’t pick when you watched something. If you wanted to watch a show that was, quite rightly for many reasons, on at 10:30 PM at … Read more
It’s a story as old as time: a great book makes for a perfectly fine television series. Sam Brooks reviews My Brilliant Friend. You know how when you see a photo of the Mona Lisa it doesn’t look that impressive? When you’re actually there in front of it – despite its suprisingly small size, despite the … Read more
What do you get when you mix a South Korean auteur, a French-sounding British spy author and a ridiculous attractive cast? A genuine must-see. Sam Brooks reviews The Little Drummer Girl. When I think of John le Carre, I don’t think sexy spy drama. If anything, the man has done whatever he can to dispel … Read more
Anika Moa Unleashed had a triumphant first season, and showcased the singer-personality as one of our best interviewers, but what does the second season do with her? If you wrote Anika Moa as a character in a work of fiction, you’d be told she was too perfect and you had to go back to the drawing … Read more
Plus6Four Productions’ non-linear who-dun-it web-series Alibi is something entirely new for New Zealand television – and it largely nails the landing. Sam Brooks reviews. The location: a small rural town. The scenario: a girl’s body found in a bathtub. The suspects? Six suspicious people in the town: the local pastor, the slightly foreign teacher, one of … Read more
Chris Parker and Eli Matthewson’s hit podcast The Male Gayz is now a thing you can look at with your eyeballs, thanks to TVNZ on Demand. Chris Parker and Eli Matthewson are two of the country’s most prolific and well-known young comedians. They’re both writers for Jono and Ben and Funny Girls, as well as occasional performers on both … Read more
All eight episodes of spy thriller Killing Eve are now available to stream on TVNZ on Demand. Sam Brooks looks back at the series. After watching just the first episode of Killing Eve, I was all in. A new Phoebe Waller-Bridge show? Check! A new Sandra Oh performance to obsess over? Check it twice, then a third time for a … Read more
Alex Casey talks to Hanelle Harris, creator of Baby Mama’s Club, about changing the face of New Zealand television. New Zealand has never seen women like the ones in Baby Mama’s Club before, and it’s about bloody time. The TVNZ web series, created by Hanelle Harris, follows four Māori and Pasifika women in Auckland whose lives … Read more
Looking for the next New Zealand breakout star? Don’t bother switching on your television, says writer and director Chaz Harris. Over a decade ago, I was working at Miramax Films in London. One of my colleagues, an acquisitions executive, was preparing to leave for the Berlin Film Festival. I asked him if he went to … Read more
Ethan Sills has a radical solution for NZ on Air’s long-running drama problem: letting the public be more involved in choosing which shows get funded. Public funding hasn’t had a great few years here in New Zealand. Since the end of Outrageous Fortune and the cast swap on Go Girls, many local dramas this decade have more-or-less failed, … Read more
For the past 45 years the Dunedin longitudinal study has been charting every aspect of the lives of 1037 people, making it one of the most important studies in human history. José Barbosa talks to producer Mark McNeill about how you make interesting TV about hard science. Mark McNeill makes TV the way Steven Segal fights Tommy … Read more
Calum Henderson watches I Can’t Stop Farting, a TVNZ On Demand documentary about those afflicted with bad smells and sounds. Sarah counts her farts. She keeps a daily tally, using a colour-coded system: red for “loud”, blue for “silent”, and green for “smelly”. On a bad day she farts 40 to 50 times, which is apparently almost … Read more