Now is your chance to catch up on the best local shows you might have missed
The best of New Zealand television was honoured last week at the 2024 New Zealand Television Awards Ngā Taonga Whakaata O Aotearoa. It was a night that celebrated everything from news coverage to reality TV, editing to cinematography, and given the past 12 months have seen huge highs and distressing lows in New Zealand television, the awards heralded a well-deserved chance to pay tribute to the talent, dedication and hard work of our TV industry.
After the Party was the big winner on the night, taking home a whopping nine awards. Gongs also went to Q&A (best current affairs programme, with host Jack Tame winning best presenter: news and current affairs), Kiri and Lou (best children’s programme), NZ Wars: Story of Tauranga Moana (best Māori programme) and Dame Julie Christie was awarded NZTV Legend 2024. Shortland Street actor Bella Kalolo was voted television personality of the year, while Karen O’Leary was named best presenter: entertainment for her work on Paddy Gower’s Got Issues.
We’ve hand picked a selection of this year’s most successful shows to recommend for your weekend watching. (Not only are these shows the best of 2024, but several of them also made our top 100 NZ shows of the 21st century list.) You can check out the full list of 2024 winners here.
After the Party (TVNZ+)
We called After the Party the best TV drama we’ve ever made, and it seems the NZTVAs agreed. As well as being named best drama for 2024, After the Party won awards for best actress (Robyn Malcolm), best actor (Peter Mullan), best supporting actor (Elz Carrad), best supporting actress (Tara Canton), best editing, best cinematography, best director comedy/drama and best script: drama for Dianne Taylor. Is there a shelf big enough for this haul? Let’s hope so.
If you haven’t watched After the Party yet, there's no better time. The six-part drama about a woman dealing with the fallout after she accuses her husband of sexual assault is “a dark, tense and highly provocative drama which will rattle uneasily around your mind for days”. It’s currently earning high praise in both Britain and Australia, where critics called it “a modern masterpiece”.
The Motherhood Anthology - Give Me Babies (TVNZ+)
The Motherhood Anthology is a collection of five short stories inspired by the Māori, Pasifika, Pan-Asian and LGBTQIA+ communities of Aotearoa. Each episode tells its own unique story, but they’re joined together by the shared theme of motherhood. In Give Me Babies – which took out the NZTVA for best comedy – Ari (Roxie Mohebbi) decides she’d rather have an MMA career than find the perfect partner and have the perfect child. She enters an illegal underground fight but makes an enemy of the most dangerous man in town, and when he tracks her down at a family wedding, chaos unfolds.
“These stories celebrate Aotearoa in a variety of vibrant and unexpected ways, but at the heart of each tale is the power of connection, the importance of whānau and community, and a strong sense of belonging,” we wrote earlier this year. “If you need an antithesis to the ‘traditional’ idea of motherhood, look no further than this anthology series.”
Family Faith Footy: A Pasifika Rugby Story (TVNZ+)
Winner of the best NZ On Air documentary, Family Faith Footy: A Pasifika Rugby Story is an inspiring documentary that celebrates the stories of Pasifika rugby players across the globe and highlights the sacrifices it takes to succeed internationally. “The transformational journey this doco takes us through gives Pasifika rugby players the spotlight they deserve for their contribution to the sport, given the challenges they have faced,” Sela Jane Hopgood wrote last year. “What I admire most about the film is how rugby superstars such as Charles Piutau and Malakai Fekitoa share their compelling personal stories in a way that traditional media never could.”
Escaping Utopia (TVNZ+)
This compelling three-part docuseries reveals what it’s really like to live in – and leave – the West Coast religious community of Gloriavale, and took out the award for best factual series. ”The extreme religious sect has been a source of public curiosity for years, and this isn’t the first television show about life there,” we reviewed in March. “Escaping Utopia will certainly satisfy people’s curiosity about Gloriavale, but it takes us far beyond the bonnets and butter churning and into a much darker reality. It will enrage and upset you, and break your heart several times over.” Escaping Utopia also won NZTVAs for best editing: documentary/factual, and best original score.
Down For Love (TVNZ+)
Down for Love is a dating show with a difference, and won the award for best original reality series. Down for Love celebrates disability and neurodiversity within the traditional TV dating show format, by following the highs and lows of New Zealanders living with Down Syndrome or intellectual disabilities as they look for love through a series of blind dates. “We were wanting to do something in the area of love and relationships, because there are significant barriers for people living with disabilities,” series producer Robyn Paterson told The Spinoff. “And I really wanted to bring more of a documentary lens to it, so that it could go beyond just entertainment.”
New Zealand Today (ThreeNow)
Best entertainment, thy name is New Zealand Today. “New Zealanders can be an odd bunch, especially in the presence of a camera and microphone, and nobody knows this better than New Zealand Today,” we wrote earlier this year, as Guy Williams’ popular series returned for a fourth season. Travelling everywhere from Oamaru to Paraparaumu, the comedian and self-proclaimed “volunteer journalist” serves up a slice of authentic New Zealand that continues to both surprise and entertain its viewers.
Kid Sister (TVNZ+)
Simone Nathan’s semi-autobiographical comedy series about a young woman and her Jewish-New Zealand family returned for a second season in 2024, and was awarded the win for best comedy script. With 30-year-old Lulu continuing her train wreck of a journey to maturity, Kid Sister “is a show about family and all the weird eccentricities that push us apart and pull us back together. Season two gives us the hope that one day, we too will grow up and start behaving like proper adults – or at the very least, channel just a fraction of the frenzied energy of glorious matriarch Keren,” our review said.
Dynamic Planet (Neon)
Sophie Musgrove and Siddharth Nambiar won the best director: documentary/factual award for Dynamic Planet, a NHNZ docuseries about how people around the world are responding to our changing climate. Narrated by Cliff Curtis and with music from New Zealand composer Karl Steven, the series was shot in 30 different locations across seven continents over four years, and shared stories in 12 different indigenous languages. Earlier this year, series producer Ben Lawrie told The Spinoff that Dynamic Planet isn’t your normal climate change series that spreads doom and gloom. Instead, it focuses on offering hope about how indigenous knowledge, science and natural history can combine to prepare us for a fast-changing future.
Ruamata: It’s More Than Just Hockey (RNZ/YouTube)
Ruamata took out the prize for best sports documentary, but it's also the first hour-long sports doco in te reo Māori (with English subtitles). The groundbreaking film follows Te kura kaupapa Māori o Ruamata as they become the first kura kaupapa Māori in 100 years to qualify for the Rankin Cup, the most prestigious secondary school hockey tournament in Aotearoa. It’s a classic David vs Goliath story, but like the title says, this documentary is about more than just hockey – it’s about normalising te reo Māori and championing its use on the sports field, and is an inspiring journey filled with both pride and passion.
Check out the full list of 2024 NZ TV Award winners here.
As many of you will have already seen, yesterday we published an open letter from The Spinoff’s CEO Amber Easby, editor Madeleine Chapman and founder Duncan Greive outlining the financial situation we find ourselves in and why going public with a big, audacious goal to double the number of paying members we have is our last, best shot at retaining the ability to carry on doing what we do.
Please read if you haven't yet. We can not thank you enough if you responded yesterday or are already a member. If you aren't a member, please consider becoming a member today.
Why you should watch: Conclave (in cinemas)
Conclave has been near the top of my 2024 watchlist ever since the first reviews started to emerge a few months back. A thriller set in the heart of the Catholic Church, from the director of All Quiet on the Western Front, and starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci? Count me in. In reality, it’s less of a thriller than the marketing suggested – this isn’t highbrow Angels and Demons. It’s more of a political drama, with the race to elect a new Pope feeling at times like it could easily be behind the scenes at an American party convention. It falls apart towards the end, possibly due to some slightly heavy handed commentary that suggests the filmmakers think this is all cleverer than it really is. But the performances are exemplary (Fiennes is well and truly in the Oscar race) and the cinematography beautiful. / Stewart Sowman-Lund
Why you should watch: Get Millie Black (Neon)
From Man Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James and co-produced by HBO comes Get Millie Black, “a vivid, blistering slice of contemporary noir driven by a truly iconic woman, the formidable Millie-Jean Black.” Black, an ex-Scotland Yard detective (Tamara Lawrance), returns home to Kingston to investigate missing persons cases for the Jamaican police force. The detective is soon tasked with cracking a case that will blow her world apart and have her square up against the legacy of colonisation. Get Millie Black won’t be anything like Death in Paradise – strap in for an uncompromising and unrelenting ride. / Thomas Giblin
More pop culture news from The Spinoff:
Liam Rātana reveals why Disney’s latest release Moana 2 Reo Māori – its first indigenous-language film to premiere globally alongside its English counterpart – could be a game-changer for Aotearoa.
Thomasin McKenzie shines in Netflix’s based-on-a-true-story movie Joy, which follows three British scientists in the 1960s and 1970s as they struggled to create the world’s first “test-tube baby”. Alex Casey reviews.
I loved reading this week’s My Life in TV with award-winning TV critic Diana Wichtel, and this excerpt from her new memoir Unreel made me order her book immediately.
Can poets drive? Here for every word of Hera Lindsay Bird’s important investigation.
Psychedelic folk singer Arthur Ahbez recommends his most relaxing songs in this week’s perfect weekend playlist.
Shanti Mathias reviews Brannavan Gnanalingam’s new satire The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat.
And of course, we’ve got all this week’s brand new shows and movies in our New to Streaming list.
Why you should play: Dredge
This New Zealand-made video game was released to rave reviews last year – I remember seeing it at the time and thinking “looks interesting” then taking no further action. Fast-forward to this week, scrolling the PlayStation store looking for something new to play now that I’ve reached the end of Stray and AstroBot, thinking everything else looks too big, too serious, too much like hard work… I land on Dredge and decide to give it a go. Four hours of non-stop fully-immersed glued-to-the-controller gaming later, I get what the hype was about. Basically it’s a spooky fishing simulator that’s a satisfying mix of relaxing (chugging around catching fish and finding treasures during the day) and nerve-fraying (at night, when the fog rolls in and ominous figures lurk below). As a casual gamer, all I really want is to cruise around a nice-looking open world looking for things to collect – this ticks all those boxes while also pushing my gaming boundaries just enough to keep it interesting. / Calum Henderson
Before we pop off…
It’s an end of an era for reality TV fans: reality juggernaut Vanderpump Rules will return for a 12th season, but with a completely new cast.
Alex Casey visits Christchurch’s iconic zoo Willowbank as it celebrates its 50th birthday.
“It gets the Christmas sound exactly right”: 30 years after it was released, Mariah Carey’s “modest” festive song continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.
The Z Manu World Champs have taken Aotearoa by storm, turning a beloved pastime into a high-stakes summer showdown. Liam Rātana chucks himself into the competition.
Our intrepid Wellington reporter Joel MacManus takes on what could be his biggest challenge to date: ranking all the Wellington malls.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.
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