Love Island Australia
WORTH WATCHING
TVNZ OnDemand, weekdays
How far we’ve come. When a couple of housemates hopped into bed together on the first season of back in 2001, it raised eyebrows to such an extent it became known as the Dancing Doona incident. In the first series of
which began on TVNZ OnDemand last Monday, one of the first things the housemates did — after coupling up in a bizarre poolside selection ceremony — was get under a doona with their new partner, in the bed they are expected to share.
What a show. The first time you see it you think: can this really be real? Ten young Aussie hunks and babes staying in a massive villa in Spain, dressed in swimwear most of the time, and the aim, it seems, is simply to stay coupled up with a member of the opposite sex. If you’re not, you risk getting kicked out and replaced by another hunk or babe, whose best chance of survival is to try and steal away someone else’s partner. Something like that.
It’s like adult romance imagined by 6-year-olds — at the start everyone goes around secretively asking each other who they like, who they think is the sexiest, who they want to kiss? Astonishingly, some of them insist they’re there in the
Island Australia, Australian Big Brother Love
hopes of finding a husband or wife.
Incredible — that it exists, and that it’s one of the most popular shows on TV (in the UK, at least). But you can’t knock it till you’ve tried it. A new episode comes out every weekday. Each one feels like it goes for about three hours. Once you stop screaming internally, it does have a strange appeal. And if you miss the
Australia train, the next season of the UK version will be here any week.
Island Knives Out Love
TVNZ OnDemand, from Friday Never mind the All Blacks doco, this series about the Sharp Blacks — New Zealand’s elite butchery team — is where the real drama is. follows the team as they prepare for the 2018 World Butcher’s Cup, a title they’re desperate to win back after a shock loss to France in 2016. The characters are larger than life, none more so than team captain Corey from Elite Meats in Christchurch — but the standout of episode one is undoubtedly the Aussie butcher who has a chandelier and red carpet is his shop. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was a mockumentary, but these guys are as serious as your life.
Knives Out The Real Camilla: HRH The Duchess of Cornwall
TVNZ 1, 7.30pm Sunday
Admit it: Harry and Meghan’s wedding was a lot more fun than any of us expected. We were fully prepared to go back to ignoring the royal family again afterwards, but now
. . . what about just one more TV special. Camilla? Probably not anybody’s first choice royal, but it’ll do. follows the most unfairly maligned and misunderstood member of the royal family around for a year, on her charity engagements and so on, and comes to the unsurprising conclusion that she’s actually quite nice.
The Real Camilla