Time for Fair go, Air New Zealand
It’s good Fair Go (TV One, Mondays) is back. They spent hours calling Air New Zealand to complain about nonrefundable fares and hung-up 148 times. Thatwould giveme a major hang-up about the airline.
Too many people found Air NZ was double-dipping. While it offered credits, you had to pay more to make another booking. Inmy case the fare cost twice the credit.
I felt like a shareholder. Next time I’ll walk on to the tarmac and take the nose cone home because I own it.
Fair Go received plenty of hostile calls.
Finally, the airline’s chief revenue officer fronted up and promised customer service will improve but customer money won’t. Fair go, Air NZ.
Fair Go also tracked down a roofer who was more a hoofer. He danced around without completing the job. Macaulay Marchant owed $270,000 to clients for work he didn’t start or finish.
Finally, he had his day in court and met his ankle bracelet. While he might be named and shamed, clients are out of pocket.
Home sweet home?
Dream Home Dilemma (Prime, Saturdays) started with a negative and ended with a positive. Its title is off-putting – who wants a dilemma on Saturday night. Fronted by Shane Cortese, the series helps people buy their dream home. Surprise, surprise, the episode starts in Auckland with a woman who wants to buy a onebedroom box in Birkenhead. For $600,000, all she can get is a casket and a plot from the local funeral director. Anne-elise Smithson settles for a claustrophobic couple of rooms near the centre of town. Shane and his colleagues celebrate with sparkling. ‘‘Crack it open, buddy,’’ designer, Hamish Dodd, tells him.
Dream Home Dilemma has to do better than that. The rest of us don’t live that way.
Breathless start
Station 19 (TV2, Tuesdays) hardly paused for breath before starting another season. The intrigue, relationships and emotions are so front and centre, they have little time for firefighting. Thatwould hose them off.
This time the action came to them. Several cast members are drinking off-duty in Joe’s Bar when a car smashes through the wall showering glass into their cocktails. Probably Harvey Wallbangers. But led by Officer Ben Warren, they respond heroically.
Joan has been driving Don, her dying husband, to hospital when she loses control and crashes. The front of the car hangs over the bar. Joan wants Don to live otherwise ‘‘the dog will crap on the floor’’. Ben saves Don but, when the car plunges further, Joan’s carotid artery is pierced and she dies. What will happen to the woof? Will it still crap on the floor?
Fortunately, the team finds and comforts the dog. Aaah. In other explosive moments, Ben and Miranda are reunited but Herrera rejects Sullivan because his promotion doesn’t include her. In addition, Bishop tells Gibson their relationship is over because they ‘‘aren’t going anywhere’’.
All this and a rescue, too. Phew. It’s almost toomuch to cope with. What if they have a real fire? And where will the first responders hang out? They can’t drink at Joe’s because he has a car stuck in his wall. This is dramatic stuff folks. We’ll find out next episode.
The white stuff
The highlight of the weekwas The Toilet Paper Wedding Dress (TLC Wednesday). The competition has caught on in the United States – let’s call it a chain reaction. Twelve finalists, using only toilet paper, tape, glue and needle and thread, paraded their creations in front of three celebrity judges. About 60,000 rolls of toilet paper were used. The doco was recorded before Covid-19. This year the gowns would have been torn apart every time someone was caught short.
The winner was Mimoza from South Carolina who wiped the floor with her stunning crocheted wedding dress. It was sheer Purex – pure with the X factor. Flushed with pride, Mimoza won $10,000.
All that was missing was singer Lou Rawls to serenade them all.