TV Review Diana Wichtel
Television in 2018 captured the zeitgeist: mad, bad, scary and frustratingly sexist, but with nuggets of promise, redemption – and good hair.
Really, 2018? Seriously? Roseanne Barr’s ex, Tom Arnold, caught the mood of a mad year when he spoke to The Project about his series, The Hunt for the Trump Tapes. “People are trying to murder me so I know it’s going to be fantastic!” Arnold failed to produce what the US President might call a “smocking gun” but then it was a year of much heat, little light. What with Brexit and antics at the White House that led NBC News to declare the place “a well-oiled mistakes machine”, you only had to switch on the news to be stocked up on crazy.
This was a year when the President of the United States (not the Saturday Night Live version) offered constructive criticism over the torture, murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi: “They had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly.
And the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.” Lift your game, Saudis. Trump calls CNN
“fake news” but they couldn’t make this up.
It was an indifferent year for the tone of our own political discourse. Simon Bridges apologised on national television for calling one of his MPs “f---ing useless”. Meka Whaitiri was sacked after she grasped and abused her press secretary. Newshub played a recording of Maggie Barry calling someone a “duplicitous piece of shite”. As Paddy Gower observed, “It’s Mean Girls meets West Wing!”
It was a year of retrograde reckons. The Prime Minister had a baby and, despite dire warnings from The AM Show’s Mark Richardson and other threatened media men, the sky failed to fall.
It was a year when selfimportant middle-class whiners missed the zeitgeist bus in American dramas so self-indulgent – Here and Now, A Million Little Things – you can almost see how Trump got elected. It was a year when good people – Anthony Bourdain, Greg Boyed – were lost.
It was a year when many fundamentals of what we call civilisation – free speech, gender rights, human rights, democracy, the continued existence of the planet, Santa – seemed up for grabs in a sort of tribal, troll-ridden Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, we mostly watched Dancing with the Stars and The Block. We deserve everything we get.
Still, chaotic times can presage real change. See the 60s. We got the first female Doctor Who and the sky failed to fall. Prince Harry married Meghan Markle, proving, as a BBC commentator noted, “there is nothing essentially white about Britishness”.
The rise of the coven in such shows as A Discovery of Witches and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina chime with a year of Me Too, in which women have been taking back power. Time’s up was also called on bullies in positions of authority. The Handmaid’s Tale’s Offred set her shoulders and gave notice to Gilead. TVNZ fast-forwarded 15 months to catch up with Coronation Street. What a time to be alive.
There was heartening evidence that the future might be in better hands. After the school shooting in Parklands, Florida, student survivors told adults what they could do with their thoughts and prayers and mounted a gun-control campaign. “You might as well stop now,” said David Hogg, “because we are going to outlive you.”
So here is the traditional, deeply subjective look back, more in wonderment than in anger, at the best and worst we saw. Happy holidays.
The “You Cannot Be Serious” Tennis Tantrum Award:
Serena Williams has a meltdown when she’s beaten by Naomi Osaka.
Best Viral Beatle Sighting:
Paul McCartney on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.
The Deirdre Barlow Memorial “Don’t Trifle with Me” Award for Best Food-Related Fracas:
Drunk Sheffield resident takes on large blue alien with a kebab on Doctor Who.
Animals of the Year:
Perspicacious, Sebastian’s therapy parrot, on Shortland Street; Lily, Kawakawa’s viral runaway rescue dog; Seven Sharp’s Grubby the amorous guinea pig.
The Are You Being Served? Award for Punishing Innuendo:
Seven Sharp’s incorrigible Jeremy Wells.
The Sensing Sweet FA Award:
To the
Sensing Murder psychics. You’d get more sense out of a therapy parrot.
The Punching Above Our Weight Award:
David Farrier gets a Netflix series, Dark Tourist. Lena Dunham’s comedy, Camping, has a random reference to a Kiwi cultural product we’ve tried to forget. “A reckoning,” says Jennifer Garner’s awful Kathryn. “That’s what they call it on The Real Housewives of Auckland.”
Phrases We Never Want to Hear Again:
Welly wanging; baby bump; punching above our weight.
Mangled Metaphor of the Year:
“A pot of home at the end of the rainbow!” – TVNZ’s roving correspondent, John Campbell, reports on the housing crisis. “A unicorn on a unicorn riding on a rainbow” – former White House press secretary Sean Spicer describes his former boss on Q+A. What?
The “You’ve Been Punked” Award:
Sacha Baron Cohen in alarming disguises fools Sarah Palin and Bernie Sanders and persuades a former congressman to endorse arming toddlers on Who is America? Has anyone checked Trump isn’t actually Sacha Baron Cohen in disguise?
The “We’ll Be Back After the Breakdown” Award for On-Air Emotion:
Breakfast’s Matty McLean weeps over The
Lion King. Mike McRoberts, television’s answer to Mufasa, reduces Jono Pryor to tears with his kind words on the final episode of Jono and Ben.
Best Attempt at a Local Sitcom For Ages:
Wellington
Paranormal.
Best Reason to Defenestrate Your 55” Smart TV:
Here and Now, in which a family is so woke it makes you reconsider your racist uncle. First, in which Sean Penn’s astronaut is supposed to be going to Mars but gets distracted by being an insufferable plonker; Married at First Sight, any version. Fox News.
Most Relatable Psychopath Since Dexter:
Bill Hader’s Barry, Scott Ryan’s Ray Shoesmith on Mr Inbetween.
Top Twitter Tragic:
Trumploving comedian Roseanne Barr gets her Roseanne reboot booted.
Best Drama:
You could spend a fortune at the movies and see little as good as Patrick Melrose, The Handmaid’s Tale, The End of the F---ing World and Succession.
Epic Bender of the Year:
Benedict Cumberbatch, as Patrick Melrose, takes all the drugs so we don’t have to.
Punishing Sight of the Year:
David Seymour twerking on Dancing with the Stars. My eyes.
The Mark Richardson Award for Weird Remarks to Women:
To the male host who asked Ada Hegerberg, the first winner of football’s women’s Ballon D’Or, to twerk. Where’s David Seymour when you need him?
The Regrets, I Have a Few Award:
Louis Theroux: Savile, the British national treasure’s compellingly remorseful look back at his relationship with Jimmy Savile.
Best Corpse-Related Reality Show:
In the midst of death there was TVNZ 1’s Casketeers: black humour, biscuit raruraru and respect for living and dead.
Top Talent Show:
Māori TV’s
Sidewalk Karaoke.
Best Comedian:
Rose Matafeo wins best comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Justice Delayed Award:
TVNZ’s Sunday for its piece on a long-overdue apology from the Auckland District Health Board to the women of National Women’s Hospital’s “unfortunate experiment”.
The “Beam Me Up, Scotty” Award for Disrupting Time and Space:
Coronation Street lurches forward 15 months; John Campbell teleports to Planet TVNZ.
Best Triumph of Hope Over Experience:
Three’s comedy pilot series. None were Transparent but I’m looking forward to Mean Mums.
Most Relatable Period Drama:
Vanity Fair. Sexism, racism, classism and the eternal Michael Palin … Gad! So little has changed.
So Much for the Sisterhood Award:
A big year for women who are a danger to themselves and others: Sharp Objects’ Adora; Escape at Dannemora’s Tilly; The Handmaid’s Tale’s Aunt Lydia.
Coronation Street Catfight of the Year:
Audrey gets trolleyed and lobs a lethal bouquet at Claudia.
Hair of the Year:
Coincidentally, it’s Coro’s Ken “I’ve been very lucky, follicle-wise” Barlow.
Most Relatable Current Affairs Show:
The Project. Goodhearted randomness held together with grace by Kanoa Lloyd. Jesse Mulligan announces an upcoming new baby; Paddy Gower has a rant about Santa. Everyone takes the piss out of each other. It’s like Christmas dinner at our place.