Getting to the roots of our new Prime Minister

Ardern heads to Greece and US to meet kin in DNA Detectives

How’s this for a sign of Jacinda Ardern’s rapid rise: in the year or so between filming her episode of DNA Detectives and it screening on TV last night, she has become deputy leader of the Labour Party, then leader, and now the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Host Richard O’Brien’s introduction of her as a “political bright spark” suddenly seems like a bit of an understatement.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show creator is still the best thing about TVNZ 1’s genealogical travel show, now starting its second series sending notable New Zealanders around the globe in search of their distant relatives. His arch, ever-so-slightly off the wall presentation adds a muchneeded element of fun to a show which at times feels like a fancy hourlong advertorial for ancestry.com DNA kits. At least it has the manners to wait until the end to subtly hint where you might go to purchase one of your own.

“Jacinda better pack a sunhat,” O’Brien intones gravely before sending the PM off on her first mission. “Her father’s ancestors rather liked the coast around the Mediterranean. Well, who doesn’t?” In Athens, Ardern (sans sunhat) meets her third cousin Lana (“I thought all my cousins lived in Hamilton and the Hawke’s Bay”). There is a moment of familiar recognition as the New Zealander gasps: “My god, you have my teeth!”

The actual detective work that goes into tracing these family links from a vial of spit must be fascinating

DNA Detectives host Richard O’Brien’s introduction of Jacinda Ardern [above] as a ‘political bright spark’ suddenly seems like a bit of an understatement.

but is left — perhaps intentionally — vague. For all the research (and air points), it rarely pays a satisfying dividend.

Connecting distant relatives who never knew each other existed seems like a kick for those involved, but their polite, awkward meet-ups don’t have any of the emotional pull of a show like Three’s Lost and Found.

This is a different game, to be fair, and poignant moments still arise. Still in Athens, Ardern visits the grave of her great uncle, an engineer killed there during the war. She reflects: “I could well have been the very first relative who’s ever visited that grave.”

The episode’s second guest, Stan Walker, is packed off to California to