WORTH WATCHING
Russell Howard Stands Up To The World TVNZ OnDemand
One of the most exciting things that can happen to us as New Zealanders is when an overseas travel show films an episode here and we get a tantalising glimpse of how couch potatoes overseas might see us. It’s happened again with British funnyman Russell Howard, who managed to nab a bed in MIQ to tour here in January. On his days off he filmed himself doing classic New Zealand things for his travel show, like shearing sheep, doing bombs off the wharf, drinking wine with Sam Neill and going fishing with Clarke Gayford.
Eden Neon
As the title implies, there’s plenty of trouble in paradise in this Australian thriller. At the heart of the series is the disappearance of a young woman after a night’s hard partying on the beach in a seemingly idyllic coastal town. Each of the eight episodes unfolds from a different character’s perspective — the first is Scout, who returns home to visit her mum’s wellness retreat, with its deeply cult-like vibe, and falls back in with her old arty friends. If you put Home and Away and the new Lorde video in a creative blender, the results would probably look quite a lot like this.
This Is Pop Netflix
There are some really good podcasts dedicated to unpacking and deep-diving into pop music nowadays, and where podcasts go, Netflix documentary series are sure to follow. Song Exploder already made the transition, and now This is Pop picks up the ball with a series of mid-length (45-minute) episodes on everything from autotune to Britpop. Although the production is cheap and cheerful, they haven’t skimped on interviews, and it’s more interesting the less you already know about the topic. Real Britpop heads won’t get much new info from that episode’s Blur v Oasis overview, but you might come away with a whole new appreciation for T-Pain’s use of autotune.