Kiwi Living hangs off a team of would-be superhero lifestyle gurus, controlled by a lifestyle overlord, the ubiquitous Miriama Kamo, who appears in the show's promo jumping off a motorbike and thrusting through a house.
Things are a little more tepid in the relaxed space the show is hosted from: a stage dressed as a giant, modern lounge. It's one of those typically lifeless spaces favoured by TV shows dedicated to 'Living'. If it were a tissue it would be a bacterial wipe.
First up is TV chef and likeable goober Michael Van de Food Truck, who jumps on a visiting cruise ship, but not before the obligatory statistical burble that attends such items: "7000 meals a day," "120kgs of Vegemite," "two kilometres of corridors," "30,000 dozen eggs." Van de Elzen hams it up like a trooper but it's a disappointing foray into pointlessness for the accomplished TV chef. This was the 5.30 With Jude bit.
Back on the couch, Kamo introduces Luke "our resident fashionista" Bettesworth, who dresses like the sort of person who tells other people how to dress. He also seems like he was born to do this sort of thing. His first mission is a woman who lost a shed load of weight after having a gastric bypass.
She parades a bunch of 'before' dresses but is in need of some new clobber for her new lifestyle. We see before and after shots. They go shopping. We see before and after shots. Luke dishes out tips like, "every girl needs a great pair of jeans in her wardrobe" and "every girl needs a tailored shirt in her wardrobe".
Back at party central, Kamo facilitates food and fitness chatterbox Lee-Anne Wann into the fray. Wann also has a gift for this sort of thing, and is a regular fixture on Duncan Garner's radio show. I have to admit actually attempting something she suggested once, some sort of lunge that tore my jeans.
Tonight she was saying the sort of stuff people say about food that doesn't include words like "nicely toasted white bread" or "schnitzel".
She said "apple cider vinegar", blah, blah, "eggs and spinach" yap, yap, "neurotransmitters", yadda, yadda, "chia seeds" yabba, dabba do. Again, good take-home stuff that you might think about doing but probably won't.
It made me think of éclairs. Still one in the fridge, I remembered.
I'm not sure why kid's show graduate Erin Simpson doesn't get a spot on the lifestyle guru's couch yet? Perhaps she's earning her stripes and will join them once she passes an initiation, ripping some crocs off a solo mum or pulling a sheepskin steering wheel cover from a Daihatsu before covering it in wallpaper.
Her field segment: "Living Spaces", proved to be the most 'controversial' of the night. She had come to rescue a young couple with a baby on the way, who wanted to do up a room as a nursery. The rather ordinary and clean looking space was given a dramatic makeover as Erin dubbed it: "dark cold and useless" a few times before labeling it "the ugliest and coldest room in the house".
There was nothing even remotely hideous about the room that I could detect but it did lack a heater. I'm no pediatrician but putting the baby in the coldest room in the house sounds like a trip to Starship Hospital to me. I considered calling CYF's to suggest an intervention, but Erin has a way with wallpaper and knows some carpet layers, so in the end to room looked as bright and cosy as a display nook in Freedom Furniture.
Back in the studio the part of Kamo's brain that gets used for journalism lit up as she observed, "we were quite mean to that room, calling it dark and cold."
"It was horrific!" declared Wann, who's obviously a team player if not an avid observer of reality. Or was the outburst a sign of Chia poisoning? This was my Saxondale moment. The set-up in the studio reminds me of the group therapy sessions in Steve Coogan's wonderful black comedy which begins with a meeting of people with anger management problems. Wann could just be the loose unit this show needs to liven things up.
The Grand Designs moment came via gadget pusher and smiley house fancier Matt Gibb who took us to see a rather fetching home built out of Kauri telephone polls in the shadow of Mangere Mountain. As far as house porn goes, this was pretty close to a money shot, but something was holding me back from fully engaging in the romance of the show.
Perhaps I felt ripped off that Kamo was not once anywhere near a motorbike. Or was it just a faint depression that had set in as I wondered how Erin would describe the very room that I was sitting in? I wiped the éclair crumbs off my chin and walked out into the cold. I may be some time.
Kiwi Living (TV1, Fridays 7.30pm).
- nzherald.co.nz
