The Schreuder Family won TVNZ reality show Our First Home after a series of live auctions.
The Schreuder Family won TVNZ reality show Our First Home after a series of live auctions.
Nothing like grand final excitement is there? The buildup, the tension, and usually, it has to be said, the disappointment. The best fun is often in the quarter final, or perhaps in the penultimate episode?
Was the final of Breaking Bad as good as the episodes that built up to it? Nope. The Cricket World cup, well obviously that was a bum note, not just because we lost, but because it was such an ass of a game.
You might be forgiven for thinking that the final episodes of Our First Home and University Challenge would likewise be fizzers, but you'd be wrong.
There was a palpable atmosphere of excitement in the air as Canterbury squared up against Auckland in the final of Prime's refit of the classic game-show which sees University students with improbable names in a brain-quiz-death-match.
University Challenge (Prime, 11.30am, Saturday) is wonderfully old fashioned and out of step with current trends. It is not 'event television'. It screens on a Saturday. It's shot in Invercargill. Made and presented by Tom Conroy, owner of director of Southland's legendary Cue TV channel, (which recently creased broadcasting after 19 years) University Challenge is a blast from the past. After 20 something weeks of competition, the final was underway. I was fizzing.
"I'm Isabella Coventry, I'm from Pakuranga, and I'm studying politics", said Auckland's captain, a forthright and capable looking young lady who probably has the IQ of a small town, say Thames.
Canterbury had an equally formidable looking captain by the name of Pfeifer. He too was fizzing. They all had first names, but the surname becomes all they're known by after a while as the announcer calls them out after they hit that button.
"Pfeifer: Canterbury!" the voice bellows, as Pfeifer, an English sounding chap with a passing resemblance to Robson Green, springs into action. Correct answers included: "Sitting Bull", "Pol Pot" "Winston Peters" and "Rocksteady". The latter being The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle who "was the mutated rhinoceros".
Pfeifer was on a roll, but Isabella wasn't done yet. "Coventry: Auckland!" A photo of actress Natalie Wood popped up in a section about famous people who had drowned. But none of the 20-something smart asses from Auckland had any idea about Natalie Wood. But they knew all too well that Whitney Huston was "this singer who died in the bathtub".
Tom Conroy hosts University Challenge on Prime TV.
As in Super Rugby, the Cantabs had the upper hand for most of the final, but then a stumble. "What invention is New Zealander Colin Murdock famous for?" (He invented the plastic syringe, among other things.) "Sauce?" said Pfeifer.
"What is the family name of the occupants of Downton Abbey? "Grantham" blurted Pfeifer, but he was wrong. Auckland looked confused, no one there knew either. Coventry sent herself to Coventry. Smart looked dumbfounded. Clearwater was anything but. The teams were neck and neck now. The prize was anyone's, until Pfeifer struck back with a lethal hat-trick.
Q: "What's the siege engine that derives it's power from gravity?" A: "Trebuchet". Q: What's the third longest river in Italy? A: "The Tiber". Q: "What was the Chinese dynasty from 618AD to 907? A: "Tang."
The room erupted. Canterbury were victorious, and with that, University Challenge 2015 was done, all that was left was for Tim Shadbolt to be wheeled out to hand over a trophy.
Cash money and the property ladder were the focus of the contestants on that other show that finished recently. Our First Home, is more a DIY challenge than a cerebral one, but the show is at the cutting edge of zeitgeisty telly. It's a prime example of the 'event television' that everyone is talking about.
While University Challenge is fast paced and without an ounce of fat, Our First Home is, like all of its genre, a triumph of packaging and padding over content. Typically, the three "Live Auction" hour-long episodes saved the actual auction to the last 10 minutes. Luckily, live auctions make great TV. The final of the three families to sell were the Wardlaws, though apart from the hapless charmer Robyn Schreuder, I found the cast hard to remember. Like old Kiwi jokers in reference to the Chinese, I find that all event television people look the same.
After much waffle and endless flashbacks of hammering and the like, the backyard was filled with potential buyers. At least half were representatives of Auckland's Asian community. The rest were pensive Pakehas. There was a bald man who looked like he needed to pee. There was an Asian dude in a leather jacket. There were a dozen real-estate types, sporting the sort of suit, tie and nametag combo you see at conferences or at Destiny Church. This was modern NZ on screen, fighting it out to get the ultimate kiwi dream, an overpriced Auckland house. Southerners must have been hate-watching.
The bids came thick and fast. When it got to $888,000, a wave of excitement and some giggles shot through the crowd, as the lucky Chinese number 8 is one of the few things white people know about other cultures. Daddy Wardlaw looked as if he was passing a kidney stone. Soon it was $898,000. "It's a funny number to end up on", said the auctioneer lady, a silver-tonged professional with better comic timing and stage presence than almost everyone else on TV that night.
But $898,000 was where it stayed, a pretty good wedge, but not enough for the Wardlaws to win the big prize, which went to everyone's favourite family, the Shreuders. Part of their prize is $20,000 trip for the parents to Africa. Robyn Shreuder on Safari, now that would be an event worth televising.
