New Zealand TV-obsessed website The Spinoff curates Weekend Watch, their selection of the best places to rest your weary eyes on your days off, selected by Spinoff editor Duncan Greive (DG) or staff writer Alex Casey (AC). Enjoy!
The Bachelorette, TVNZ Ondemand
The paleo mer-man Bachelor Art Green is no longer on our TV screens, leaving just a trail of hilarious videos and rampant rumours in his rippling wake. Thank goodness TVNZ swooped in with the latest season of The Bachelorette to reverse the gender roles and fill the rose-shaped void in our collective national heart. And it's coming straight from the US too, with all the speed and novelty of a cupcake-shaped car racing down the Bachelor mansion's pebbled lane. This season shakes up the format in a truly diabolical way - for the first time ever there are two Bachelorettes.
Who will win Kaitlyn's heart on The Bachelorette?
Britt Nilsson and Kaitlyn Bristow, two heartbroken favourites from the last season of The Bachelor US, return with fistfuls of roses - but only one will be bestowed the honour of distributing them. On the very first evening in the mansion, the 25 Bachelors are given the power to choose who they want to spend the rest of the season with. It's an awful, conniving, and evil shift in power. But it's bloody compelling television, and a great reminder that nobody can do reality quite like America. Come for the jacuzzi cars, amateur sex experts and male strippers, stay because there's a drunk man called Ryan that won't stop yelling. / AC
Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer star in the TV series UnReal.
UnREAL is The Bachelor: warts and all edition, a scathing comedy-drama set behind the scenes of a dating show entitled Everlasting. In the midst of the winding paths of pillar candles and champagne towers is one of the show's producers Rachel. She's the type of woman who frequently forgets to shower and wears a 'This is What a Feminist Looks Like' t-shirt. Not exactly the 'Everlasting' type. Why is she working there? How does she do her soul-crushing job, against her better judgement? Why does everyone hate her? These are all things you'll have to stick around to find out.
Frequently shifting between the stagey drama of 'Everlasting' and the crew working tirelessly behind the scenes - there's something in UnREAL for everyone. Fans of reality TV will appreciate the nuanced attention to detail, and those antagonised by the concept of "forever love" will rejoice in its scathing cynicism toward the format. It's a television show responding directly to its own medium, and yet still miraculously creating a compelling story. / AC
Homai te Pakipaki, Maori TV Friday at 8.30pm
The Homai te Pakipaki the Maori talent show.
X Factor is now but a distant memory, with Beau Monga's interesting mouth noises rapidly quieting as his single plunges dramatically down the charts. But fear not, sweet fans of singing competitions - there's been an infinitely better operation happening over at Maori TV for yonks. If you haven't already, now is the time to take a seat and let the lo-fi karaoke goodness of Homai Te Pakipaki wash over you. Selecting contestants at random from a ballot in their teeny Newmarket studios, the line-up could not be further from the X Factor mold.
We've got the likes of Greg from Pukekohe, who natters on about potatoes before tackling a huge version of 'Runaway Sue' - only to be interrupted when someone trips over a cord and the audio cuts out. Or Annette, who looks like everyone's hairdresser, belting out 'Black Horse and a Cherry Tree' in her sparkly jeans and detailed tunic. All the while, the Paki dial (kind of like Dunne's worm) gauges the public vote for better or worse. I don't know what the prizes are, if even if there are any, the only thing I know is that this show is a national treasure and a reward in itself. / AC
Puberty Blues, Saturday TV1 at 9.35pm
Puberty Blues.
Last week the second season of Puberty Blues opened with a striking bikini-clad young woman on horseback, galloping alongside a beach. For a moment you could imagine you were in Summer Bay. Within two minutes such thoughts were banished, when it was revealed she was instead trying to prompt a miscarriage, as the $85 abortion fee was beyond her. Adapted from a '70s Australian novel of the same name, Puberty Blues is a harrowing yet bleakly comic look at the lives of young women in the Sydney Shires in the '70s. The novel was a sensation upon publication, for its frankness regarding female teen sexuality, and even today the moral vacuum and shiftlessness their lives remains shocking and deeply affecting. These girls are in their early teens, drinking, fucking and stalking surfers, living lives without much in the way of hope. Yet they have an independence and toughness which makes them fascinating screen characters, helped by great, blank performances and dialogue conducted in brilliantly pungent Australian vernacular. / DG
Antiques Roadshow Season Finale, Sunday Prime at 7.30pm
Antique Roadshow.
Antiques Roadshow is surely the most English television show of them all, glorying in what the rest of the world shuns or actively loathes: old stuff, queueing, elderly people. Each episode is filmed in a different made up English village, and features all manner of wrinkly white folk tottering in with dusty and ancient heirlooms from deep within their sagging attics. Experienced watchers can now pick a rough value for most items at a glance, such is the popular expertise it has engendered in its audience, so that element of the show's pleasure is slowly fading. What remains is the rare and treasurable mad rarity, which has no plausibly measurable value, but a story for the ages. This season finale is filmed at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester, and is highlighted by a 'mantrap', allegedly used to try and snare a local chap "intent on eloping with the vicar's daughter". Weird sex. Religion. Old thing. You can't get more English than that. / DG
