Sam Brooks is a playwright, journalist and critic. Email him on sam@thespinoff.co.nz
Family Guy has been on our airwaves for almost 20 years, and mostly critically reviled. Sam Brooks stands up for the perennial punching bag.
Aretha Franklin has died. Sam Brooks remembers the Queen.
Madonna turns sixty today, so Sam Brooks rounds up the best sixty Madonna songs to celebrate this with her.
Been living under a proverbial rock for the past ten years and have never heard of RuPaul's Drag Race? Don't worry, Sam Brooks has you covered.
Funny slapstick comedy about a wild dog trying to eat a bird or a treatise on the meaningless of all human pursuits? Sam Brooks watched some Wile E. Coyote cartoons.
How do you write about an experience your own - and do it without offending anybody? Sam Brooks offers a solution: do the work.
On Monday night's episode, the possibility of a woman aborting her child because of potential medical issues was raised. Controversy ensued, which says a lot about Shortland Street's place in our culture.
Popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has been a boon for video game developers for a few years now. Sam Brooks investigates the less glamourous side of the platform.
If you participate in a certain dark corner of the internet, you'll know that a lot of people are talking about video game breasts – and the fight to keep them unrealistic.
We ask Chelsea Jade everything about her (and other people's) music.
Season eight of Suits starts dropping on Lightbox tomorrow – and Katherine Heigl is coming along with it. Sam Brooks details where the former TV princess has been up to since her heyday.
Based on one of the most notorious murder cases in New Zealand history, Mistress, Mercy finds itself hamstrung by the limits of the doco-drama genre.
In the midst of the bad prequels, after a slew of bad video games, and before the contested sequels, there was Knights of the Old Republic
Absolutely Fabulous is one of the best comedies of all time, no question. Sam Brooks explains why.
Harlots returns to Lightbox tomorrow with a second season full of intrigue, feminism and corset-ripping good times. The show is full of famous faces, but where have you seen them before?
Westside is back for a fourth season tonight on Three. Sam Brooks visited the set and came back with thoughts on how the show mythologises our country's recent history.
Is it a real estate ad if you see more of the Dancing with the Stars judges than you see of the house? Our DWTSNZ power-ranker Sam Brooks investigates.
Everybody Cool Lives Here is one of Wellington's most exciting theatre companies, and their work Big J Stylez comes to Auckland's Herald Theatre this week as part of Matariki Season.
Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Lara Croft, Mario – these characters defined gaming in culture for so long. So what happened to them?
Who won the season – really? And who truly, truly lost the season? And who the hell is in between? Sam Brooks power ranks Dancing with the Stars one last time.
It's the final dance off, fully voted on by the public – and here are your final power rankings. Dancing with the Stars, it is over.
Chris Parker and Eli Matthewson's hit podcast The Male Gayz is now a thing you can look at with your eyeballs, thanks to TVNZ on Demand.
Lightbox Movies has a huge selection of movies to choose from, but film geek Sam Brooks is most excited about the obscure, hard-to-find and objectively best ones.
Cher is coming to town! We run through the many facets of Cher's career – and what makes her so special.
It's '90s week on Dancing with the Stars – approximately the decade when this series started. We're doing the power rankings again. And they have to dance not once, but twice! There …
Footage emerges showing the PM's partner urging the choice of a 'rad middle name ... something that says their parents aren't as old and boring as they seem now'
