It’s week five of Celebrity Treasure Island and things are getting emotional. Tara Ward power ranks our favourite celebrities as they continue to battle it out for charity. 

Call me a banana, cover me in googly eyes and peel me quickly, because what a pearler of a week on Celebrity Treasure Island. Richie Barnett was eliminated, Chris Parker swapped teams, and one team went batshit over a beetroot salad. Vegetables have never been cooler and neither have googly eyes, and after the game’s biggest physical threat was sent home by a pair of giant chopsticks, who knows what could happen? Nothing makes sense on this glorious hot potato of a reality show, and yet, everything is as it should be.  

Exhibit A, your honour: this is how I spent my week, hoovering up every delicious morsel CTI threw my way, my buttocks firmly wedged in the gritty, golden sands of New Zealand’s greatest reality competition: 

And Exhibit B was how the CTI castaways spent their week, watching in shock and awe as Daddy Buck Shelford pulled off the surprise of the century, smashing Richie Barnett out of the competition using nothing but two big sticks and a paua pie in his belly. 

It’s a hell of a time to be alive, and an even better time to be watching the telly. I’ll give you a moment to talk amongst yourselves, then let’s crack into the rankings.

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ELIMINATED

Richie Barnett

Jeepers creepers, as Anna Simcic would say. Testosterone bombs keep exploding on CTI (Tammy Davis BOOM! Art Green BOOM BOOM!), but rugby league star Richie Barnett went out with the biggest bang. He had a tough week, after the Katipō women bought pizza at the CTI market when he told them not to, he wasn’t voted in as captain, and he hurt his knee in a challenge. 

Worst of all, he couldn’t stack five blocks on a table quicker than Buck Shelford, which meant rugby was the winner on the day. 

Kimberly Crossman

Kim was eliminated just as she began to play the game, the victim of another sneaky Lance Savali blindside. Lance put Kim up against Anna Simcic in a torturous “hold these ropes until you collapse” challenge, and Kim couldn’t outlast the Olympic swimmer. Her CTI hopes and dreams collapsed, as did her muscles. Crossman? More like Crosswoman. 

THE REST

11) Candy Lane

Candy continues to cha-cha-charm everyone into a false sense of security, even persuading Buck Shelford to shake what his mother gave him. You can feel in your waters that the merge is coming and the Ovary Agreement is calling Candy’s name, and this dance queen is about to shake things up like a conga line on a bouncy castle. I have absolutely no proof of this; I am merely a googly-eyed banana of prediction. 

10) Lana Searle

Lana scored the bargain of the year by buying a pizza for one coin in the CTI pirate market, pissing off Dad (Richie) no end. But she who loves salami and cheese shall have the last laugh, as long as you’re not the one splashing her on a boat during a challenge. Joe Daymond, I’m looking at you. From now on let’s keep all jokes on land, preferably with a cheese filled crust, please and thank you. 

9)  Jess Tyson

Jess proved yet again that she’s a whiz at the charity challenges, winning another $5000 for her charity by guessing she was Oprah. She also revealed a secret connection with Lance, which was strong enough to make him change his elimination picks with a single nod of her head. Incredible to see. Oprah could never.

8) Anna Simcic

While the rest of us lack the strength to hold a biro for five minutes, Anna barely broke a sweat during an elimination challenge that saw her hang near-horizontally with nothing but two tiny ropes to keep her steady. A true legend and absolute physical beast.

7) Brynley Stent

Power couple Chris and Brynley were torn apart when Chris was pinched by Katipō, leaving the Puzzle Queen with nothing to do but spill her alliance secrets to Kim. Look, it’s fine. Brynley found a new BFF in this delicious steak and cheese pie, but please, avert your eyes. This is a private pie moment. Some things should be enjoyed in solitude, and pies are one of them. 

6) Edna Swart

A picture says a thousand words, and Edna Swart’s delightful facials say even more. The poor lamb spent the week in a state of rabid frustration, and she’d be at the top of these terrible rankings if only she could find someone to take her seriously. Edna wants to put Chris and Brynley up for elimination, but Lance won’t listen. She wants all of Chris and Brynley’s clues, but they won’t share. How did she end up surrounded by these clowns? When will the sheeple wake up, and why aren’t we eating more zoodles in the hellfire year that is 2021?

5) Joe Daymond

Just when you think Joe is here just for some delightful product placement and to win his charity $5000 by catching a grape in his mouth, he revealed himself as a mastermind in Lance Savali’s alliance. Joe faked his own elimination nomination, knowing that Lance was going to nominate Kim all along, proving he’s here for the long game. I’m only sorry he didn’t bring his jim jams for those TimTams. 

4) Chris Parker

Cruelly ripped from Repo’s warm embrace, Chris had an emotional week, even though he got to wear all his orange Katipō clothes again. He struggled with the pressures to be everything for everybody, which is exactly how I imagine the googly-eyed banana felt in the captain’s challenge.

It’s a tough ask to bring the “Chris Parker effect” to a team that can’t catch a break, no matter how many tins of spam and beans they have, and it’s tricky to know your old team wants you gone as well. Give the man a break! Send him to the poo cave for a rest! The Parkernator must be protected at all costs. 

3) Buck Shelford

This is the journey we’re here for. Once seen as terrifyingly grumpy, Sir Shelford has mellowed his way through CTI, to the point that he might even be enjoying himself. He’s down with the kids, he’s kicking the competition to the curb, and he’s chowing down on the paua pie of his dreams. Hold onto your googly eyes: maybe Buck Shelford is playing the best game of all. 

2) Angela Bloomfield

New Repo captain Ange is here for one thing, and one thing only: “chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate”. Look, aren’t we all? Isn’t this game just one big lark for some fun TimTam product placement and a jaunty stroll along the beach? No? Fine.   

1) Lance Savali

Lance is playing such a bewildering game that he’s even confusing himself, which makes him a tactical genius. He holds all the strings and all the googly bananas, bluffing his way through Edna’s intense interrogations and inheriting Richie’s clues. His next move is to persuade Katipō to lose the next Captain’s Challenge so Chris can become captain, so they can rule the land forever more. It’s a master plan from a master play. Love to see it. 

Overseas critics are raving about this deadpan Kiwi comedy, and it’s just been picked up by a huge American network after being turned down by TVNZ. Sound familiar?

It happened slowly, across six months. The creators of Good Grief, a deadpan comedy that slipped under the radar when it was released here in January, had all but given up hope of securing funding for a second season. TVNZ, which commissioned the first, backed by NZ On Air, had said no. Then emails started landing indicating interest from an overseas network, each more hopeful than the last.

“It wasn’t one big reveal – it was little bits over time,” says Grace Palmer, who created and stars in the six-part series about sisters who inherit a struggling funeral home from their koro, alongside her older sister Eve. It was their first show together, and they’d been dreaming it up for years. But a second season wasn’t on the table. “We never thought anyone in America would want to make another fucking season of it.”

Slowly, the emails, from US broadcast giant AMC, the home of Emmy-winning shows Breaking Bad and Mad Men, changed in tone. Grace says they went from, “Hey, so it turns out AMC really likes the show and they’re keen to buy the first season,” to, “Hey, it turns out AMC might be interested in putting some money towards the second season,” to “OK, it turns out AMC is going to make the whole season.” 

Even getting the first season was a surprise. Neither Eve nor Grace can remember exactly when Good Grief became a TV show in their minds, but they have notes dating back years. They also remember a death in the family, a “really heavy time” lightened by two family members coming home from dressing the body. “They came back in hysterics,” says Grace. “One had to literally hold him over their shoulder while the other did the pants. We had that image in our head.”

They kicked around ideas, pieced it together slowly. Poking fun at death was always Good Grief’s central concept. “We’re all going to die, yet that sentence makes people feel very uncomfortable,” says Eve, who believes too many taboos surround the topic. “It sits on the outside of normal conversation and normal society. We go there when we have to then we scurry away and pretend it’s not going to be a reality. I think we thought there was a lot of comedy there.”

There is. Shot at a South Auckland community centre over 15 days in the winter of 2020, Good Grief’s six 15-minute episodes are extremely funny, full of awkward embalming practices, shoddy funeral home viewings and screw-ups during services. One involves a golfer whose clubs won’t fit in his casket. But it’s also heartfelt, the love between Grace and Eve’s characters Gwen and Ellie coming directly from their own relationship. 

And it looks great. Produced by Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions, Good Grief was made on a shoestring budget of $500,000, funded through an NZ On Air new storytellers initiative. An experienced team was at the helm: Kerry Warkia produced it, Kiel McNaughton directed it and Nick Schaedel helped Grace and Eve hone their story. 

It debuted, via TVNZ OnDemand, to little fanfare. Despite being packed with familiar TV faces – The Project’s Josh Thomson, Fast & Furious 9 star Vinnie Bennett and Westside’s Sophie Hambleton have starring roles – it landed with a whimper. Eve and Grace did just a couple of interviews to promote it, and few, if any, reviews were published.

“It definitely wasn’t a big deal,” says Eve. There was no marketing budget. “It was just us,” says Grace. “I just reached out to a bunch of people on social media and asked them to watch it and if they liked it to share it.” The one shining light? Feedback from those who did see it was good – especially among their peers. “The cool thing was a lot of people at our age and stage, women in their 20s, said they loved it,” says Grace.

Good Grief found its way to AMC through Warkia, thanks to an introduction from Chris Payne at the New Zealand Film Commission. Warkia says the trail blazed by Flight of the Conchords, Taika Waititi and Rose Matafeo overseas, as well as demand for indigenous, female-led talent, did the rest. The international success of The Casketeers, via Netflix, and Wellington Paranormal, surely helped too. “If it’s universal enough to travel, but it has the specificity that makes it unique, there’s a hunger for that,” Warkia says. 

The small team refused to celebrate until a contract showed up. Then it did. In late August, the industry know-it-alls at Deadline reported that AMC didn’t just want to use its network of cable channels to deliver Good Grief to a worldwide audience, it was also willing to entirely fund a second season. “I think they were shocked at what we made it for,” says Eve. “It was nothing.”

An American network picking up the bill for the second season of an Aotearoa-made series is a rarity, and may even be a first. No one spoken to for this story can remember it happening before. Eve assumed executives would want to make changes to appeal to an American audience, but, AMC told her and Grace to keep doing what they’re doing. “They said they enjoyed the heart and humour … they love Flight of the Conchords and Kiwi comedy and there’s an appetite for it.” Eve’s reply? “I asked if it would need subtitles.”

Now that Good Grief has been taken off life support and resurrected, it’s become a very big deal. Major overseas publications are plugging it, viewers are digging it, and they’re watching it in America, Canada and the UK through Sundance Now, an AMC-owned streaming service. The New York Times sent out an email recommending the show to its millions of readers last week, saying it was more “quirky comedy than a bummertown weepfest”. An SBS story asked: “Is New Zealand the funniest country on Earth?”

That’s not all. In the UK, The Sun called it “silly, tender and smart – and a lot of fun”. In a separate story headlined “The show you have to watch this week”, Deadline profiled Good Grief alongside Squid Game, the killer South Korean hit that’s rapidly become one of the world’s most-watched shows. “It’s very surreal,” says Eve. Grace agrees: “The fact that it’s overseas and critics like it is mind-blowing.”

It’s a situation that brings to mind Flight of the Conchords, when Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie were forced to take their show to HBO after TVNZ rejected their pitch. We all know what happened next. “We didn’t have heaps of support from TVNZ for a second season,” admits Grace. “They weren’t that interested … they had other projects they wanted to support.”

Yet she and Eve say they’re not upset. “We never thought that it would get picked up in New Zealand to get made [in the first place] so that was a surprise,” says Grace. The pair say plenty of local shows are competing for access to a small funding pool. “I totally understand if NZ On Air and TVNZ want to share the money out,” says Eve. “I think that’s awesome.” In a statement, a TVNZ spokesperson said they were “thrilled” Good Grief had secured overseas funding, and confirmed the second season would screen via TVNZ OnDemand.

In that story for Deadline, AMC’s president of original programming, Dan McDermott, said the team “were in love” with the show.  “We jumped at the chance to work with Eve, Grace, Nick, Kiel and Kerry to commission further adventures with them.” Eve and Grace are working on those adventures right now, facing a Christmas deadline to turn in scripts for season two. “There’s a lot more story that we want to tell,” says Eve. “They’re always in our heads, these people.” They hope to begin shooting – Covid-19 – permitting next year.

Yes, the budget for season two will be bigger, but that doesn’t mean Good Grief will change. The second season will remain just as dark, and hilariously bleak, as the first. “It’s a shit town with a shit funeral company. It’s all a bit shit,” says Grace. That, she says, is what makes their show relatable to audiences both here and overseas. “No one’s glamorous. We shot it in winter and it all looked a bit glum. It was meh. It all sort of worked.”

Updated 11am: A spokesperson from TVNZ has responded: “Good Grief received a full publicity campaign when the series launched in January, which included a number of interviews, highlights and reviews. This show was supported with publicity and with marketing spend.”

Watch season one of Good Grief via TVNZ OnDemand.