A simple question, finally answered. 

There is so much to talk about when it comes to the latest season of Treasure Island: Fans vs Faves. We could talk about the reveal that Josh Kronfeld has a tramp stamp. We could talk about Dame Susan Devoy’s inside-out eyelids. We could talk about how our own Jane Yee tried to wink at Lance Savali but definitely shut both eyes at once. 

In fact, we have talked about all of this, and will continue to talk about all of this on The Real Pod, our weekly popular culture podcast.

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But today I am not here to talk about any of the above. I am here to answer a simple question about Monday night’s episode that has plagued me ever since I watched it with one eye open (jealous, Jane?) in bed on my phone: why oh why oh WHY was TrueBliss’ own Joe Cotton inexplicably doing Harley Quinn cosplay on the island and NOBODY even MENTIONED it? 

Cotton cackles over the phone when I put the question to her. “I honestly don’t know. There’s something wrong with me I think.” Compared to her first stint on the island, where she carefully packed with advice from her outdoorsy father, she says her outfit planning was much more rushed this time around. 

“I waited until the night before and chucked a bunch of stuff into a bag and then forgot,” she says. “And so when I got to the island, I was just unpacking like, ‘oh no, no, this is no good at all’.”

The Harley Quinn T-shirt was an item that Cotton says she has owned “for a long time”, and she swears she had no intention of doing Harley Quinn cosplay when she arrived in Fiji. “I was going through my suitcase like ‘what have I brought to wear? Oh, a Harley Quinn T-shirt? OK, well I’ll do the eye makeup and I’ll just be Harley Quinn then’.” 

I wondered if the parallels ran deeper than appearances. The DC character Harley Quinn is famously bubbly, not unlike Cotton, but harbours a maniacal streak. And, when Dame Susan Devoy broke the rules by visiting the other camp, Cotton was quick to discuss red flags. “I don’t like having a red flag up over someone who I think is amazing,” she lamented. “But it’s there.” 

You know who else did a dramatic monologue about red flags after getting warning signs from someone she loved? Harley freaking Quinn. 

“Absolutely not,” cackles Cotton at the comparison. “If anything, it was a distraction tactic because I know that my physical prowess is not the greatest. So I thought maybe I could distract people with my crazy face and then win something.” She puts the look down to what she calls “island madness” – a condition she also blames for her cheetah outfit in episode five.

“I had cheetah print top and shorts, and then Lana [Searle] gave me a cheetah cap so I did cheetah print makeup. It was a huge vibe but, again, I don’t know why I did it.”

Of course, Cotton’s vintage TrueBliss singlet (immediately gifted to Josh Kronfeld) is another fashion moment that caused a hubbub both on the island and off, with competitor Lance Savali remarking that it was a “sick shirt” and legions of fans messaging Cotton on social media to purchase one. “I genuinely did not bring it for promotional reasons,” laughs Cotton, “it was supposed to be my pyjama top.” 

Alas, there are no current plans to do another run of TrueBliss shirts, and Cotton says fans will have to “hit up the other girls” if they want to get their hands on one. While Kronfeld left the island with the TrueBliss tee in his bag, Cotton says there’s a few more Treasure Island looks she is still to serve audiences – rainbow socks for one, and a “How you doin’” Friends slogan tee for another. 

“Look, my name and ‘fashion icon’ have never been in the same sentence together and I think that will continue to be true after this,” reflects Cotton. “I’m glad my outfits have brought some joy to people, but I’ll just say this: it gets even worse from here on in.”

Treasure Island: Fans vs Faves airs 7.30pm Mon-Wed on TVNZ2 and here on TVNZ+

Shortland Street producer Oliver Driver reveals why the show feels so different this year. 

If there’s one thing you can rely on Shortland Street for, it’s an epic Christmas cliffhanger. Every December, the final episode of New Zealand’s longest running television drama explodes with murder, mystery and mayhem, but last year’s cliffhanger saw Shortland Street venture into new territory. An out-of-control wildfire was racing through Ferndale, and it seemed like the main victim would be the most important character of all: the hospital itself. As flames engulfed Shortland Street and the credits rolled for the final time in 2022, viewers were left wondering if their favourite fictional hospital would ever be the same again.

When the show rose from the ashes last month, it felt like Shortland Street really had changed forever. We returned to a Ferndale that was darker, bleaker and full of unease. The impact of the fire was immense, with the hospital still closed and Shortland Street’s medical staff split apart to work in different hospitals (the often-mentioned but never-seen-before St Cath’s and Central). The show’s timeline leapt forward several weeks, which meant those cliffhanger storylines we’d been thinking about all summer weren’t immediately resolved (even Dawn’s dog Barry was still missing). Shortland Street had transformed into an intense, moody drama, and while there was no shortage of compelling stories, the unexpected shift in the show’s tone left many viewers feeling confused.

Shortland Street producer Oliver Driver says that confusion is all part of the show’s grand plan to keep its audience guessing in 2023. “We wanted people to go, ‘what?'” he says of the edgy return, which took viewers beyond the charred hospital grounds and into the wider world of Ferndale. Driver is determined to sustain the extreme energy of a Christmas cliffhanger throughout the coming year, and the darker vibe of the early January episodes was one way of representing the turmoil the characters faced in the fire’s aftermath. “We wanted to go: ‘what would happen to these characters in this different world?’” he says. “We wanted it to be dark and gritty and cold, getting right in there to really show that they’re all broken apart.”

It’s a huge challenge to keep a 30-year-old show continually feeling fresh and relevant, and Driver wants to champion new and exciting ways to tell interesting stories. That’s why we saw Maeve in prison getting a dodgy tattoo and rebellious teenager Tilly become a ram-raider, and why we were blessed with the brilliant-but-morally-deplorable new doctor Emmett and a sad Chris Warner shower scene. The show’s time jump added to the tension, but Driver liked the idea of the characters’ lives continuing over the five week Christmas hiatus, as if viewers were stepping in and out of their world. It also meant that the reign of show’s current villain, megachurch pastor and new hospital CEO Rebecca, quickly gained traction. Driver says Rebecca’s murderous storyline will inform the drama for the rest of the year.

What viewers were universally thrilled about was the surprise cameos from former characters like Guy Warner, Brooke Freeman and Kate Hannah. Driver intends to keep bringing fan favourites back to Shortland Street this year, because it’s a privilege few other shows have. “We’ve got 30 years of backstory,” he says. “If you introduce a character, you need to tell this whole journey so that an audience understands who it is. But if you bring back David Kearney, everybody goes ‘oh, it’s David Kearney!'”

It’s a rich history to call upon, and every returning character sparks discussion and debate among viewers – both old and new. “That’s part of the joy of having a show that’s been around for 30 years,” Driver says. “You have these characters that are great and that you love, and I don’t want to stop using those actors.”

While the changes seen in the first two weeks of 2023 were temporary – the show has since resumed to its “normal” style of filming – it’s not the first time Shortland Street has challenged the traditional soap format. Last year, the show celebrated its 30th anniversary with a unique two-part documentary crossover with Seven Sharp, and later filmed an episode told from inside Damo’s mind during a near-death experience. “You watch the social media in real time on that one and it went from ‘I hate this, this is confusing’ to, ‘oh my God, this is amazing, this is the best ever,’” Driver recalls of the episode that saw the spirits of Damo’s past, present and future roam the hospital corridors. Ultimately, Driver knows Shortland Street will never be afraid to try new things, even if those new things feel disorienting for some fans.

“We’re in a very competitive TV market now, and we want to make a show that’s continually pushing the boundaries of soap, so that people go, ‘I’m not sure about that, but what is that?’” Driver says. Later this year, Shortland Street will continue to use different styles of storytelling, including weekly “medical mystery” storylines that allow cast and crew to lean into some juicy hospital drama. “We want to keep generating things that make people talk about it, while at the same time, really trying hard to continue to do what Shortland Street has always done, which is a reflection of New Zealand and to push those stories and boundaries as we always have.”

Driver has one message for Shortland Street fans in 2023: expect the unexpected. Even after 30 years on the telly, our favourite nightly drama still wants to keep challenging our expectations of what a soap can do. “It’s never gonna be White Lotus, you know? We’re never going to have the ability to do that,” he says. “But it is going to continue to be a strong and relevant and powerful piece of New Zealand television. We want this to exist in 10 years and 20 years and 30 years. I want some kindergarten kid now to be doing the 60th anniversary.”

And while Driver knows it’s a risk to make changes to a show that many New Zealanders love exactly as it is, he’ll never stop trying to make Shortland Street the most dynamic series on our screens. “I know there’s cultural cringe, and there’s lots of people who take great pleasure in telling me they’ve never watched an episode of Shortland Street in their entire life, as if that’s some kind of badge of honour,” Driver says. “But at it’s core, it’s good. It’s New Zealand. It’s us.”

Shortland Street screens Monday-Friday on TVNZ 2 at 7pm and streams on TVNZ+.