Dai Henwood has been confirmed as the host of Lego Masters NZ. Image composite: Tina Tiller

Pop CultureNovember 18, 2021

What’s coming to TVNZ in 2022: Drama, comedy and a Lego tower of power

Guest writer

Dai Henwood has been confirmed as the host of Lego Masters NZ. Image composite: Tina Tiller

TVNZ’s 2022 content lineup has landed, and it includes some very big names.

Do you want big? TVNZ is going big. “Drama lovers will get their fix,” says TVNZ’s press release. “New Zealanders love seeing their stories on screen,” it continues. The opening line? “Local looms large once again.”

Have shots been fired? You can’t look at Te Reo Tātaki (TVNZ)’s 2022 content lineup, released via a glitzy and massively impressive online presentation today, without comparing it to Discovery’s efforts last week.

Discovery, with its first announcement of what it intends to do with Three, confirmed two new channels that sound like Pixar characters, Gusto and Rush, along with a slate that included plenty of new reality shows and local lifestyle content – including a Nadia Lim win.

But it didn’t mention scripted drama or comedy. Not even once. After the recent cancellation of Head High, it felt like a sign.

TVNZ is making up for that. It opened today’s presentation with all of the drama. Some very big names stand out in its impressive slate of 2022 content. It has commissioned a new show shot in Otago with Rebecca Gibney called Under the Vines. It announced the film Whina about Dame Whina Cooper, starring Rena Owen, which sounds incredible. Jayden Daniels is fronting supernatural anthology Beyond the Veil. It confirmed new seasons of One Lane Bridge and Ahikāroa.

Scripted comedy gets a solid look in too. Wellington Paranormal is back for season four. Kura is coming back for season three. Oscar Kightley’s Duckrockers is a Sione’s Wedding prequel.

Today’s upfronts were full of big announcements and huge gets, including Grand Designs NZ and The Brokenwood Mysteries moving to its platforms, and another season of the year’s top-rating reality show, Celebrity Treasure Island.

But that’s not all. TVNZ seems to be busy cherry-picking talent. Shavaughn Ruakere will host a new, mystery tropical island dating show, Clint Roberts is fronting a new TikTok-style talent quest called 60 Seconds, and a very popular face from Three, Dai Henwood, is taking over Lego Masters NZ.

cti — Matt Chisholm and Bree Tomasel from Celebrity Treasure Island. Image: TVNZ

“Today’s announcement demonstrates TVNZ’s ongoing commitment to local content and enhancing our digital services to grow audience reach and inspire the conversations of Aotearoa in the year ahead,” outgoing chief executive Kevin Kenrick told viewers.

Lets dig into the details…

Something’s up with Dai

Dai Henwood has been on Three since, well, forever. He’s an original member of the 7 Days team. He hosts Dancing With the Stars NZ. And he helmed Family Feud. He’s part of Three’s wallpaper. Is that relationship finally over? Possibly. Henwood was today announced as Lego Masters NZ host, a highly anticipated (at least by my kids) reality show adaptation of the UK original. If you haven’t seen it, go watch the Aussie version immediately. It’s delightful. The Aotearoa version is filming now, and Henwood will ace this role. “Get ready to get your brick on,” he told viewers today. But, unless the rules have relaxed and exclusivity is no longer prized, surely he has to depart all his Three roles for this? Doesn’t he? Or are TV media organisations just chill now? Seems doubtful.

You want drama? How about comedy?

While Discovery went all-in on its reality TV offerings, TVNZ led its presentation with a lineup heavy on scripted Aotearoa drama and comedy. That sound you hear is local production companies breathing a sigh of relief. What’s coming? Heaps. Everyone loves The Brokenwood Mysteries, so a new season of that seems like a no-brainer, and One Lane Bridge is on the up with a third season confirmed. Wellington Paranormal will return for season four, which seems like such a given it’s barely worth mentioning. But it’s the more diverse offerings I’m interested in: Whina sees the long overdue return of Rena Owen to our screens as Dame Whina Cooper, and Kura, the Papakura-set comedy show with a grassroots fan base, gets a third season. Kid Sister, meanwhile, is all-new, and tells the story of a young Kiwi Jewish woman.

Sione’s Wedding is making a comeback

Love this. With Duckrockers, Oscar Kightley is making an eight-episode TV prequel to his 2006 hit movie and the 2012 sequel. All of the yesses. No notes. This is great. Can’t wait.

Some old faves aren’t going anywhere

Another season of lockdown hit Celebrity Treasure Island is in production. Yes, Give Us a Clue is back. So is Have You Been Paying Attention? and Ru Paul’s Drag Race Down Under. Patriot Brains is returning, meaning we’ll probably get another nationwide tour from Bill Bailey at some point. Stan & The Walkers, Eat Well For Less, Origins and Our Big Blue Backyard will also get new seasons. Sorry, all you Clarke Gayford haters, but his renovation show Moving Houses is confirmed for another season too.

Follow The Spinoff’s reality TV podcast The Real Pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

TVNZ loves reality TV too

Discovery isn’t the only channel banking on a reality TV-heavy future. Among the new reality-based shows coming to TVNZ next year are an unnamed tropical island dating show hosted by Shavaughn Ruakere, cooking shows Snackmasters NZ and Cooks on Fire, as well as First Responders, which will showcase Aotearoa’s emergency personnel heroes. In 60 Seconds, wannabe stars have a minute to impress in a new TikTok-style talent show hosted by Clint Roberts. The Social Media Virgin sees an Instagram noob attempt to get a million followers. And Carlos’ Reno Rescue is yet another home renovation show.

Is it heartbreak for The Bachelor?

No Bachelor? No Bachelorette? Both were big deals in TVNZ’s lineup this year, and they weren’t mentioned today. Neither was Popstars NZ, or The Apprentice NZ, or Taskmaster NZ. Another season of Creamerie wasn’t confirmed either, but that could be tied to NZ On Air’s December funding round.

Rena Owen is playing Dame Whina Cooper

Look at this photo. Look at that face. It’s remarkable. How has this not happened already? With Rena Owen playing Dame Whina Cooper, Whina is going to be extraordinary. You can just tell.

TVNZ OnDemand is getting a makeover

One million viewers a week use TVNZ’s OnDemand platform, boasted Kenrick. Will users finally get an ad-free option as Kenrick has already promised? “TVNZ’s future is undoubtedly digital,” he says. “We are investing significantly in the design and development of a future state-of-the-art IP platform.” Sounds promising! But it’s not the confirmation of an ad-free service we all so desperately need.

New home, new host for Grand Designs NZ

Chris Moller’s out and Tom Webster is in. The UK-born, Devonport-based architect is taking over hosting duties from Moller, who, let’s be honest, looked a bit over it in the show’s last season. Grand Designs NZ is the OG of home renovation shows, or, as wannabe Matthew Ridge might like to put it, the “MacDaddy”. Webster has big shoes to fill, let’s see if he can, ahem, nail it.

Big wheelings and dealings

A new partnership with ViacomCBS will see a host of American stalwarts coming to our screens. Ghosts, with Kiwi Rose McIver, is part of the deal. So is The Drew Barrymore Show, CSI: Vegas, NCIS: Hawai’i, and FBI: International. Never watched any of them, but lots of people do. Sounds like a good move.

Finally…

Shortland Street turns 30 next year. Thirty! Hopefully they won’t need to be pashing perspex when the anniversary roles around.

Keep going!

Image: Tina Tiller

InternetNovember 17, 2021

My life after Police 10/7 viral fame

Josie Adams

Contributing writer

Image: Tina Tiller

Four years ago, Daniel McIvor went viral on Police 10/7. Soon after, he fled to Australia. He speaks with Josie Adams for IRL about what it was like to become social-media famous, and life afterwards.

In 2017, Police 10/7 was filming in Hamilton. It was a quiet night, but in the distance quick footsteps and a drawn-out yell could be heard. “Hiiiiiiiii!” yelled Daniel McIvor, then just 24 years old. The camera quickly found him, clutching takeaways and running across the road. “I’ve got no meth on me, but if I pull a bag of sugar out would you put me on TV?”

McIvor, now based in Auckland, remembers the moment he spotted the cameras. He was on his way home from town when he saw them, roughly 70 metres away. “There was police with probably five camera crew there. I think it was one camera, someone holding a light, someone holding a boom, and someone holding a clipboard and then, obviously, the officer. I think they were doing drunk driving checks.

“I just turned to my friend and was like, ‘do you think I should just go for it?’ and he’d already realised that he’d lost control of me by that point. He was like, ‘do what you’re gonna do’.”

When he walked into work the next day, he made a prophecy. “I was like, ‘holy shit, you guys, I think I’m going to be famous’”.

He was right. When the episode went to air nine months later, it took just three days for the one-minute clip to rack up 625,000 views. It was on the Daily Mail and Buzzfeed. It’s hard to say how many views he has now, given how often in the years since it’s been uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and – most recently – TikTok.

I called McIvor halfway through Auckland’s latest lockdown, when he was halfway through shaving his head. He normally works at a bar in Auckland’s Viaduct, but recently spent a week picking kiwifruit on the city’s fringes; he’s getting the wage subsidy, but he was restless.

He’s frequently restless. He wants to be a lawyer, a writer, and a flight attendant; he wants to help the homeless and pay back his parents for all their good deeds; he’s been a handyman and a barman and a McDonald’s worker. “I want to be so many different things,” he said. “I’m very aware of the fact that I’m aging and there’s only so much that you can do in this life.”

Even stuck inside his Auckland central flat for lockdown, he’s brewing beer and making mozzarella and learning to sew. And despite all the rustic hobbies, he’s also extremely plugged in.

“I still live a lot of my life online,” he said. He’s recently started posting on TikTok, but Snapchat is his happy place; he’s a millennial, after all. But despite basically demanding Police 10/7 make him a viral star four years ago, he’s come to feel online fame is a bit of a rort. “It’s just very temperamental,” he said. “And it’s very looks based.” He believes going viral in the TikTok age isn’t about making high quality content; it’s about looking the right way and tapping the right vein. “It doesn’t matter if it’s any good or if it’s funny.”

He worries that developing online personas can lead to a lack of fulfillment in the real world. “People’s personalities tend to be, when you’re out and about, way less crazy and vibrant than they are on the internet,” he said. That can lead to a disconnect between who you are online and off.

It’s a disconnect he’s seen play out firsthand. “I feel like people had this idea of who I was based on this one minute clip that was really just not that accurate,” he said. He’d go to parties for months after the show aired, and people would be disappointed in his lack of shrieking exuberance. “I was just doing my thing that night, you know, that was one minute of however many minutes I’ve been on this earth.

“Also, not many people can run around screaming like that all the time, because that’s a lot.”

He ended up moving to Australia to avoid the pressure, and landed in Sydney with $200 in his pocket and a dream. Sadly, he did not become a flight attendant; nor did he escape recognition.

“Most of the jobs I had, I either got them because people knew who I was or, you know, they’d seen the video.”

One of his first jobs was on Australian odd-jobs app AirTask, driving a drunk man home in his car. Then it was bigger leagues: barwork, Flight Centre, and even his own handyman business, where seeming familiar to customers can be a boon. “There were definitely positive outcomes in my life from it,” he said.

He regrets not making those outcomes more meaningful. “If I had that time again, I would rather have said something I thought was worth people hearing,” he said. “But no one wants to hear the things that are worth hearing.”

Whether or not people are listening, he hasn’t stopped talking. On his TikTok, he’s pro-vax. On his public Snapchat he details his day-to-day life; according to his latest story, he was punched in the face last Saturday. He’s moved to Australia and back twice in four years, coming back home initially because of a broken ankle and the second time because of the pandemic. Last year, he spent part of his MIQ stint on The AM Show.

Speaking with me, it’s clear he has a strong drive to change the world; he just needs to be pointed in the right direction. “I was homeless in Australia quite a bit, and always had a couch to stay on, but it was still hard.”

This has sparked a passion for helping the homeless. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about that in my life,” he said, clearly determined to do something. “I might save it for my 40s or 50s.”

In the past month the video has popped up again, this time on TikTok. ‘I do love reading the comments,” he laughed. “I feel like I won the internet with Police 10/7. But also that’s something that happened, it’s something that was, it’s not really in this part of time. And it sort of makes me feel like a has-been.”

Despite continuing to make content, McIvor isn’t trying to go viral again. He wants to hone his creative voice, not live in the public mind as one singular moment for another four years. “Maybe I’ll have another moment by chance, or maybe I’ll work really hard to get another moment.” But that’s not something he needs or wants right now.

“I was TikTok famous before TikTok famous was a thing,” he said. “I’m quite happy with just being the guy that serves people food for now.”

For now.