Every morning this week we’re counting down the top 100 New Zealand TV shows of the 21st century so far. Today, shows 100-81.
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Welcome to The Top 100, a week-long celebration of the most significant local television shows of the last quarter century. Every day, The Spinoff writers and a panel of experts will count down 20 iconic shows, and explain why they deserve a place in our history books. Our criteria took into account a wide range of factors including everything from popularity to polarisation, critical acclaim to cultural impact, innovation to influence, longevity and legacy.
While not everything could make this list, and we have undoubtedly forgotten things despite our best efforts (the comments are open for your feedback), we hope this serves as a reminder to champion the unique stories that only we can tell, and celebrate all the people trying to tell them. Feel free to check off the shows you have seen as you read to create a cool custom watchlist to continue your New Zealand education into the future.
Let’s crack into it.
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100. Reservoir Hill (2009)
I’m guessing you don’t know what this is. I didn’t either, until I watched the opening credits and was transported right back to being a teenager at the tail end of the 2000s. Twilight had just come out, the side fringes could not have been any deeper, the phones could not have flipped any harder, and the most important relationship in the world was your Bebo “other half”.
Enter Reservoir Hill, TVNZ’s world-leading “online drama” which integrated texting, social media and streaming in an ambitious early attempt to embrace the looming digital content age.
When Beth moves to a creepy new subdivision, everyone keeps mistaking her for Tara, a local girl who went missing five months ago. With a clear mystery to unravel, audiences were invited to send Beth texts and messages on Bebo after each episode, which would influence the plot and appear on screen (in what co-creator David Stubbs called a “frightening logistical effort”, they shot each episode just 48 hours before it aired).
Beth also made LonelyGirl15 style vlogs, in which she would respond to audiences (“you are right Jenny, he is bad news”). This all now serves as an incredible relic from a time before soul-destroying algorithms and smartphone addictions, where everyone was positively greening out about the creative possibilities of the internet. “Prepare for a web phenomena your kids think you’re too uncool to understand,” Stoppress wrote. Also, it won an Emmy! / Alex Casey
99. Game of Bros (2016-2018)
Game of Bros is what happens when you make fun of a reality show so much that you end up imitating it. Released as an antidote to the decidedly vanilla The Bachelor NZ, which was about to enter its second season with Jordan Mauger, Game of Bros promised to flip the script, with 12 oiled-up island men performing arbitrary challenges without shirts on to crown a winner.
The premise stemmed from the show Mr Lavalava, where a series of men tried to woo comedy duo Pani & Pani to be crowned, well, Mr Lavalava. Game of Bros took that idea and ran with it, asking toned brown men to put on a show. The show even played on The Bachelor in its advertising, so much so that Māori Television received a cease and desist from Warner Bros for using brand material.
That sort of cheeky energy permeated the show, which survived off the genuine charisma of the contestants, rather than a legacy format or primetime slot. It reminded us that entertainment does not have a price attached. And on a personal note, it was lovely to have a reality show to watch with my aunty that was competitive, brown, funny and somehow aromantic. A rare combo. / Madeleine Chapman
98. Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby (2005-2006)
Seven Periods with Mr. Gormsby is a classic sleeper hit: well-remembered and easily-forgotten by equal measure, divisive in its content, and kept alive by the internet. The show is set in a struggling Lower Hutt boys’ college that is deeply afflicted by 2000s-era woke, the students unruly and the staff ineffectual. Hope arrives in David McPhail’s titular Gormsby, an aged and anti-PC school teacher who is somehow both a renegade and a colonial-era conservative.
Gormsby’s refusal to mollycoddle his teenage students, or refrain from calling them “coconuts” or outing them as homosexual, wins schoolwide respect over two seasons. It sounds bristling in the modern era (and it was bristling at the time too,) but Seven Periods holds a million YouTube views in total and a huge legacy in Reddit mentions for underrated TV series. Digging a little deeper into the Gormsphere dark web, we see that the show is best remembered by viewers (mainly men) who were in high school when the show played – and that’s the key data point.
I don’t expect that the teenaged audience particularly cared about the workplace politics presented in the show, but nor do I think they found any exact thrill in the slurs and racial epithets. The more general takeaway is that school is mostly made up of bullshit: not because of wokeness or whatever, but the odd structures of authority and conformity that drop away as soon as you leave. In that framework, any kind of rebellion is attractive and memorable – so Mr Gormsby wins his place in 2000s TV nostalgia. / Daniel Taipua
97. The GC (2012-2015)
While we are getting our problematic faves out of the way early, we simply must acknowledge another one of the most controversial reality shows in New Zealand television history.
The GC was New Zealand’s answer to Jersey Shore, a reality series following a group of young Māori chasing “the dream of money, sex, and fame” on the Gold Coast. Pitched to New Zealand on Air as an eight part observational documentary originally called Golden Mozzies (Mozzies = Māori Aussies), the series received $420,000 in funding.
Audiences made their opinions on that funding decision known when the flashy, boozy, sex-fuelled show first debuted in TV3 in May 2012. Viewers called it “fake” and “pathetic” and a Facebook page called ‘Cancel The GC TV Show’ had thousands of fans within the first 24 hours. “About as exciting as watching tattoo ink dry,” one review said at the time.
Still, The GC rated well with Māori audiences in particular, and the series would run until 2015. Love it or loathe it, The GC was the first series to explore the experience the 130,000 odd Māori living in Australia at the time, and introduced us to a lexicon of words such “neff” (nephew) and “mumsie” (girlfriend), as well as the importance of oiling one’s skin to look “shiny and fresh”.
It’s worth noting that 2012 also saw us attempt another aspirational, glitzy reality series: The Ridges similarly enraged and amused, with it’s scene-stealing stage mouse and SPQR lunches. Was it “good”? No. Does everyone still roll their eyes when you mention either of these shows over a decade later? Yes. Are we mentioning them for that reason alone? Yes. / Alex Casey
96. Spin Doctors (2001-2003)
The burgeoning role of the communications industrial complex in the world of politics gets the floodlight applied in Spin Doctors. It’s the early years of MMP in New Zealand, and our titular PR experts are preoccupied with burnishing the public images of Helen Clark’s Labour Party and the National Party of Bill English (the first time around).
It boasted a big writing team that included Roger Hall, Tom Scott, Dave Armstrong and, providing an eye from inside the Beehive, Jane Clifton, and it needed the numbers to serve its most remarkable ambition: Spin Doctors was freshly scripted week by week in response to news events, so that storylines and asides could echo reports from parliament, whether that be the unpredictability of Winston Peters (already by then a veteran), the earnest Greens or the debate Worm. / Toby Manhire
95. Lets Get Inventin’ (2006-2013)
Let’s Get Inventin’ was the most hectic kids TV show of all time, and I was obsessed. The concept was simple: Stuntman Chris Stapp, radio guy Clinton Randell and some scientists helped kids to bring their most unhinged ideas to life. I wanted to be on it sooooo bad. The show felt core to our national identity; a celebration of Kiwi ingenuity by two unhinged larrikins.
Some inventions were practical (a sticker that measures sun exposure), other were outright dangerous (a La-Z-Boy with a jet engine), and most involved some kind of Rube Goldberg nonsense to get kids out of chores. There are two inventions that stuck with me for all these years. The first was the brilliantly named Watergate; neither a hotel in Washington DC nor a conspiracy plot, but a bucket-and-pulley system that could open a farm gate automatically. The second was a pioneer in low-carbon technology: an espresso machine powered by a V8 engine.
The inventions were ridiculous, the hosts were chaotic, and it perfectly blended the two elements of great kids’ TV: fun and a vaguely educational element. Every kid watching that show had an idea for their own invention and got excited about it. Today, some of them will be engineers and innovators, and no doubt Let’s Get Inventin’ played some small part in that. / Joel McManus
94. The Cult (2009)
The end of the 00s saw an abundance of big budget, big concept, big conversation-starter prestige shows like Lost, Breaking Bad and Mad Men, and The Cult was the first big budget prime time drama series made by Great Southern Television (who would go on to make One Lane Bridge and Hillary). It was funded for $6.4 million and was the first local series to be shot on Red Cameras (which, to give you an idea of flashness level, were also used on the Tom Hanks movie Angels and Demons and Michael Jackson’s concert film This is It the same year).
Centred around a Northland commune called Two Gardens, The Cult follows a group of people trying to extricate their loved ones. Just like Lost, there’s ensemble cast of characters, with a stacked line-up including Renato Bartolomei, Lisa Chappell, Danielle Cormack and Kate Elliot. “Most pleasing about the show is it’s believable acting, and professional production,” wrote this no-nonsense ODT review, “The money shows. It looks really good. Watch it.” Returning to the extremely slick and intriguing first episode 15 years on, I have to agree. / Alex Casey
93. The Bad Seed (2019)
Most of the spate of (comparatively) big budget crime drama through the 2010s came from one of two sources: either the imaginations of TV writers or recreations of lurid historic cases. Too few explored the large body of well-regarded fiction we’ve produced. One prominent exception was The Bad Seed, an adaptation of a pair of novels by Charlotte Grimshaw. She wrote about her view into its creation for The Spinoff, including the striking reveal of “a draft episode so riddled with cliché, schmaltz and outdated idioms, I had to restrain myself from setting fire to it.”
It’s interesting to ponder what might have happened to that script without her intervention, and to wish more shows had an author on hand to turn a critical eye on the script. Aired over five consecutive nights, The Bad Seed felt like a breakthrough after a low period, with restrained dialogue, steely performances and a high stakes political backdrop which occasionally got a little over-egged, but was taut and thrilling at its best. / Duncan Greive
92. Street Legal (2000-2005)
It’s no wonder Street Legal ran for four seasons and won several New Zealand TV awards, given the early 2000s drama was directed by Chris Bailey, its writers included Greg McGee and James Griffin, Don McGlashan composed the music and the guest cast included Alison Bruce, Sarah Wiseman and Anthony Starr. The show is probably best remembered for the rich performance of Jay Laga’aia as the unorthodox but formidable lawyer David Silesi.
As a Samoan lawyer working in Ponsonby, Street Legal followed the clash of cultures and attitudes as Silesi pushed every boundary to fight for his underdog clients, all while trying to keep his struggling law firm afloat. With a talented supporting cast of Cal Wilson, Charles Mesure, Daniel Gillies, Katherine Kennard and Kate Elliott, Street Legal pulsed with energy and pace, and in a TV landscape filled with American shows like The Practice and Ally McBeal, proved that we could make slick legal dramas with the best of them. / Tara Ward
91. Police Ten 7 (2002-2023)
Following a spate of short-lived frontline policing shows – Police 5, Crimewatch and Crimescene – Police Ten 7 arrived on TV2 in 2002 with a true point of difference: its host, Graham Bell. The retired detective inspector was a straight-talking, no bullshit officer whose slew of quoteables – “scruffy little thugs”, “despicable little germ” and “lunatic scumbag with a steak knife”, to name a few – quickly cemented him, and the show, into our culture for over two decades.
The situations the officers found themselves in somehow perfectly matched Bell’s give-no-shits attitude. Among the many personalities on the show, they met a bee sting survivor, a man who got his head stuck through a fence mid-arrest, this high-heeled hero and Marko from Palmy who needed help rolling his cigarette. And who can forget the lesson in thermo-nuclear science that would take centre stage on novelty T-shirts in the early 2010s?
But at some point, the laughter stopped. In 2021, then-Auckland Councillor Efeso Collins called for the show’s cancellation for using racial stereotypes of Māori and Pasifika to make “low-level chewing gum TV”, and a subsequent review found that it perpetrated harmful stereotypes against these communities. It’s a bias Bell himself admitted to having: “It’s very difficult not to develop a slight attitude to a group of people that are constantly offending,” he said in 2022.
A rebrand to Ten 7 Aotearoa barely shook off any criticism, and it was cancelled in 2023. But for all of its faults, Police Ten 7 was still responsible for solving nearly 1,000 crimes in its time on air. Is that, plus the cultural phenomenon of “blow on the pie” worth it for years of racial bias? Perhaps two conflicting truths can coexist, that the show both entertained TV audiences and victimised those the police swear to protect: the most vulnerable. / Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
90. Brown Eye (2015)
Brown Eye represents one of the great “what ifs” of New Zealand television. Hosted by Nathan Rarere, with a stupendous lineup of talent wrapped around him, including Taika Waititi, Paul Casserly, Jess Hansell, Pax Assadi and Jamaine Ross, all produced by Bailey Mackey’s Pango Productions. The set and colour scheme was pure 70s, presaging Guy Mont Spelling Bee, and it had the worthy aim of bringing a Māori lens to the Eating Media Lunch/Moon TV/Back of the Y axis of the previous decade.
Yet the final product was most similar to The Daily Show – explaining contemporary news events with some jokes, along with a panel which didn’t quite take off, all interspersed with interstitial segments from the likes of Waititi and Hansell, sometimes excellent, sometimes aiming for surreal but hitting mystifying. Running on Māori TV during the drift away from linear limited its cut-through, but its greatest constraint might have been that it lacked the monomaniacal focus of its key writers, preventing it from elevating to the giddying level that extraordinary roster was manifestly capable of achieving. / Duncan Greive
89. Border Patrol (2002-present)
Beginning in 2002, Border Patrol was a quiet world-first. Capturing all manner of characters and curiosities arriving on our shores, from a festering horse head to a middle-aged woman with a suitcase lining laced with $800,000 worth of cocaine, it still retains the same audience share locally that it did two decades ago, and is currently airing in over 40 different countries, including Brazil, Holland, Italy, Spain, the UK, the US, and pretty much the entire continent of Africa.
Producer Rachel Antony said that the initial appeal of Border Patrol was about seeing regular New Zealanders on TV. “There weren’t many New Zealand shows back then that featured someone who could be you, or your neighbour,” she told The Spinoff earlier this year. But that representation didn’t always feel positive, with one viewer recounting the way the show made Asian food seem “foreign and disgusting” at a time when that attitude was prevalent.
Like Police 10 7, Border Patrol contains multitudes. Along with charting two decades of biosecurity infringements, it has also captured different important historic moments and social trends in our recent history, from the closing of the border during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, to the increased volume of drugs being seized over time. It also basically invented the unboxing video, which surely counts for something. / Alex Casey
88. Inky Pinky Ponky (2023)
Inky Pinky Ponky is such a television gem that it both holds it own as a one-off episode, but could also easily be produced into five more hit episodes. In its 52-minute run, the television movie for CoconetTV manages to fill a needlessly deep gap in New Zealand entertainment simply by focusing on the real life of its show creator, Amanaki Prescott-Faletau.
Prescott-Faletau plays young fakaleitī Lisa, who is desperately trying to survive high school while also convincing yourself you do not have a crush on the big dork in the First XV (played by new Celebrity Treasure Island winner JP Foliaki). But her controlling Tongan Catholic mother, and the fact that Lisa is the only transgender person she knows, takes this story to a more compelling level than your bog-standard teen drama.
Lisa’s breaking of the fourth wall serves as a constant reminder that all she wants is understanding. But will that understanding be found from the boy she’s crushing on, the one that buys her the biggest burger from the tuck shop (genuine rizz), but also can’t confront his homophobic mates? Inky Pinky Ponky is a reminder that life is bigger than your first crush in high school, especially when you give that same love and compassion to yourself. / Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
87. Terry Teo (2016)
Tinkering with childhood treasures is a risky business. Terry Teo was born in 1982, with Bob Kerr and Stephen Ballantyne’s books swiftly inspiring some of our greatest comic artists. It was adapted for television a few years later, swiftly inspiring a wider generation of yellow T-shirts, skateboards and people walking around going, “Terry Teo, Terry Teo, uh-oh, uh-oh.” All of which meant that the 2016 TV reboot faced an audience of by-then-adults who were eager, sure, but equally ready to denounce any desecration.
As it was, they nailed it. As one of the Coen brothers once said, direction is mostly about tone management, and Gerard Johnstone (Housebound, M3GAN) is a master at that – just the right blend of drama and action, attitude and comedy, with just a lick of nostalgic affection. “Kinetically energetic, deeply stylised and terrifically entertaining,” gushed The Spinoff. Matt Heath was doing kickflips: “I reckon Terry Teo is not just the best kids’ show made in New Zealand in the last 10 years, it’s the best TV show full stop.”
Teo 2.0 also scored a footnote in New Zealand media history, triggering a small but tasty media kerfuffle after TVNZ released it online-only. They insisted they’d always planned to put it on terrestrial television, too, but not before some good old-fashioned huffing and puffing played out. / Toby Manhire
86. Kura (2018-2023)
The hyper-local TVNZ webseries Kura, created by Vince McMillan and James Watson, was born out of a longing to show the place they grew up in a different light. “I want this to be the new Outrageous Fortune,” McMillan told Stuff at the time, “the South Auckland version.” Following Billy-John and his best mate Hotene through their struggles navigating teenage life in the hood, it is a heartwarming celebration of friendship, family, and what really matters.
The winner of TVNZ’s “New Blood” pilot competition in 2018, Kura took a tiny budget and eventually made a series that became a streaming hit. “It’s not like it’s a slick, sci-fi production with a moving camera and stunts,” said McMillan. “It’s a bit ropey. It’s simple.” Still, Kura features beautiful cinematography led by Tim Flower and there are flourishes of the prestige – for example the opening credits are a shot-for-shot remake of the Sopranos opening.
With uniquely New Zealand humour, Kura is a feel-good comedy-drama, a nostalgic tale of two best mates spending their final days together, and a snapshot of life in Papakura that many young New Zealanders living in similar places will relate to. / Liam Rātana
85. Madam (2024)
It’s rare that a New Zealand television show wins two major international awards before a single episode has appeared on our screens, but that’s the feat Madam pulled off earlier this year. The gongs from the Monte Carlo TV Festival and the Berlin TV Series Festival were a sign that we were in for something special, and international and local viewers alike were impressed by the inspired-by-a-true-story comedy drama about a woman whose husband’s infidelity inspires her open her own “ethical brothel” in a small Northland town.
This bold, confident series features some of Aotearoa’s finest acting talent, including Rima Te Wiata, Martin Henderson and Danielle Cormack, as well as Academy Award-nominee Rachel Griffiths in the lead role of Mack. Not only does Madam give a modern perspective on the oldest profession, but it also represented disability in a way rarely seen on screen. As we wrote in our review, Madam is a testament to how much Aotearoa TV audiences have grown. “How good that a show like this can screen on mainstream television, challenging our assumptions about the world around us while also making us laugh.” / Tara Ward
84. Anika Moa Unleashed (2018-2023)
I went through a thrilling patch of interviewing Anika Moa about once a year for three years, and was always struck by how few flying fucks she gave. “When I’m speaking to someone, I’m always trying to take the piss out of everything,” she said to me in 2015. “I want to be who I truly am.” At that point her main piss-take avenue was a rinky-dink interview series called Face to Face with Anika Moa where she would yell “MOOSE” at Tami Nielsen and such things.
By 2016, she had her own talk show on Māori Television. Although she said she was “shitting herself” about the prospect, she was already on track to becoming one of the most charming, disarming and surprising interviewers around. “I’ve learned that you need to ask a question and then let people talk, instead of asking them a question and answering it for them,” she reflected six months later. She finally had all the tools she needed to unleash Anika Moa Unleashed.
Over three seasons of Unleashed on TVNZ+, Anika Moa met some of our most famous (and most guarded) people in their homes for a frank discussion, a vigorous roasting, and a touch of sketch comedy. Launching with “Paula Benefit”, Unleashed included such guests as Sam Neill, Ashley Bloomfield, and Thomasin McKenzie. All the while, Anika Moa sat there with that cheeky grin: still taking the piss out of everything, and still being who she truly is. / Alex Casey
83. Suzy’s World (1999-2002)
There’s so much to love about Suzy’s World, but let’s start with the opening credits: the joyful twinkly keyboard sound, the astonishing computer graphics and the understated lyrics of “Suzy’s World, Suzy’s World, Suzy’s Wo-ho-ho-horld”. With only two words, anyone could sing that banger, just like anyone could be a science genius thanks to Suzy Cato and Suzy’s World. It was the educational kids show that explained science in ways everyone could understand. If you had a question, Suzy Cato already knew the answer.
Following her beloved 90s show You and Me, Suzy’s World ran from late 1999 to 2002 and spanned 260 illuminating episodes. Looking back, some episodes are a little alarming – I look forward to my next nightmare when I’ll relive that dentist ordering Suzy to shut her mouth before all her tooth bacteria falls on the floor. Its most iconic episode was Suzy Cato and the giant bean poo, but the series also covered topics from feelings to feet, slime to supermarkets.
Suzy’s World is an educational masterpiece, and it’s no wonder that nearly two decades later, Cato would burst back onto the floor like the most glorious piece of tooth bacteria in Dancing with the Stars NZ. Thank you, Suzy Cato: your giant bean poo is forever in our hearts. / Tara Ward
82. Miles from Nowhere (2024)
When award-winning poet, journalist and writer Mohamed Hassan became frustrated at not seeing an authentic portrayal of Muslim New Zealand life on TV, he took matters into his own hands and Miles From Nowhere was born.
Inspired by his own experiences as a Muslim man in Aotearoa, Hassan created and wrote the comedy drama about an amateur songwriter who must choose between his Muslim community and the dark intrigues of government surveillance. The series tackles themes of cultural identity, family and belonging and challenges Western stereotypes about what it is to be Muslim, all with humour, heart and plenty of what he calls “beautiful chaos”.
”When I met director, producer and proud Wellington boy Ahmed Osman on a shoot in London, we talked for hours about our favourite comedies – Atlanta, Ramy, Kim’s Convenience – and wondered when we’d get to see a Kiwi comedy about the community we loved,” Hassan wrote for The Spinoff. “We’d both waited a lifetime to see someone tell that story, and if no one was going to tell it, maybe we should.” / Tara Ward
81. Freaky (2003-2005)
It’s the spooky season, so we thought there was no better way to close out the first countdown than with Freaky, the homegrown tweenage Twilight Zone that single-handedly traumatised an entire generation of New Zealand kids. Made by Thomas Robins, each episode of the anthology series showcased three chilling tales of horror and buzziness, including an evil Lynchian photocopier, a haunted waterslide, and even a murderous janitor played by Taika Waititi.
As Tom Augustine wrote for us back in 2019, it was the distinct New Zealand flavour of this Goosebumps-inspired series that made it so effective. “The Wellington uck-sents were in full swing, and stories were frequently set in and around the mundane regularities of Kiwi life – the mall, or school, or a dairy, or your backyard,” he wrote. “For a Kiwi kid, there was little to separate yourself from the ill-fated tykes facing certain doom from story to story.”
Because that’s the other thing… Freaky had a no-holds barred approach to the way it would end its stories, which often implied the straight-up death of a kid (worth mentioning that this aired, for a time, smack bang in the middle of What Now). Robins would go on to make The Killian Curse, which leaned ever harder into Jackson-lite body horror, demonology and, you guessed it, kids in mortal peril. And you wonder why all us millennials have anxiety. / Alex Casey