Every morning this week we’re counting down the top 100 New Zealand TV shows of the 21st century so far. Today, numbers 80-61.
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Welcome to The Top 100, a week-long celebration of the most significant local television 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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80. National Treasures (2020-present)
Hosted by Stacey and Scotty Morrison, along with a team of experts from inside and outside the museum world, National Treasures takes a kind of supercharged Antiques Roadshow approach to telling the stories behind the objects in Aotearoa’s museums. Each episode spotlights a dozen or so items and uncovers their significance through kōrero with people who have a personal connection to that specific chapter of history.
From the early days of commercial aviation to the Rātana church, the dawn raids to the Hero Parade, each episode covers a variety of chapters from this country’s not-too-distant past. While it never stays in one place for long, it’s a marvel how much there is to be learnt, and how much feeling there is to be wrung from each short segment – there are more tears in each episode than most history shows have in a full season.
This is a series that understands history isn’t just about what happened where, when and why – it’s a catalogue of pain, joy, grief, pride and every other human emotion. / Calum Henderson
79. Get It To Te Papa (2018)
[Editor’s note: To maintain objectivity we avoided including series associated with The Spinoff – but we simply couldn’t resist this opportunity to summon our own haunted op shop version of National Treasures that, spookily, preceded it by a full two years.]
The genesis of Get It to Te Papa can be traced back to the moment a squeaky dog toy designed to look like a human penis struck National MP Steven Joyce in the face at Waitangi in 2016. At The Spinoff’s editorial meeting the following Monday, staff writer Hayden Donnell made what most believed to be an off-hand joke: we should try and get the “Waitangi dildo” into Te Papa as an item of national significance. People laughed, and this positive feedback started a butterfly effect that culminated in a six-part Lightbox Original documentary series (now available on YouTube).
Get It to Te Papa saw Donnell team up with long-suffering producer Jose Barbosa to travel the country collecting cultural artefacts to present to the national museum. It’s no spoiler to say they largely failed to achieve this objective: the Waitangi dildo is now buried in landfill and was unable to be located, for example, while other artefacts – the winking Queen Street Santa, the Huntly DEKA sign, Suzanne Paul – presented insurmountable logistical challenges.
But Get It to Te Papa wasn’t a complete failure. It succeeded in unearthing a bunch of uniquely New Zealand characters and discovering the stories behind a handful of underappreciated cultural icons. Some of which probably could have actually made it to Te Papa if Donnell had just filled out the form. / Calum Henderson
78. The Pretender (2005-2008)
Throughout this process, I have been gingerly clicking on clips from local mid-2000s comedies and anticipating nothing more than extremely unfunny “un-PC” jokes. What I wasn’t prepared for when I watched The Pretender, was that I would actually… laugh? Quite a bit?
The mockumentary series follows hapless property developer turned politician Dennis Plant as he flounders about campaigning for seats that don’t exist, and launching political parties that stand for nothing (his party Future New Zealand’s sole policy is simply “gondolas”).
The second season of The Pretender coincided with the 2008 election, which saw the fictitious Dennis Plant pen his own blog on The NZ Herald. In one entry, he explains how his gondola would “put New Zealand on the fast track to success”, before signing off with this: “Tomorrow I will be travelling to South Auckland to discuss my passion for the things I will be seeing in South Auckland.”
As Michele Hewitson wrote in her review of The Pretender at the time: “losers who think they’re winners make for the best satire. And this is up there.” / Alex Casey
77. Brain Busters (2020-2024)
It’s New Zealand’s longest-running kids quiz show (495 episodes!), and I was truly awed by the enormous futuristic set and crazy ambition of Brain Busters just last year. Airing weekdays on TVNZ2 from 2020 until its final season earlier this year, the series put our country’s brightest young minds through a series of mental and physical challenges to win cash. Think part Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, part Mastermind and part Ninja Warrior, but way more wholesome.
“This is not The Weakest Link,” explained producer Reuben Davidson (now Labour MP for Christchurch East). “The kaupapa is that every player has to leave a little taller than when they arrived.” I personally bombed on the show, but thankfully I’m not the only adult to be humbled by the Brain Busters-verse. Special seasons have included Simon Bridges, Anita Wigl’it and David Seymour, and they even did a clutch of episodes entirely in te reo Māori. / Alex Casey
76. Sis (2020-2022)
Sis, the female-led Polynesian sketch comedy pilot that took the internet by storm in 2021, may end up being most remembered for what it could have been. The 44-minute pilot, which combined the narrative of a Pacific writers room trying to put a show together, with sketches on topics from sex to identity to debt collection, served up viral clips and a cast of future stars.
After years of island women cracking audiences up on smaller channels (Pani and Pani on Fresh TV, for one), Sis felt like a break into the mainstream for funny teine, and NZ On Air put all their brown eggs into one comedy basket in funding a full second season for $2m. But after many delays and minimal marketing, the show’s creators leaked the series themselves before the official release date, and started a protest against both platform partner Sky and NZ On Air.
As a result, the much-anticipated second season was overshadowed by the dispute and very few people will have seen it, let alone talked about it. Some of the stars from the show (Gaby Solomona and Bubbah) have gone on to do exciting things, but others have seemingly steered clear of the industry ever since. A real shame and a reminder of what can happen when you put too many eggs in one basket.
Regardless of all that, the pilot remains an impressive and popular undertaking that showcased the range of talent so often untapped in New Zealand. / Madeleine Chapman
75. The Luminaries (2020)
Eleanor Catton’s Booker Prize-winning crime novel, set during the gold rush in 1866 Hokitika, and beguilingly structured around the Zodiac, was ambitiously adapted into a six-part TV series by Catton herself in 2020. This was the first correct step in this ultimately successful adaptation: the intricacies of the novel version are so complex that only Catton could have known it intimately enough to wrestle it into a new beast, made for watching rather than reading.
As Linda Burgess wrote in her review on The Spinoff, “what’s not to like?” The casting was pitch perfect: the role of unlucky British immigrant to the West Coast, Anna Wetherell is played by Eve Hewson whose star has now well and truly risen thanks to Sharon Hogan’s Sisters, and Netflix’s (very average) hit, The Perfect Couple. Eva Green as Lydia Wells is mesmerising; and Himesh Patel as the poetic Emery Staines steals every scene he’s in.
It’s also just so beautifully made: the production values are obviously high, and director Claire McCarthy keeps the pace cracking. The Luminaries rode off the back of the novel’s success and did it the exact right way: by being its own TV self and not attempting to emulate the structure or nuances of the novel (impossible). / Claire Mabey
74. Hope and Wire (2014)
If you waited until a story was told perfectly, most stories would never get told. Gaylene Preston’s six-part miniseries, set in the aftermath of the 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes, demonstrated that there aren’t enough trigger warnings in the world for some stories.
Hope and Wire screened in 2014. Too soon, too painful, some thought. Fair enough, especially when were so many real stories to be told. Along with the endless battle to get the resources to rebuild, a valiant, defiant creativity sprang up immediately. I remember walking around Christchurch when the red zone was still fenced off, seeing the Gap Filler installations, a fridge repurposed for a library, a washing machine providing music to be danced to. Art and remembrance everywhere. How could fiction compete?
Hope and Wire’s added drama – skinheads, a range of characters from an old school activist played by the late Bernard Hill to crass property developers and unethical lawyers – didn’t all play well to those who had lived through the disaster. But there were some great performances – you can’t go wrong with Rachel House – and one of the aims was to give those who were not there a glimpse of the unimaginable. There were many moments that did that, including the mix of recreated and real footage of the quakes.
At the time, I wrote in a Listener review: “Hope and Wire leaves plenty of scope for other voices but for now Preston has stepped up.” / Diana Wichtel
73. James Must-a-pic his Mum a Man (2024)
Comedian James Mustapic is a man for the people. There was only one way to ride off the success of winning Celebrity Treasure Island, and Mustapic did it perfectly: by releasing one of the funniest local shows in ages.
James Must-a-pic his Mum a Man (you couldn’t even in your wildest dreams hope your last name would make a title as good as that) is a mother-son odyssey through the complexities of dating, as told (and made worse) by a child who just wants his mum to find a bloke worthy of her affection. In all honesty, no man in New Zealand, or in the entire world, is a good enough match for Janet, but the final outcome is near perfect.
Through dating the likes of David Seymour, Ray O’Leary and Colin Mathura-Jeffree, Janet learns many love lessons, which are more like forced education for her at the expense of entertainment for the audience. Mustapic’s dry and sardonic sense of humour never lets up, even when he forces his mother and O’Leary to do a dramatic re-enactment of his father leaving. It is a perfectly uncomfortable comedy that makes for perfectly awkward viewing.
The series feels like a more grown-up and realised version of Mustapic’s other projects, Repressed Memories and Abandonment Issues, and somehow even snarkier and funnier. Will there ever be a season two of James Must-a-pic His Mum a Man? His Dad was pretty mad about it, and Janet seems pretty happy these days, but I can’t be the only one who still wants to see her date Paul Williams and Chris Bishop. / Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
72. The Strip (2002-2004)
Set in a male strip club, The Strip follows a strip club and their strip club as they strip club. Oily male nipples aside, the show marked a leap in local television style that dragged NZ adult drama into the millennium: divorce, nightlife, fast-paced editing, fantasy sequences, historically mishandled approaches to homosexuality. All the hallmarks of Y2K, and big moves away from the domestic sphere that had bound TV drama in the decades before.
More importantly, The Strip kept the ball rolling for a community of deeply collaborative Wellington filmmakers. An arts scene is only as strong as the jobs beneath it, and over an impressive stretch of 40 episodes, The Strip gave opportunities and development to a generation of talent who would go on to their own successes. Highlights include Robbie Magasiva and Oscar-winning writer/director Taika Waititi.
The Strip arrived at just the right time, from just the right place. It won’t grip modern audiences the way it did two decades ago, but its influence can be seen in every television drama since. / Daniel Taipua
71. Homebound 3.0 (2023-)
We’re a sad sack country who don’t make a lot of rom-coms, so Homebound 3.0 truly felt like a breath of fresh air when it arrived in a blaze of Cher karaoke last year. The series follows Henry Li (played by creator and writer Sam Wang), an aspiring 30-something novelist who still lives at home with his parents. Sadly, the only thing less successful than his writing career is his dating record, forcing him to succumb to the powers of his Aunty Linda, the “number one matchmaker” in the Chinese community.
Also sucked into “family Tinder” is Melissa (Michelle Ang), a loose unit who has previously been banned from the service. Both facing pressure from their families to couple up and move out of home, the pair decide to fake a relationship to get everyone off their backs – until feelings get involved. A classic rom-com premise, but elevated by a genuinely hilarious script – be it a pornographic bluetooth bungle or Melissa’s ‘Shakira’ approach to dating (“wherever, whenever”).
As Naomii Seah wrote in her review, Homebound 3.0 is so much more than just a charming rom-com. Picking up the bilingual torch first lit in 2021 by Inked, the Homebound 3.0 script fluidly moved between Mandarin, Cantonese and English in primetime. “There’s something touching about seeing our diverse linguistic heritage and community represented,” Seah said. “It wasn’t too long ago that my own family was being told to ‘speak English’ at the supermarket.” / Alex Casey
70. One Lane Bridge (2020-2024)
Spanning three seasons – with every episode scripted by the formidable Pip Hall, with a spellbinding visual tone set by director Peter Burger – One Lane Bridge is a crime drama that explores the rich and the rugged sides of Queenstown as a new cop in town encounters an unexplained murder. Rich in character and busy of plot, it draws us inexorably towards the bridge of the title. Just what happened there, and why? In a killer cast, Joel Tobeck is an especially taut, mesmeric presence.
Page-turning and tense, this was watercooler television in a time without the watercooler, screening as the first series did during the Covid lockdown. In keeping with the vogue of the time, large parts of the plot were left unresolved at the end of the first season finale. That prompted waves of protest, but what it confirmed as much as anything was just how many of us the show had drawn right to the edges of our seats. / Toby Manhire
69. House of Drag (2018-2020)
Across its two seasons, House of Drag – hosted by Auckland icons Anita Wigl’it and Kita Mean – looks like it’s all held together with spit, paperclips and tit tape, and that’s honestly a compliment. In each episode drag performers attempt awkward, funny and low rent challenges, before lip syncing on a very cramped stage in the “observatory” of the drag mansion to find out who stays in the competition. There’s huge charm in the show’s combination of high camp and dirt poor ingenuity, especially in the context of the super glossy RuPaul’s Drag Race Industrial Complex (which some performers, and both the hosts, would go on to join).
As with all good reality television, it’s the talent and stories that matter. The show gives fascinating insight into the intersections of drag culture with our own unique contexts. Everyone kinda knows each other, and small town rivalries and personal enmities fuel the drama as much as contestants’ abilities (or not) to death drop, devise skits, fabricate costumes, and appeal to the hosts’ egos.
We also hear from a much greater diversity of performers than you see on some overseas shows. There’s Māori, Pasifika, immigrant and refugee performers navigating their sexualities and cultural identities. There’s genderfluid and trans artists (including season one winner Hugo Grrl). Season two winner Spankie Jackzon talks, poignantly, about he’s been forced to return home to homophobic small-town New Zealand from big, less homophobic cities with better opportunities. Season two intruder, Lilly Loca, seriously ruffles feathers as a cis-female hyper drag performer, sparking arguments about who or what drag is for, and allowed to be. Fabulous, yes, but also insightful and revealing. / Erin Harrington
68. Kid Sister (2022-)
2022 brought the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and something else that doesn’t come along every day: a Jewish sitcom set in Aotearoa. As television events, both navigated the complexities of heritage, continuity, tradition. Simone Nathan’s Kid Sister features 20-something Lulu, back in Auckland after travels, living with her family. How to find herself in a country where, as the blurb reminds us, more people identify as Jedis than Jewish?
Nathan, whose CV includes writing for Taika Waititi’s Our Flag Means Death, semaphores the vibe of her show in an opening sequence in which she gnaws on a traditional braided loaf in K’Road’s St Kevins Arcade. Lulu is pretending not to be dating Ollie, who is not Jewish. Not yet. Semi-autobiographical? Ollie is played by Nathan’s real-life partner, Paul Williams, and Lulu’s brother is played by Nathan’s real-life brother.
Lulu’s dad wants her to marry inside the community, to which she snaps “you’re about to guilt me with the H-bomb.” Her Dad responds: “firstly, ‘H-bomb’ is an inappropriate term for the Holocaust. And if I’ve done my job right you should be old enough to guilt yourself.” Amanda Billing, as Lulu’s scary, oblivious mother, tries to set her up with Mikey, who sadly already has a girlfriend who he runs a vegan meal prep TikTok together with.
The show can be exasperating. I can vouch that yelling “Don’t do it, Lulu!” at the screen has no effect on her ill-advised life choices. But the world it creates is warm, weird and funny. When it comes to cultures, Aotearoa contains multitudes. Nathan’s comedy is steeped in one we haven’t seen much of on our screens. Kid Sister is also absurd, sometimes heavy, human business as usual. More, please, thank you. / Diana Wichtel
67. This is Not My Life (2010)
This is Not My Life begins with a deeply buzzy premise: a man wakes up and he has no idea who he is or how he got there.
On the surface, it’s an idyllic family life in the squeaky clean town of Waimoana, but there is something sinister bubbling just under the surface. We’re propelled into an enthralling, twist-replete, thoroughly moreish thriller across 13 episodes. The writing of Rachel Lang and Gavin Strawhan is assured and idea-rich, and lent an ethereally intense energy by directors Rob Sarkies and Peter Salmon. Charles Mesure gives the performance of his life in the lead alongside the invariably brilliant Tandi Wright.
Here was a rare high-concept, sorta-sci-fi, genuinely ambitious bit of New Zealand TV. It was sufficiently absorbing and impressive that the rights to the idea ended up getting sold to the US, but – alas – it was not passed over for a second series in New Zealand. Maybe it’s not too late? / Toby Manhire
66. Teine Sā – The Ancient Ones (2021)
Teina Sā is a contemporary horror television anthology, a web series, and a short feature all wrapped up in one, and it’s highly recommended. The terrific series, named for Samoa’s ancient spirit women features five short standalone tales of the unexpected that can be watched together or alone. The stories are prickly, shocking, and satisfying – a celebration of female strength, and a warning not to ignore the spirit world.
It’s a slickly produced collection, story edited by Victor Rodger, and written and directed by a group of established and emerging Moana creatives. The stories plumb female identity, desire, and anger, as well as the relationship between contemporary cultural concerns and traditions. The Sāmoan legend of Sina and Tuna is told through the lens of a Tinder date gone very wrong. A vengeful cannibal night star, Tapuitea, comes to avenge a woman who’s been illicitly filmed by her skeevy boyfriend. A non-binary teen in need is visited by a goddess of fire and protector of the whenua.
The series is particularly notable for the episode ‘Hiama’, in which a Solomon Islands teen, Vani, turns the tables on her bullies at her all-white school by calling in her family guardian and spirit teacher – a rare example of Melanesian storytelling in New Zealand media.
Like Beyond the Veil and Mataku [more on those later], Teine Sā demonstrates the creative power of collective, anthologised storytelling, from the perspective of funders and broadcasters as well as creatives. It’s an impactful way to build capacity. While initially available on Prime and Neon, the series’ online delivery now sidesteps some barriers in distribution; the internationally recognised award-winning shorts are available for all to see on The Coconet. / Erin Harrington
65. Raised by Refugees (2022-2023)
“I’m often asked what it’s like to be a refugee and to be honest, I’ve never had a clear answer,” Abbas Nazari wrote for The Spinoff in 2022. “Raised by Refugees, written and created by comedian Pax Assadi, answers this question brilliantly.”
The semi-biographical sitcom is set in the early 2000s on Auckland’s North Shore, and follows the Assadi family – Iranian dad Afnan (Assadi), Pakistani mum Safia (Kalyani Nagarajan), and their sons Pax (Kenus Binu) and Mahan (Adam Lobo) who were born in New Zealand. Reminiscent of shows like My Wife and Kids and Fresh Prince, which Assadi cited as influences in his My Life in TV interview, it’s full of both hilarious and heart-wrenching family moments.
It’s hilarious when Pax experiences his first wet dream, and his own father, played by the real Pax, tries to talk about it while dishing up loose yoghurt. It’s heart-wrenching when you see the family change their Guy Fawkes plans in the wake of 9/11, made all the more poignant when the episode closes on home video of the real Pax waving a sparkler around blissfully. Raised by Refugees feels as authentic as TV can get, all the way down to the Y2K No Fear T-shirts. / Alex Casey
64. INSiDE (2020)
The terrific Morgana O’Reilly (Mean Mums, Friends Like Her) is Rose in INSiDE, the eight-part series was notably filmed entirely during Level 2 Covid-19 restrictions in the Auckland house of O’Reilly and her husband and INSiDE’s director, Peter Salmon. When she’s not taking her own temperature and desanitising her flatmate from a safe social distance, tech expert Rose is quietly – very quietly – working remotely – very remotely – for a video chat app called Bunny. But a massive introvert can still get lonely during Covid-19 lockdown when just venturing outside, even in full hazmat gear, brings on panic attacks.
Driven to the edge by one compulsory company Zoom singalong of ‘Oma Rāpeti’ too many, Rose takes to hacking into the chats of Bunny clients because she can and, well, lockdown. Will a chance encounter with the guy who picked on her in high school change her self-isolating ways? Is her flatmate filming her? Is there a racoon in the attic? It seems lockdown will summon your demons and even germ phobic paranoids have enemies.
Co-starring Josh Thomson as the long-suffering flatmate and a stellar cast Zooming in including Fasitua Amosa, Antonia Prebble and Dan Musgrove, INSiDE is a strange, claustrophobic ride. It’s also a social document from the throes of the pandemic, charting the anxieties, superstitious thinking, rituals and rogue creativity of a time that is still not safely consigned to the past. INSiDE won a 2021 International Emmy for Best Short-Form Series. Bravo. / Diana Wichtel
63. Hounds (2012)
Hounds had been in development hell for three years. Production house The Downlow Concept, the team behind comedy success story 7 Days, were trying to make an awkward BBC-style comedy like The Office, updated for Aotearoa audiences. After a drunk night out betting at the dog races, they came up with their concept: an arrogant lawyer inherits a home, a greyhound, and a half-sister, and hilarity ensues. Six episodes were commissioned, then made, with TV3 screening them on Friday nights at 10pm (a tough time slot, as The Spinoff well knows).
What emerged was something even better than what that pitch promised, a concise, consistently funny show that proved we really could write a Brit-com if we put our minds to it. More than a decade later, scenes from Hounds still flash into my mind at random moments – often the opening to episode five, as Mick Innes, as Marty, appears in front of a judge to face a drunk-driving charge. He reads a prepared statement: “‘B’ is for brown, the colour of bourbon. ‘O’ is for outrageously tasty. ‘U’ is for utterly delicious …” At the time, I used another acronym of the moment to describe Hounds: “ROTFLMAO“.
Despite solid ratings, Hounds only lasted one season, and only episode five exists on streaming. The Downlow Concept continues to make incredible things – documentary series like NZ Hip Hop Stand Up, and Scribe: Return of the Crusader, the Josh Thomson vehicle Gary of the Pacific – but it’s Hounds that continues to get quoted in our household. “Oh my god: a ranch slider!” is repeated with glee anytime anyone encounters a sliding door. We have two of them. / Chris Schulz
62. Far North (2023)
Based on the $500 million meth mixup that made headlines in 2016, crime caper Far North was cracking event TV that had you Googling things after each episode to see if they really did happen (they did). Using needle drops and text overlays, the show told intertwining stories: Chinese drug lords, inept Tongan-Australian gangsters, a marooned delivery boat, and the drug-busting exploits of Heather and her husband Ed, a partnership that reunited Shortland Street alums Robyn Malcolm and Temuera Morrison on screen after three decades apart.
It’s a great pairing, the kind of small-town cosy couple you’ve almost certainly met IRL, and it’s Malcolm who gives Far North its heart and soul. Landing just a few months before her stunning turn in After the Party, Malcolm oozes jaded world-weary charm. A tick over a year on from this, I still marvel at episode four: set entirely on Ninety Mile Beach, almost all of it is spent with Heather and Ed as they coach angry, impatient gangsters on the finer points of launching a boat on a surf beach. Like the rest of their haphazard meth mission, nothing went to plan. (Google it.) / Chris Schulz
61. Marae DIY (2004-present)
The advent of Māori Television in 2004 brought a lot of innovative programmes to life in some areas, and in others bent existing genres into a local shape. Marae DIY was one of those ideas just waiting to be taken up, applying the generic and international renovation format to the specific and indigenous environment of Te ao Māori.
Over two decades and 15 seasons, Marae DIY has renovated over one hundred marae across the land with the help of contractors, sponsors, and tangata whenua themselves. There’s lots to recommend the series as a whole, but to me the pride of Marae DIY has always been kotahitanga – the essence and practice of unity and working together – writ large on screen.
Marae are communal by nature, relying pretty much exclusively on communal upkeep. Larger projects and renos can be difficult as they involve lining up what is basically the free time of hundreds of different whanau. Marae DIY has the magical property of drawing a big red circle around four calendar dates and calling all hands and heads together in one place.
Every single episode, we see tangata whenua visit their familiar place with a new context at hand. Everyone searches for a job to do, and by god do they find one over those four days. Many bring their own considerable skills and we see them work directly alongside contractors, others do as much as they can wherever they can, from sweeping to the tea-making. By the end, every individual has worked to restore their collective home.
Home renovation shows continue to be popular in NZ, spurred both by a genuine house-proud culture but also by a neurotic obsession with house prices and market value. Marae DIY has a different value to show us: the value of kotahitanga. / Daniel Taipua
Monday: 100-81 | Tuesday: 80-61 | Wednesday: 60-41 | Thursday: 40-21 | Friday: 20-1