spinofflive
A vision, wrapped in plastic (Screengrab: TVNZ)
A vision, wrapped in plastic (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Pop CultureNovember 22, 2022

Justice is served: Seven Sharp finally gets a snazzy new set

A vision, wrapped in plastic (Screengrab: TVNZ)
A vision, wrapped in plastic (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Good things really do come to those who wait.

Earlier this year, The Spinoff campaigned for justice for Seven Sharp, the only TVNZ show without a fancy studio. Since Omicron hit our shores, Seven Sharp presenters Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells have battled through terrible conditions, forced to broadcast every weeknight from a dark corner of a TVNZ newsroom filled with lonely sneakers and overflowing handbags.

Last night, justice was finally served. The Seven Sharp Two were released from their grotty studio prison into a utopia of soft lighting and wipeable surfaces as the show surprised viewers with a sparkling new set. The empty Sistema containers in the background had vanished, the paper screensavers that sometimes fell down during the live broadcast were gone. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and Seven Sharp was feeling good.

I bet it even has that new car smell (Screengrab: TVNZ)

It doesn’t matter why Seven Sharp launched their new set in November, a mere four weeks before the show finishes for the year. How can you ask questions at a time like this? As the nation’s clocks hit seven sharp, fake dappled light fell through the fake window and it seemed like the wooden seagull on the new shelf would burst into song at any moment, like a choir of angels receiving a long-awaited vision of clarity and contemplation.

Hallelujah, Seven Sharp. Bow down beneath the plastic fiddle leaf fig and rejoice.

At the centre of this vision, as full of texture and earthy tones as their new couch, sat Hilary and Jeremy. At first, they pretended nothing was different. Simon Dallow crossed over from 1News and Hilary and Jeremy launched into their first item like it was just another day on Seven Sharp, as if that Friends feature wall was nothing more than a bad cheese dream. Then Jeremy and Hilary finished talking about rising food prices, and they could wait no longer. Seven Sharp has had a glow up, and they wanted to tell us all about it.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Hilary told Jeremy, as they sat on the New Zealand-made couch and surveyed their new surroundings. It was a bit of a DIY project, Jeremy told us, but the shelves aren’t straight, please don’t put a spirit level on them. Don’t worry, the only spirit I could feel last night was the Ghost of Good Morning Past, because this set would have been all of Mary Lambie’s mid-90s dreams come true. Can you imagine reading out a fax on that sleek settee? What a time to be alive.

The judges deliver their verdict (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Around Jeremy and Hilary was a whole new world. Beneath their feet, a mat. Beside them, shelves. Those shelves were filled with trinkets, possibly clues left over from Celebrity Treasure Island, and a trophy that no doubt said “Winner: Snazziest Set 2022”. A ladder lay against the wall, and although we couldn’t see what was at the top, I like to think that’s where all the retiring TVNZ presenters go after their farewell drinks. Pretty sure that Richard Long’s moustache is up there somewhere.

Nothing says “news” better than a ladder to nowhere, but Seven Sharp’s crowning glory was the scenic New Zealand vista on the wall, an uplifting image of blue skies and native bush. Now the sun will always shine on Seven Sharp, even when the economy’s going to shit or when Hilary gets her shoulders out. I hoped an interview with economist Brad Olsen would include him asking how TVNZ could afford herringbone floors during a cost of living crisis, but sadly, they ran out of time. Maybe Brad was too busy staring at the ladder to even think about it.

Have I told you lately that I love you Rod Stewart (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Then came the interview of the evening, a Zoom chat with music legend Lord Roderick Stewart. We last saw The Rodinator on our screens for Rock the Dock and now he was back, on this night of nights, to vouch for the couch. Rod was promoting his upcoming New Zealand tour, but he couldn’t compare to the star power of Seven Sharp’s new set. The rhythm might be in his heart, but poor Rod didn’t even have a ladder behind him. All he had were toy cars and a lot of polished mahogany. Sucks to be him.

The night ended with Hilary putting the plastic wrap back on the sofa, because she knows beauty is fleeting and that this set must be protected at all costs. “It’s a bit slippery with the plastic on,” Hilary warned as she slid off the couch of dreams. It was less Seven Sharp, more Seven Silky, but who needs friction when you have new curtains? The jewel in TVNZ’s current affairs crown finally has the set they deserve, seagull and all. Those were our people today, New Zealand. That’s your new couch, tonight.

Seven Sharp screens on TVNZ 1 every weeknight at 7pm and streams on TVNZ+. 

Keep going!
1899 (Photo: Netflix)
1899 (Photo: Netflix)

Pop CultureNovember 22, 2022

Review: Netflix’s 1899 is a darker, damper Lost

1899 (Photo: Netflix)
1899 (Photo: Netflix)

This ghost ship mystery from the makers of Dark will have you scratching your head – and coming back for more, writes Catherine McGregor.

This is an excerpt from The Spinoff’s weekly pop culture and entertainment newsletter Rec Room – sign up here.

The lowdown

In the closing year of the 19th century, a motley group of passengers and crew from across Europe are traversing the Atlantic on the steamship Kerberos. There’s an Englishwoman searching for her missing brother, a mysterious geisha and her servant, an even more mysterious Welshman, a newly married French couple, and a Spanish businessman and his brother, a priest. In steerage, a family of poor and devout Danes are hoping for a better life in America; there’s also a Polish coal boy and a grief-stricken German sea captain to keep track of.

The melange of languages and subtitles is just one reason you’ll need to pay close attention to this new series by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, makers of Netflix’s German-language hit Dark. Much like that mindfuck of a show, 1899 is a disorientating mystery that pulls you deep into its rabbit hole.

The cast of 1899 (Photo: Netflix/supplied)

The good

As a child obsessed with strange phenomena and unsolved mysteries, I remember being freaked out by the true tale of the Mary Celeste, a ship found floating in the Atlantic Ocean, its contents undisturbed yet all its crew missing. There’s something inherently creepy about ghost ships, and 1899 makes great use of the concept with the introduction in episode one of the Prometheus, which the Kerberos finds abandoned in the middle of the ocean. A distress signal had been sent, but when a rescue party boards the Prometheus just a single person is found – and he’s cowering inside a locked cupboard. So who sent the message? Where did the hundreds of passengers go? And what’s with that iridescent beetle first seen on the Prometheus and now living inside the pocket of Kerberos passenger Daniel Solace (Aneurin Barnard)?



It just gets weirder from there, as nightmares and reality collide in increasingly surreal fashion and a peculiar symbol starts showing up on everything from hallway carpets to the back of a child’s neck. This is the sort of mystery box show that requires viewers to accept that most of what they see will be confusing, sometimes off-puttingly so. Every passenger has their own dark secret, and for many episodes we get only tantalising hints of their back stories and connections. The sense of dislocation is heightened by the show’s multiple languages – a very cool idea that only Netflix could ever pull off, but one that naturally limits the interactions between characters of different nationalities. It may have some of the same DNA as Lost, but 1899 has none of that show’s camaraderie and humour.

Andreas Pietschmann as Eyk in 1899 (Photo: Netflix / Supplied)

Thank goodness, then, for our heroes, brave English doctor Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham, so good as Fanny Logan in The Pursuit of Love) and troubled sea captain Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann, who was ‘The Stranger’ in Dark). Much of what we encounter is through their eyes, and they seem – at least initially – to be operating under some kind of moral code, unlike their shady shipmates. Pietschmann in particular is mesmerising as a broken man trying to keep himself, his passengers and his crew on an even keel (bad pun, sorry).

The bad

There’s no getting around it, 1899 is dark. Not just visually – though the ship does seem perpetually shrouded in a dank grey fog – but in the tone of the thing. It’s not until episode two that we’re treated to anything approaching a joke (two coal shovellers discuss the likelihood that the Prometheus passengers were killed by wolves), and it’s only a brief respite before we’re plunged back into the dourness and dread.

This pervasive gloom makes the characters fairly one-note in the early episodes, with few of them – save Eyk and Maura – expressing anything like natural human emotion, unless you count terror, menace and deceit. All those stern faces and clipped sentences can get a bit exhausting.

The verdict

For all its gloominess, there’s something about 1899 that keeps you coming back. Like Lost without the sunshine, or Westworld without the ultra-violence, 1899 is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a creepy ghost story. Lower the lights, turn off your mobile, and prepare to be confused. In a good way.

But wait there's more!