Yesterday, it was announced that Shortland Street’s famous hourlong winter Mondays will transform into a six night monster. And, surprisingly, some fans were not happy.
The incredible news that Shortland Street will screen on Sundays from September hit me harder than Chris Warner’s bathtub crashing through his kitchen ceiling. Shortland Street, six nights a week? Be still, my beating heart.
This was an announcement more unexpected than a secret Warner sperm child turning up out of the blue. Shortland Street is about to spread its soapy empire even further, invading our sacred Sunday evenings with more medical misadventure and hijinks of the heart. It’s a big deal. Country Calendar is probably shitting its moleskin pants in terror, and I can’t even think about how Prime is going to break the news to Storage Wars.
Six nights a week equals six times the chaos, six times the drama, six times six times six = so much Shortland Street goodness.
Or so I thought.
To gauge the reaction to this incredible revelation, I turned to the shuddering heart of public opinion that is the Stuff comments section. This is the front line of human emotion, where feelings flow as rampantly as the poo-nami in Drew’s house after his septic pipes burst. I was not disappointed. The nation had spoken, and it turns out nothing makes people madder than a free-to-air television soap gaining 22 more minutes in the televisual schedule of our hearts.
For a Shortland Street fan like me, these responses were more confusing than the time Harry said he didn’t want mayonnaise with his fries. How could one extra night of Shortland Street provoke such fury? When has too much Shorty been a bad thing?
I was Leanne trying to change the photocopier toner, baffled and bewildered. I needed medical assistance, stat. Anchor me in the middle of your deep blue sea, Shortland Street on Sundays. Can I get an “AMEN”, New Zealand?
Look, it’s fine. Love is a battlefield and we’re all free to choose a TV hill to die on, right?
Sure, you could bet your cowshed on the fact Country Calendar will probably never feature Grace Kwan performing an emergency tracheotomy on Chris Warner using her favourite Star Trek pen. Maybe it should. A crossover episode would be amazing, but let’s move on to this classic take, pulled straight from the “please tell me that is not your penis” school of hard knocks:
I guess that commenter missed the episode when Damo began to lactate, because that was a cliff-hanger so impressive it deserved its own wing in Te Papa. Laughable? Embarrassing? For sooth, it shook me to my milky core.
Dribbly bed swapping? That’s exactly what I’m here for, Sunday through Friday.
But like the great Sir Paul McCartney wrote, when I find myself in times of trouble, Michael Murphy comes to me. I let the wise words of the 2004 NZ Idol runner-up wash over my battered soul, much like the time a drunken Ali power-chucked over Dawn after Leanne spiked the Christmas trifle.
Still no official word from Ben Lummis, so let’s leave the final verdict with Zinnyzan, rugby legend and lover of all things ‘pencilled in’:
Look, if it’s good enough for an All Black, it’s good enough for me. Rugby will be the winner of the day, Shortland Street will be the winner of the day, and if you don’t want to know the result, just look away now. Like a Chris Warner marriage, it won’t last forever.
