Bringing together the TV moments on the week, including several local shows peering into regional NZ, cat whisperers coming to town and the return of a beloved quiz show.

1) Bogans Do Television Burnouts

TV2’s brand new docuseries Bogans premiered last night, promising boobs, beers and burnouts. Featuring Dr David Snell, who has a PhD in Boganology, and all his good rowdy Hamilton mates, the series aims to provide insight into one of New Zealand’s biggest subcultures. I got to meet David and his long time collaborator and big time bogan mate Fro this week, and they had a huge yarn about their leathered-up community.

Backstreet Boys was playing the whole time in the background, and it felt very fitting. “I’ve always been into heavy metal” says Dave, trying to ignore the soaring ballad ‘Incomplete’, “and then people started calling me a bogan and I thought that was cool.” The pair hope that people will respond positively to the show, and says that the making of the series itself sums up the carefree bogan attitude. “It’s something we’ve never done before” says Snell “but we thought we’d give a go. If we look stupid – who really cares?”

2) Masterchef Serves Up ‘Jorts’

Masterchef NZ began on Sunday night, so we enlisted Australian food television conoissuer Eleanor Robertson to recap the premiere and give us her hot take from across the ditch. As it turns out, nobody is safe from her watchful eye, be it Al Brown’s lobster hat or the obscene number of jean short wearers:

“At least two of the contestants are wearing jorts, jean shorts, on television, without shame. Nobody forced them to wear jorts; that’s simply the kind of people who go on Masterchef. Wearing jorts is a trait that correlates with emotional instability, which is just what you want on a show where the contestants are encouraged to invest their entire worth as people in a series of increasingly difficult but ultimately inconsequential challenges. The jorts-wearers are always the ones who break down in tears when their fish velouté is described as ‘an unexpected disappointment’”. Click here to read in full.

3) Kiwi Cats Rejoice at Jackson Galaxy’s Arrival

Jackson Galaxy was in town this week, promoting his show My Cat From Hell which returns to Sky this weekend on Animal Planet. Just acquiring a kitten myself this year, I sat down with him for a precious half hour to see just what this international cat shaman is preaching. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the Cesar Milan of the cat world. If you don’t know who Cesar Milan is, he’s the horse whisperer of the cat world. If you don’t know who the horse whisperer is, he’s the Jeremy Kyle of the cat world. Here were some of his top tips for cat owners (click here to read the full interview):

1. Your cat is not a dog.
2. No more inside-shaming of cats, it’s fine for them to stay indoors as long as you play with them regularly.
3. Absolutely no wild kiss attacks under any circumstances.
4. Cat leashes are cool and not embarrassing at all.
5. If your cat is doing something that you don’t like, just ignore it for two weeks solid.

4) Finding Peace With Neighbours at War

Everyone’s favourite next-door nightmare show Neighbours at War returned this week, stopping first in the sleepy town of Owhango. It’s a classic showdown over noise, with Colin and Cindy steaming mad at Karen, the free-spirited, loud-voiced woman just across the way. Police 10/7 alumni Constable Graham Bell joins the team as some sort of magical travelling mediator. Maybe Bell can sort all the neighbours across the country? His calming aura and remarkable authority is just that good. Our first dispute was resolved over some very terse words in a very large school hall, and I hope that Owhango has since found peace in a hopeless place.

5) Mastermind is Coming Back

Late last week news broke that Mastermind would be returning to New Zealand’s screens. It’s long overdue, and to be hoped that it heralds a revival of the game show format – we would all get behind that, and have a suggestion to a follow up, if any channel’s out scouting. But, as Steve Braunias wrote in a touching column this week “no-one who gets the gig will ever be as good as Peter Sinclair.”

“He hosted the original Mastermind and he wore the same silver suit year in, year out. It looked as sharp as the first night he wore it on TV. Nothing about Peter ever faded. He was my friend in the last years of his life and it was such a privilege to get to know him. He’d been the most famous man in New Zealand for about 30 years. In the 1960s and ’70s, he hosted frenetic TV pop shows C’Mon (“Get with the go-go for the next 30 minutes!”) and Happen Inn (“It’s a happening scene on your TV screen and here’s what we mean!”).

In the 1980s, he achieved gravitas as the host of University Challenge and Mastermind. He was such a pro, who only ever needed one take, who remained calm as the host of those 24-hour orgies of greed, tears, and B-grade celebrities, known as Telethon. All that fame and all that work but the money was lousy and when we met, in about 1996, he was renting a one-bedroom downstairs flat in Herne Bay. He owned a cat.” Click here to read the column in full.

Watch: America’s Next Cat Star, Saturday 6.30pm on Animal Planet – This is the bottom of the television barrel, and we want you to join us on this serious pursuit to find the next viral kit.
Binge: UnREAL (click here to watch exclusively on Lightbox) – Chrystal Chenery alluded on Facebook this week that UnREAL might be more real than we think. Set behind the scenes of a Bachelor-style show, the dark drama reveals the terrifying tweaking that goes on from the edit suite to the mansion floor. With the UnREAL showrunner working for three years as a Bachelor producer in the US, this revelatory series is a must-see.
Movie: Zombieland, Saturday 9pm on TV2 – Coolest bright young things on the planet traverse across a zombie-filled land of the free. Features the cameo of the decade.