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Pop CultureMay 16, 2017

The Bachelor NZ Power Rankings – Optic White can’t save you now…

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Alex Casey tackles the ninth week of The Bachelor NZ, including paddle boards, rejection and some gnarly dads.

Just like Zac, I too have a pain in my heart and a pain in my stomach – and not just because I’ve been eating at least a tube of Colgate Optic White a day to try and look like Matilda Rice.

We are nearly at the end of our Bachelor journey, about as close as wee Zac Franich got to making his competitive kayaking team before he had his dreams snatched away from him.

Despite a shocker of a spoiler from The Haus of Bachelor themselves, this was a pearler of a week for one reason and one reason only: the families. Ooh, and the sexy dates. The sexy, sexless dates.

1) Viarni

I think that Viarni has got this one well and truly in the bag. The small, pale pink, Angela Daniels bag. She didn’t stay for the overnight date, but she did get some very good one on one time with this strange misshapen lemon and/or gourd.

[Okay nerds stop screaming, I get it, it’s a quince.] 

Zac beached himself on the shores of Mt Maunganui like an unidentified Indonesian sea monster to meet Vee and her Vendetta, and when I say Vendetta I mean family and friends. If you have any doubt in Viarni, I present to you the anti-poker face: The Zac Franich Grin.

Before they manu’d straight into the deep end, the pair had a relaxing paddle board courtesy of Viarni’s brother’s company with an extremely confronting name:

Viarni also wore jean shorts in the ocean, which was Final Destination-bait considering that the first rule of the sea is to never rock denim in water. Thank god she had the head coach of the Orewa surf lifesaving club at her side.

The highlight of Viarni’s home visit was, head and shoulders above the rest, her rocker dad. Did I say rocker? I meant Riddling Bard of The Mount:

Five stars, would father-in-law again.


If you like The Bachelor NZ, you gotta kayak over to The Real Pod, our weekly reality TV/real life recap podcast. Subscribe here on iTunes.


2) Lily

There’s no denying that Lily’s “overnight” (home before sunset) date with Zac was friggin’ emotional. But look at this beautiful shot! It’s Mad Men! It’s Michelangelo’s Pietà! It’s HIGH ART (talking of art and esteemed knowledge, buy a ticket to this cool Bachelor finale event imo)

My doubts with Lily all come back to Zac’s main concern re: that he will be holding her back from rockin’ in the free world. He reiterated that point again during hometowns, where they visited her family’s enormous and suspiciously for sale Eastbourne home. Her family rocked heaps, and look at this power couple:

Lily is looking for a place to settle and call her own, but Zac doesn’t want to cage the butterfly. Might I suggest a compromise….

During their alone time the pair enjoyed two of Lily’s favourite things – motorbikes and wine – which means that probably everyone involved in production should go to jail via hospital. What was up with this peen POV shot btw? 

Although she’s a larrikin/butterfly/Chilis fan, Lily has her doubts too. This was probably best expressed here on the beach, when she said maybe the most emo thing I’ve ever heard in Bachelor history.

Welcome to the black parade.

3) Claudia (ELIMINATED)

BwwwaaaaAAAaaaaaHHhhhhhh this was very intense and made me feel very bad.

Claudia gave her final week with Zac her absolute all, taking him to Taka’s finest eatery ‘Regatta’ and showing him the beach because she thinks he loves the beach.

Remind you of anyone?

Claudia’s family was the sweetest thing ever, ft. klassic kaftan mum and Quiksilver-wearing bro. But the pièce de résistance was her gnarly dad, Steve, who was frigging OBSESSED with Rosmini school and the fact that Zac went there.

Even though Claudia got the special dinner with the special bald chef, it wasn’t enough to keep her in the running to be New Zealand’s Next Top Smart Tea Instagram Model. Lucky she got to meet this cool-seeming guy though…

Goodbye, sweet Claudia. May your waltz stay smooth, may your hair remain platinum, and may Rosmini’s enrolments continue to skyrocket.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

All I’m saying is… both Zac and Viarni turned their backs to the camera this week. That’s all I’m saying. That’s it.


These power rankings are brought to you by Lightbox, home of the amazing Bachelor-inspired drama UnREAL. Take a peek behind the curtains of reality TV by clicking below to watch:

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Pop CultureMay 16, 2017

Survivor Power Rankings – One eye roll to rule them all

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Superfan Joseph Harper tackles the second week of Survivor NZ, including charcoal teeth, eye rolls and Sala’s new Mallowpuff range. Click here for week one.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

Buzzy that after all these years, I think this is the first time I’ve seen Survivors wearing jandals!

Truly game changing stuff. Almost as good as the phrase “Old mate idol.”

Challenges where they have to smash ceramic tiles with rocks are ALWAYS cool. The sound when they smash one is maybe my all-time Survivor erogenous zone. More please.

Speaking of challenges, it’s crazy how much the contestants care about challenges on Survivor NZ! A refreshing change from the US version where they basically skip over most challenges because they don’t really matter as much as idol-finding and stuff.

LOWLIGHTS

I need to address the Survivor fanbase. We all know the way they’re folding votes is insane. But you need to stop posting things like ‘fix it next time harumph harumph!’ because they obviously filmed this stuff ages ago. We’re just going to have to put on our big girl panties and deal with it.

Nek season they’ll get it right, eh Matt Chisholm?

More importantly, the editing in episode two this week was silly and lead to the most predictable boot of our times. It was like: ‘hmm, nobody has even come close to mentioning Izzy as a potential vote-getter for 99 years. Oh wait, now there’s 15 mins left and everybody’s talking up an Izzy-storm. I wonder who is gonna go home…’ Not ideal.

Still the Tom vs Shay feud lives on, which can only be good. Onto the rankings.

#1 STILL SHAY

The book of (this) Mormon may be have been destroyed, but Shay’s game is still looking good. Tony may be endlessly blustering about her betrayal, and Tommy may be singing songs of her sinister ways to anyone who will listen, but Shay is calling the shots and ruling the roost.

Also she done this:

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Shay rocks.

#2 SHANNON

I’d give anything for a cool/funny screenshot of Shannon, but alas, she just spends her screen-time owning everyone else and being a cool as hell Survivor master.  

#3 AVI

Not much to say about the above, other than it’s probably evidence that Avi hasn’t made it on to Jak’s crap-o-meter yet either.

Avi’s game is ticking along nicely. He’s got ins on both sides of his tribal alliances, and he’s managed to keep his love affair with Mr. Tom alive against all odds. My main question about Avi is, why do all of his confessionals sound like they are being delivered by Siri the iPhone robot?

#4 SALA

How good is Sala!? Above he’s manufactured some kind of glorious McCahon landscape feat 2x nekkid MallowPuffs instead of weird old bible writing. He’s single-handedly doing more for the causal integration of te reo Māori than the current Ministry of Education.

That scene about his daughter was b-e-a-utiful. He has his whole tribe on TV singing happy birthday in Samoan! Has that ever happened on mainstream telly??

He’s a naturally gifted Survivor player in that everybody loves him. Now if only he could get past all the anti-game hoorah loyalty stuff.

#5 GEORGIA

Aside from being outed by Jak as the absolute poo-meister general of the season, Georgia is basically rocking out. She’s got the ear of the game’s tightest alliance and strutted her stuff in the challenge. I’m loving Georgia. Even though this:

Is 100% this:

#6 TOM

Thomas of Arabia took his sun smart obsession to dangerous new levels this week. Everyone seems to recognise him as a major threat, even though we haven’t seen much to indicate why, yet somehow Tom lives on. You give this fella an inch and he takes a mile. Good on ya.

Apart from the fact that he’s seemingly doing a class word study on the term “stand-offish”, I don’t have too much to say about Tommy. He’s getting a nice groundswell of attention that will probably pay dividends later on. Keep your eyes peeled.

#7 NATE

Is Nate good? Is he bad? It’s really hard to tell. He’s definitely up against it. But then again, so is a humble small-town cop looking to go viral in a world full of Fail Army contenders and skateboard trickers. And we all know how that story ends. Keep hope alive Nate.

#8 JAK

Another dude I cannot get a handle on. He say’s he’s pretending to be dumb. If that’s true, keeping a tally of how many poos your tribe mates have done and loudly announcing the totals is a pretty good “fake dumb” move.

The only thing we know for sure about Jak is that his Survivor style is extremely Gomer Pyle.

#9 LOU

Why are so many people crying on this season? Of all the ways in which New Zealand might have changed the Survivor game, who would have thought it would be via our powerful emotional depth? Anyway, Lou is doing fine.

#10 MIKE

Mike aka Cap’n Mike Sparrow aka Michael J. Gatsby obviously didn’t get last week’s memo that every day is Casual Friday on Survivor NZ. He’s a part of the tightest wee bunch in the game, but I wouldn’t be amazed to see this fella ditched swiftly after a Pagonging.

Still, Mike worked his ass off in the challenges and is maintaining his partnerships via bro-downs and tender flirtations. For sure, Mike beat on, back against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the backseat of a four person alliance.

#11 BARB

#12 LEE

Was Lee even out there this week?

#13 TONY

With Tony, you gotta take the good with the bad. On the one hand, his head is a perfect IRL translation of an Al Nisbett caricature of a rugby player.

On the other, he may become the first ever New Zealander to murder people on telly. All I’m saying is, his Facebook profile picture is the guy in Reservoir Dogs who cuts off a fellas ear!

We get it mate. His backstabbing speech was pure hell but who cares, because Tony was also the source of pure joy this week when he busted out a fricken Dragon Slayer move!

The only explanation for this is that Tony obviously watched Survivor Tocantins/Heroes vs Villains/ South Pacific and came away thinking Coach is the Survivor G.O.A.T! Heady stuff.

#14 IZZY

Izzy’s Nigella Lawson routine with the cake created an honest to god tearjerking moment. Lovely stuff. I’m hoping New Zealand’s least hygenic home baker manages to do the damage on Exile.

#15 HANNAH (ELIMINATED)

Gutted. In a way, Hannah is right in her gripes that she didn’t get a fair shake. But Survivor has never claimed to be fair. It’s a badass game where badasses partake in orderly democratic ownage of each other.

RIP Hannah.


Survivor NZ airs on TVNZ 2 Sundays at 7pm and Mondays at 7.30pm

This content, like all television coverage we do at The Spinoff, is brought to you thanks to the excellent folk at Lightbox. Do us and yourself a favour by clicking here to start a FREE 30 day trial of this truly wonderful service.

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