The Jaquie Brown Diaries (Image / Supplied : Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureOctober 19, 2021

Why The Jaquie Brown Diaries needs another season

The Bulletin editor

The Jaquie Brown Diaries (Image / Supplied : Tina Tiller)

It’s been 12 years since Jaquie Brown’s classic comedy show ended on a cliffhanger. Devoted fan Stewart Sowman-Lund argues it’s time for a resolution.

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Jaquie Brown has escaped celebrity rehab. After plotting against fellow TV broadcaster Serita Singh, and losing her career over it, Brown has the chance to confront her. She knows Serita has been pulling the strings in the background for months. She knows she stole her idea for a TV reality show – Celebrity Talent Quest – and got it commissioned.

All that’s left for Brown to do is confront her.

Finally, the pair of sworn enemies stand face-to-face. In a shocking twist, they agree to appear together on Celebrity Talent Quest in a showdown dubbed: “The broadcasting battle of the century”. Would Jaquie finally be able to prove she was the more talented TV personality? Or would newbie Serita – played by an unhinged Madeleine Sami – be crowned the champ?

Cut to black. “To be continued” flashes on the screen. The credits roll. The theme song plays, for the last time.

The Jaquie Brown Diaries was done.

That was 12 years ago. I’ve been waiting 12 years for a resolution.

The Jaquie Brown Diaries is my favourite – and I think the best – comedy show made in New Zealand. It ended way too soon. Produced not long after Brown left her real life role as a roving reporter on 7pm current affairs show Campbell Live, The Jaquie Brown Diaries is like a mash-up of Extras and 30 Rock – with a dose of Flight of the Conchords thrown in.

It stars Brown as a self-obsessed and fame-hungry version of herself on a TV show that looks suspiciously like Campbell Live, one with Jonathan Brugh adopting a scarily accurate Mike Hosking impression.

Jaquie Brown in the opening episode of The Jaquie Brown Diaries.

What starts out as a light media satire with some famous cameos thrown in becomes, very quickly, something entirely different. By the end of its 14-episode run, Brown has taken on terrorists, worked at the Carpet Warehouse and enjoyed a stint on a Survivor-esque reality show. It’s all very dumb and oh so funny. It’s part of a class of cringe comedy that New Zealand has always excelled at.

I’ve been a fan of The Jaquie Brown Diaries ever since it first aired. It was on way past my bedtime and I felt grown-up being allowed to watch a show that had swearing in it – and a very PG sex scene featuring Anika Moa. More importantly, it’s a show tangentially about journalism which was very important to 11-year-old me, an aspiring journalist. There were cameos from people I admired on the telly – from Mike McRoberts to Kate Hawkesby (look, I was 11). Helen Clark crops up at one point. And although incredibly fictionalised, I felt like I got insights into the job I wanted to do.

I can confirm working in journalism is nothing like this show.

Mainly though, I’m a fan because The Jaquie Brown Diaries is just really funny. I rewatched the whole thing earlier this year when it appeared suddenly on TVNZ OnDemand, somewhat nervous that it wouldn’t hold up any more and that showing it to my partner would only lead to her asking, “Why do you always go on about this show?”

Thankfully, I was wrong.

Since JBD – which is what the true fans call it – went off the air 12 years ago, I’ve been quietly campaigning for it to return to our screens. Mainly that’s involved sending a few tweets that would form an embarrassing paper trail should Brown ever decide to look me up. I’ve also told a lot of people to watch the show now it’s available OnDemand. In an alternate reality, I would have marched the streets like the “Bring Back Campbell Live” protestors. The Jaquie Brown Diaries is my Campbell Live.

I often wonder how the show would have ended if that cliffhanger was resolved. Finishing with a “to be continued” feels especially cruel knowing it’s highly unlikely it will be continued. I still hold out some hope. The show’s Wikipedia page retains a “future” entry which, as of 2021, has never been updated. “The show’s creators have stated that they never intended to make a third series, but would like to conclude the series in a final chapter, the format of which is yet to be confirmed,” it reads, as though mocking me.

What format, I ask, staring longingly at my DVD boxset of The Jaquie Brown Diaries season one that I bought on clearance at Real Groovy. A movie? A TV special? A book? A TikTok?! An episode of The Project with Jaquie as the fourth host?

The options are endless but my patience is not. To be continued? I can only hope.

The Jaquie Brown Diaries is available to stream on TVNZ OnDemand.

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The cast of Succession return triumphantly for season three. (Photo: HBO, Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureOctober 19, 2021

Group think: Succession’s back, baby!

Group Think

A bunch of people

The cast of Succession return triumphantly for season three. (Photo: HBO, Design: Tina Tiller)

The best drama about bad people returned triumphantly to our screens last night. Here’s what The Spinoff’s resident Succession fans thought about the new episodes.

A cavalcade of amazing moments

It was the moment when, after several awkward interactions full of divorcee tension, Kendall’s ex-wife Rava finally explodes, unleashing a torrent of abuse at the stammering Cousin Greg over the opening of a bottle of wine she’d been saving. No, wait, it was the moment in the car when Greg gaslit Kendall by telling him The Pope followed him on Twitter. “It’s ‘a’ pope, not ‘the’ Pope.” Hang on, perhaps it was Kendall hinting that he might have killed someone, running with the OJ Simpson metaphor and declaring: “The juice is loose baby!” Then there’s Kendall wanting the writers of Bojack Horseman to run his Twitter, Logan declaring a food ban because they’re running on “saliva and adrenaline,” and Roman serenading Shiv with the news Jerri had trumped her as Waystar Royco’s interim CEO.

Ugh. I can’t decide. You know what? I’m going to give the best moment of this titanic return of television’s best show to Shiv’s exceptional eyerolls. Her reaction to Roman’s sarcastic “I know you know” secret CEO switchover conversation on their private jet deserves an Emmy award all of its own. Succession, it’s so good to have you back, you sick little slime puppy.

– Chris Schulz, features editor

Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) in the season three premiere of Succession. (Photo: HBO)

Could Kendall be the worst person on the show?

I have two main observations about the return of Succession, the show that people with verified Twitter accounts love more than any other show.

The first is that while I am not sure if Kendall Roy is the worst Roy, I am sure that he is the one I hate the most. The first episode is full of this inflated man child pivoting like a couch up an apartment stairway, constantly reminding us that his actual skillset is limited to his last name. Not only has he literally killed someone (remember that!) but in this episode, he tarnishes the good name of BoJack Horseman by revealing that he’s a fan of it.

There are two kinds of people. The kind who realise Kendall Roy for the snivelling sack of privilege that he is, and the kind who would absolutely invest in a start-up he’s leading. You know who you are. Act accordingly.

My other observation is that Succession unfortunately does not have the budget to dress Shiv appropriately. Simply put, she is far too rich to be dressing like a PWC partner. It is perhaps the only criticism I have of TV’s glossiest comedy.

– Sam Brooks, staff feature writer

The best scripted show on TV, bar none

Logan promised to go “full fucking beast” and the first episode of season three delivered on that – and more. After a painful two year absence, it’s thrilling to have TV’s most horrible family back on my screen. And what a reunion: The first episode was tightly scripted, funnier than ever and pulled us straight back into the action faster than you could say “juice is loose”. Has any quote-unquote “drama” had this many quotable moments in a single episode? The answer is no.

– Stewart Sowman-Lund, live updates editor

The monsters at the heart of Succession. (Photo: HBO)

A monstrous display of self-delusion and hubris

Are we certain that Kendall is clean now? Because he’s certainly displaying all the manic energy of a man cresting the wave of a Elton-level coke binge. My god, those scenes in Rava’s house were excruciating, a series of watch-through-your-fingers conversations between a delusional rich kid and the far smarter women he’s trying to impress. The scene with the communications team might have been the most cringe – that suggestion to “hit up the Bojack guys” to help make his Twitter feed “off the hook” was a standout – but his exchanges with the estranged wife whose home he bulldozed his way into were the hardest to bear.

He’s desperate for Rava’s support, to be treated like the provider and protector of the family he hardly ever sees, and is so self-involved that he doesn’t realise she now feels little for him but contempt. Hopped up on media attention and the high-stakes adrenaline rush of it all, he asks her “Can I do it?” clearly expecting her to back him to the hilt. Her quietly honest response – “I don’t know, Ken” – was one of the least showy lines of the entire episode, but it might have been the most devastating.

– Catherine McGregor, deputy editor

You can watch Succession on Neon, new episodes dropping weekly on Monday.