Over Easter, Prime aired a piece of slow television gold: Go South. Tara Ward watched the whole thing.

First published on 23 April 2019

It was five and a half hours into an epic 12 hour journey through New Zealand when I saw it: a giant cat, randomly standing on the platform of the Christchurch train station.

Was I delirious? Quite possibly. Was Go South New Zealand’s greatest gift to television? Most definitely.

Writers to the TV Guide – aka the Boomer Bible – went batshit crazy over Go South when it screened earlier this year. It was a show so visually impressive, it made viewers forget to bitch about whatever Coro scheduling stuff up had happened that week. Judy from Dunedin called Go South “amazing”, 90 year old Val said it was “blissful”, while Armchair Traveller from Christchurch reckoned it was “mesmirising”[sic]  and “captivating”.

Does Armchair Traveller also own an adult-sized cat costume? The mystery deepens.

I had to find out for myself. My CV lists my hobbies as ‘television’ and ‘travel’, so I hoped Go South would be a career highlight. I had the choice of watching a three hour or a 12 hour version, but no way was I taking a shortcut. Did Hillary take a gondola to the top of Everest? Did Kate Sheppard forge all those signatures with her left hand? I was committed. I was in this like an adult trapped inside a giant cat suit.

“I’m taking this bloody train to Milford Sound!” I screamed at nobody. I mean, what else was I supposed to do at Easter, enjoy the sunshine? Please. Fresh air is for wankers.  I was here for every tree, every bridge, every second of our breathtakingly beautiful country that Go South could throw at me through the magic of television.

Hamilton, I am in you.

We departed Auckland in the soft dawn light. It was a grim start, because shit, New Zealand, when did we get so blasé about our train track aesthetic? I saw more scrap yards and arse ends of Noel Leeming Megastores in those first 15 minutes than I’ve ever dreamed of. It was bleak as hell and I found myself thinking, are we there yet? We hadn’t even got to Papakura.

But by hour two, I felt my soul lift. We cleared the metropolis and chugged through the mighty Waikato, a magical land filled with blossom trees and rolling green hills, and as the third and fourth hours passed, the meditative power of Go South began to take hold. The only noise was the steady, low hum of the train on the tracks. I felt calm and rested. This must be what it’s like in the womb.

The low winter sun bounced off effluent ponds and overhead wires. My eyes grew heavy and my sight grew dim, but it was just the Raurimu tunnel. We crossed the Rangiteki Viaduct. Bridges are amazing.

I fell asleep somewhere along the Kapiti Coast and woke up on the Interislander, to fun on-screen facts about shipwrecks and whales having loud sex. As we hit the South Island, I discovered my enthusiasm had peaked at the fancy sprinklers at the Palmerston North train station. Hours four and five passed slowly. We were quietly travelling south, possibly through the paddocks where Tellytubbies live, but time and place had become irrelevant.

Go South had me hypnotised. The tracks stretched out to eternity as if the journey would ever end. I was The Gambler, on a train bound for nowhere. I was clueless, disoriented, hungry.

Just when I lost faith, there he was.

It was a sign from the TV gods, an Easter egg at literal Easter. Christchurch’s giant cat resurrected me, and as the Alpine Express climbed into the heavens, I found my second wind. While the train stopped at Arthur’s Pass, I was so happy I inhaled an entire chocolate bunny. The hills were alive! I was alive! This was Aotearoa in all its stunning glory, and I got to lie on the couch in a sugar coma and soak it all in.

The sun shone in Greymouth as we ditched the train for a Landrover. Why are we all not living in Greymouth? It looked spectacular. ‘Trees’ was all I wrote in my notes for hour 8, ‘cloud’ for hour 9. It was pretty, but I was losing the plot. I wondered what the cat was doing.

We climbed over Haast and down into Central Otago. I was coming home, even though I’d never left my house. We passed Hawea, Wanaka, Cardrona, the Crown Range. This summer I nearly shat myself driving up to the Crown Range lookout, and all along, I could have just stayed home and watched someone else do it for me. Better living, everyone.

By the 11th hour, I could taste victory, and by the 12th I wanted to open a bottle of Lindauer and rant to an empty room about “knocking the bastard off”. We arrived at Milford Sound to full sunshine, and my spirits lifted again, exhaustion replaced with ecstasy. I’d just travelled the length and breadth of the country, without putting my pants on. What a time to be alive.

We sailed out to sea to watch the sun set on our dreams, and I wished this journey would never end. I was a (chocolate bunny) shell of the person I was 12 hours earlier, but oh, the things Go South had shown me. The most beautiful effluent ponds, a boat under a waterfall, and best of all, an unexpected giant cat. Go South was the gift that kept of giving, and Armchair Traveller was right all along.  New Zealand, I think I love you.

Forget Daria, Pepper Ann was the 90s’ greatest cartoon depiction of teenage girlhood, argues Sam Rutledge.

Somehow the beloved Pepper Ann, which ran for five seasons is – wait for it – 22 years old. I know, I don’t believe it either, but it turns out we’re all much closer to death than we thought. It started in 1997 and was created by Sue Rose, a cartoonist who originally created the show for Nickelodeon. Nahnatchka Khan, now better known for her work on shows like Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23 and Fresh Off the Boat, served as an executive producer and writer. With that influence you can see why Pepper Ann struck audiences of the time (me, as a child) as not just any other show.

While it’s true that The Wild Thornberrys and As Told By Ginger also featured catchy theme songs and out-of-the-box heroines who didn’t conform, they didn’t until arrive on screen until later. Pepper Ann (and we can’t forget Daria, either, though I was less of a fan of her) paved the way for female characters who were the proprietors of their own stories – not the side piece to someone else’s.

Pepper Ann in particular had an overtly wholesome and unique approach to the “tween” years. Twelve-year-old Pepper Ann was that loud weird kid who sang to her own tune and wasn’t, by any definition, popular. In her dreams she had an alter-ego, a superhero version of herself that we only ever see in the opening credits. I’d wondered why, as a kid, we never saw Pepper Ann’s alter-ego come to life in the show, but understanding the world at least somewhat better now, I can see that she didn’t need to come to life.

Pepper Ann had plenty of struggles, plenty of moments of mortification and feeling like she didn’t belong. But she believed in herself just as she was, and carried herself without the need for anyone else to prop her up. The line “she’s her own biggest fan” in the theme song is pretty indicative of how confident Pepper Ann was in herself. She was her own superhero.

Pepper Ann learns from the best, though. Another superhero, her mum, is a single mother raising two daughters, and always tries to do her best by them even if sometimes it’s a little… heavy-handed. Also, just like all our real mothers, embarrassing. She’s just super embarrassing. We all remember the horror of our First Training Bra, right? Pepper Ann also will, forever, because of her mother.

Pepper Ann’s little sister, Moose, was considered a “tomboy” in 1997, but in 2019 would probably be better described as gender non-conforming. I believe this mostly because I’m firmly of the thought that the word tomboy should be retired as it doesn’t mean anything.

Moose rides a skateboard, doesn’t have a particularly feminine voice or wear particularly feminine clothes. She’s also very much her own person who doesn’t worship or copy her older sister because she has her own things to do. In one episode, Pepper Ann even tries to give Moose a makeover because she worries Moose isn’t feminine enough, but Moose is just fine expressing herself the way she is. She’s a champion.

As well as her family, Pepper Ann’s two friends, Milo and Nicky, are great balances to her. Nicky is a talented multilingual violinist (nerd) and Milo is a soft-spoken Native Hawaiian artist (different kind of nerd). Not only do they balance her out, but the two of them are saints. Pepper Ann is an absolute nutcase and they are perfect angels to put up with all the wild stuff she gets them into.

They also get their own struggles alongside Pepper Ann; Nicky is a perfectionist and follows the rules,so you can imagine that she gets tired of everyone calling her a “good girl”. Milo, meanwhile, worries about his place in the world as a boy given that he likes a lot of female-coded hobbies. Boys thinking about societal expectations on a kid’s show in 1997? It’s more likely than you think!

Relatedly, I don’t think one person on this show speaks in a voice I would expect to hear coming out of their mouth. I don’t have anything else to add to that, it’s just an observation that I felt I should share. All their voices are bonkers.

We’re lucky in 2019 that our kids (or yours, I sure don’t have any) have more options when it comes to shows featuring strong, unique female characters who head up their own stories. I wouldn’t want it any other way! But I’m also super grateful for what Pepper Ann gave me, specifically, which was a universe where someone a lot like me got to show her stripes in whatever way she wanted. She also got her own theme song, which young me was very into as a concept for myself.

Speaking of the theme song, I doubt that any other show’s theme song is as baller as Pepper Ann’s. Is there another TV theme song that gets stuck in my head as often as this one? No, except maybe for Pinky and the Brain.

If you thought, perhaps, that a cartoon from your childhood maybe wouldn’t connect somewhere deep inside you anymore because your problems are no longer the same and you’ve grown as a person, in the very first episode of Pepper Ann she gets a zit before picture day and without a hint of irony declares: “My life is trash”.

You’ll be fine.